Seeking Alpha
Seeking Alpha Portfolio App for iPad
Finance
(1)

Conrad Schickedanz

View as an RSS Feed
View Conrad Schickedanz's Comments BY TICKER:
Latest  |  Highest rated
  • Notable Small Caps Purchased By Insiders Today, 2 With Short Squeeze Potential [View article]
    Thank you for clarifying your position. I have just a few quick points in response:

    Last quarter, PacSun's same store sales increased 1%.

    http://bit.ly/LtRE9u;highlight=

    From the same section describing the term loan that I quoted in my comment above, the company stated the following about the term loan: "Annual cash interest for fiscal 2012 is expected to be approximately $3 million."

    One definition of "brink" I have found online is "the point at which something is likely to begin." I do not see how your article points out that any sort of bankruptcy is imminent for PacSun, but you have elaborated on your interpretation of the words "brink of bankruptcy" so I will just say it will be interesting to see what happens when they report earnings and provide any new guidance.

    http://bit.ly/LtRE9y
    Jun 27 05:30 PM | 1 Like Like |Link to Comment
  • Notable Small Caps Purchased By Insiders Today, 2 With Short Squeeze Potential [View article]
    "Its [PacSun's] debt burden is $74.18 million...This company is on the brink of bankruptcy."

    Did you conduct any research on recent sales trends before making this statement? Perhaps you may want to look at the last conference call transcript for that kind of information.

    Also, did you check when any of the debt you mention is due? Perhaps you should look at the 10-K which states on page F-14:

    "On December 7, 2011, the Company obtained a five-year, $60 million senior secured term loan (the “Term Loan”), funded by an affiliate of Golden Gate Capital....The principal balance and any unpaid interest related to the Term Loan is due on December 7, 2016. The Company is not subject to any financial covenant restrictions under the Term Loan."

    http://bit.ly/N2Q5iY

    Perhaps before writing that a company is on "the brink of bankruptcy", you may want to explain why you believe that to be so given recent sales trends, when the debt is due, and other facts that may support your thesis.
    Jun 27 12:47 PM | 1 Like Like |Link to Comment
  • A Fall iPhone Release May Not Be A Bad Thing For Carriers Or Apple [View article]
    Thanks, you can see the articles related to the Chinese carriers' subsidies by clicking on the hyperlinks from the passage you quoted in the article. (Click on the blue words "China's second" and "third largest carriers" in the original article.)
    Jun 15 06:25 PM | 1 Like Like |Link to Comment
  • Can PacSun Surf Back To Profitability In Its Competition With Zumiez? [View article]
    "Girls at Pac Sun have left the store that was one of the reasons for the big lack of sales in the last 4 years it Continues!"

    The investment community will find out whether the trend is continuing when PacSun reports earnings next week, if the company provides a breakdown by gender. Until then, I'll just mention that the most recent women's apparel photo on PacSun's Facebook page, a pair of PacSun's Bullhead jean shorts received over 8,000 "likes" since it was posted about 13 hours ago, according to Facebook (see link below). I'll reiterate, whether "liking" an item translates into actual sales remains to be seen.

    http://on.fb.me/IQQBVu
    May 11 11:12 AM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Can PacSun Surf Back To Profitability In Its Competition With Zumiez? [View article]
    I don't disagree with your comments over trends over the past four years. However, the point of part of this article was to look at potential clues of what current and future trends may be.

    On the March 13, 2012 conference call, the company did acknowledge that its "[w]omen's business has started slower than we would like as we begin the year." The call also acknowledged for the fourth quarter reported men's same store sales were up 1% and women's were down 1%.

    http://bit.ly/K1QXaz

    That said, if you look at the Alexa numbers, and click on "audience", and the question mark next to audience, it currently indicates that according to the estimation process used by Alexa, relative to the general internet population, females are "greatly" over-represented at pacsun.com.

