First Eagle's Eveillard Bullish on Comcast

Jean-Marie Eveillard, manager of the $22 billion First Eagle Global Fund, is bullish about Comcast (CMCSA) (CMCSK), the largest U.S. cable network, according to Ari Levy and Gillian Wee, reporting in Bloomberg Friday.

Eveillard and his First Eagle fund ("third out of 620 global funds that invest in both stocks and bonds, according to Morningstar Inc." note Levy and Wee) rate Comcast shares as worth $30, some 78% higher than its current price. Bloomberg reports that First Eagle, together with funds such as Wellington Management Co. and Dodge & Cox, prefer stocks they regard as cheap in terms of potential earnings and sales growth, unlike Marsico Capital Management and Janus Capital Management, which prefer companies that appear likely to outpace their peers.

Comcast ``is not going to disappear,'' said Eveillard... ``There's a major change in ownership to value investors... If you're patient and willing to wait several years, it's a good time.'' His New York-based firm owns $240 million in Comcast shares.

As Levy and Wee note, Comcast has fallen more than 25 percent since mid-October, which is attributed to subscriber growth missing estimates, falling home sales, and new Federal Communications Commission regulations that could impact the company. But Eveillard is unperturbed.

``We pay no attention to what happens in the short term,'' Eveillard said in an interview at his New York office last month. ``You have to accept that every now and then you have to suffer.''

AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ) may be attempting to lure cable-TV customers from Comcast, but Pat Becker Jr., of Becker Capital Management, thinks they will not succeed.

``It's just really hard to displace them when you think about somebody coming and ripping everything out and putting in a new service,'' Becker said. ``Things going right for these guys isn't as much priced in'' to Comcast's stock.

New products, including a new generation of set-top boxes, and content to customers may help Comcast under the new FCC restrictions. According to Levy and Wee, analysts hope that CEO Brian Roberts will take the opportunity of his keynote address to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas tomorrow, to wow the crowds.

FCC chairman Kevin Martin will also be addressing the CES crowd, though at a different venue, a diplomatic move, maybe, given his recent rulings.

``If you tried to get them in the same room, their heads might explode,'' Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett in New York, who rates Comcast ``outperform.''