    http://bit.ly/Jetr9l

    If you look at the company's Facebook page, the last female outfit posted has almost 1,000 "likes" at this time:

    http://on.fb.me/Jetsdv

    Whether these women are just browsing or buying, of course, remains to be seen.
    May 10 10:20 AM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Can PacSun Surf Back To Profitability In Its Competition With Zumiez? [View article]
    Thanks for the reply. While certainly in this type of business, there is a subjective element in determining potential success, numbers do matter, including input costs. Zumiez may sell skateboards, but Facebook is apparently telling us the most popular age group who "likes" Zumiez on Facebook is 13-17 years old, whereas the age group is 18-24 for PacSun. I would argue that skateboard sales would be more likely to appeal to the younger demographic than the college-aged demographic that seems to be interacting with PacSun on Facebook.
    May 9 10:19 AM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Dreamworks Animation's Fourth Quarter Miss Doesn't Necessarily Signal A Horrible 2012 [View article]
    Good summary of the report and call. It's worth noting that in the call, in response to an analyst's question about Redbox, Ann Daly of DWA stated that they have found that rental of family titles can often be an incentive to purchase the title.

    http://seekingalpha.co...
    Mar 4 10:15 AM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Is Bombardier Flying Under The Radar Of Aerospace Investors? [View article]
    Thanks for your comment. On February 16, 2012, in between the time that this article was initially submitted and when it was published, the CEO of Bombardier discussed the possibility of listing on the NYSE with Jim Cramer on Mad Money. The CEO stated that he thinks listing on the NYSE is not a priority for now, but that he also thinks it is something in the future of Bombardier. Here is a link to the interview: http://bit.ly/yoOuWG
    Feb 22 10:01 PM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Frenemies: Are Best Buy's Best Selling Brands Also Its Enemies? [View article]
    Thanks for the comment. The $98 billion "cash" number has been widely reported in the media, including the article linked to Apple's cash per share in this article. Here is a link to Apple's last quarterly report. Note the numbers reported are in millions:

    http://bit.ly/wpxF9m

    Cash & cash equivalents: $10,310 multiplied by a million (=$10.3 Billion)
    Short term marketable securities: $19,846 multiplied by a million (=$19.8 Billion)
    Long term marketable securities: $67,445 multiplied by a million = ($67.4 Billion)
    Sum: Approximately $98 Billion

    Investopedia defines "marketable securities" as "Very liquid securities that can be converted into cash quickly at a reasonable price." The link to that is below.

    http://bit.ly/A7wwy3
    Feb 3 09:14 AM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Why Dreamworks Animation May Be Causing Nightmares [View article]
    I look at DWA's pipeline in this new Seeking Alpha article:

    http://seekingalpha.co...
    Jan 25 05:00 PM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • What's In The Works At Dreamworks Animation? [View article]
    Thanks, according to Box Office Mojo, the budgets for their last six releases were:

    Puss In Boots: $130 million
    Kung Fu Panda 2: $150 million
    Megamind: $130 million
    Shrek Forever After: $165 million
    How to Train Your Dragon: $165 million
    Monsters vs. Aliens $175 million

    Wikipedia's Dreamworks Animation entry has a chart summarizing the budget of all of DWA's released movies, although it does not appear to cite a source for the information within the chart. Anyone researching this topic ought to confirm the actual costs from any financial information released by the company.
    Jan 25 02:50 PM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Why Dreamworks Animation May Be Causing Nightmares [View article]
    Links to sources of all numbers appearing in this article were included in the article. In this case, the source was Yahoo Finance. While their calculation may have been incorrect based on their own key statistics of shares short and float, the main point of this article is that there is a high short interest in this stock, even at approximately 25% of the float, and to examine some potential explanations as to why the short interest may be high.
    Jan 19 10:13 AM | 1 Like Like |Link to Comment
  • Why Dreamworks Animation May Be Causing Nightmares [View article]
    Thank you for pointing that out. It is true that Yahoo ought to have calculated 24.8% if they used their key statistics of the float and shares short. A request has been made to Seeking Alpha to correct the hyperlink to link to WSJ.com which indicates a number of approximately 25%.
    Jan 19 10:09 AM | 1 Like Like |Link to Comment
COMMENTS STATS
13 Comments
6 Likes