MARKET CURRENTS
real-time news and commentary for investors
MARKET CURRENTS
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Today - Wednesday, June 19, 2013
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6:03 AM Liberty Global (LBTYA) is reportedly offering assets rather than cash in its €7.5B bid for Kabel Deutschland (KBDHY.OB) and would keep the latter's stock-market listing. The structure of the proposal is designed to assuage anti-trust concerns, as Liberty already owns Unitymedia, Germany’s second-largest cable operator. Liberty wouldn't have majority ownership of the combined entity at the holding company level, although it would have much influence. Comment!
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4:34 AM Verizon (VZ) is interested in acquiring Canadian peer Wind Mobile, the U.S company has said. Verizon has reportedly held talks for Wind, which is a relatively new entry into the Canadian market and is struggling. VimpelCom (VIP), Wind's largest owner, wants around $500M, although Verizon may then have to pump in another $1-2B for spectrum purchases, network upgrades and consolidation costs. RBC analyst Drew McReynolds is not sure the deal makes sense. 2 Comments
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3:28 AM As broadly expected, Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) intends to cut costs by €1B and sell another €1B of assets within two years as it looks to become cash-flow positive by 2015, at which point the telecom-equipment company will look to slash its debt by €2B by selling shares or through further asset sales. The changes are part of a recovery program called the "Shift Plan," which also includes Alcatel-Lucent focusing on IP networking and ultra-broadband access. Alcatel-Lucent is hiring a COO as well, while CFO Paul Tufano will leave. Shares are +6.7% in Paris. (PR) 3 Comments
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1:55 AM Facebook (FB) CEO Mark Zuckerberg has discussed potential partnerships with Samsung (SSNLF.PK) President Shin Jong Kyun as the U.S. company looks to boost advertising sales on mobile devices. The firms already seem to have a decent relationship, with Samsung being among the first device makers to feature Facebook's Home software on its handsets. Meanwhile, Facebook intends to invest more in Korea and serve as a platform for startups. 3 Comments
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Tuesday, June 18, 2013
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7:31 PM Dish (DISH) is all but officially abandoning its bid for Sprint (S). In a fresh update, the satellite TV provider says the revised SoftBank (SFTBF.PK) deal makes it "impracticable" for it to submit a new offer by Sprint's June 18 deadline, and that it will now focus its "efforts and resources" on the Clearwire (CLWR) tender offer. It increasingly looks as if SoftBank will end up with Sprint (vote on June 25), and Dish with a big minority stake in Clearwire that it could use to obtain a 4G network/spectrum deal with the 3 other parties in this saga. S -1.8% AH. CLWR +1.8%. (previous) 7 Comments
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7:09 PM IBM is launching a slew of cloud apps/services it says are aimed at C-Suite execs, but is light on specifics. Big Blue says its SmartCloud Solutions portfolio now offers 100+ business functions for decision-making execs such as CFOs, CMOs, procurement/supply chain officers, and HR chiefs to leverage. A new social media analytics solution for CMOs (will compete against CRM's Radian6 and ORCL''s Collective Intellect) is among them. The announcement comes on the heels of IBM's ~$2B acquisition of cloud infrastructure provider SoftLayer, which the company plans to integrate with its SmartCloud unit. Comment!
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6:50 PM Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) CEO Michel Combes will use tomorrow's strategy update to unveil plans to cut €1B ($1.34B) worth of costs, and to divest €1B worth of assets over the next 3 years (less than some investors have been hoping), Les Echos reports. Combes will also announce plans to focus on the router and mobile infrastructure markets - the former has been a bright spot for Alcatel thanks to strong edge router sales, and the latter has been faring better lately thanks to growing 4G orders. (earlier) 3 Comments
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6:39 PM Mellanox (MLNX) responds to a shareholder vote forcing CEO Eyal Waldman to give up the role of chairman by naming lead director Irwin Federman its new chairman. Federman is a partner at VC firm U.S. Venture Partners, and also serves on SanDisk and Check Point Software's boards. Also: Mellanox boasts the number of systems on the TOP500 supercomputer list using its FDR InfiniBand hardware has risen 3.3x over the last year, and that 205 of the systems uses InfiniBand. Comment!
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6:19 PM Agilent (A) announces and prices a $600M offering of senior notes due July 2023; they carry a yield of 3.875%, and have been rated BBB+ by Fitch. Agilent says it will use the proceeds to pay down debt due next month, as well as for restructuring expenses and buybacks. The test equipment giant had $2.36B in debt as of April 30, and $2.64B in cash/investments. Comment!
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6:07 PM Red Hat (RHT +2.1%) rallied ahead of tomorrow's FQ1 report after SA Pro contributor/former hedge fund analyst Josh Burwick offered a bull case, and Piper made cautiously optimistic remarks. Burwick argues fears about the impact of Amazon Web Services on Red Hat are overblown, that slowing billings growth is offset by major growth in unbilled revenue, and that newly-announced OpenStack cloud infrastructure and app platform offerings should fare well. Piper says checks indicate FQ1 billings could be light, but adds Red Hat will make up for it in FQ2, and sees shares bottoming in the $40s. Comment!
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5:46 PM Facebook's (FB) monthly active advertiser base is now above 1M, the social networking giant boasts. Though impressive, that figure still suggests only a small portion of the 16M local businesses that have set up Facebook pages are buying ads. Facebook is hoping to reel in more clients in part by streamlining its ad offerings, creating more mobile-friendly business pages, and giving advertisers more data on its users' non-Facebook activity. BIA Kelsey estimates over half of U.S. small businesses promote themselves via Facebook, and 16% buy ads. 1 Comment
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5:27 PM In a strategy shift, Nvidia (NVDA) is offering to license its Kepler GPU architecture, as well as "visual computing" IP, to other chipmakers looking to power mobile hardware. Kepler serves as the foundation for much of Nvidia's PC/workstation GPU lineup, as well the GPU within its next-gen Tegra 5 (Logan) processor. Nvidia's move puts it into competition with GPU core licensing leader Imagination (IGNMF.PK), and also ARM's (ARMH) fast-growing Mali GPU core business. Potential licensees include Qualcomm (uses home-grown GPUs), Intel (ditto), Apple (Imagination client), and Samsung (Imagination and Mali client). Tough competition for Tegra may have influenced Nvidia's decision. 4 Comments
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5:05 PM The next version of Surface RT (MSFT) will rely on both Qualcomm (QCOM) and Nvidia (NVDA) CPUs, Bloomberg reports. Though details are scant, one likely possibility is that Nvidia (the sole supplier for the first-gen RT) will power Wi-Fi-only models, and Qualcomm will power 3G/4G-capable models. The report comes as all signs indicate Qualcomm is set to displace Nvidia as the Nexus 7's CPU supplier. Meanwhile, Microsoft is selling the 32GB version of RT for just $199 (a 60% discount) to schools until Aug. 31, the latest in a string of aggressive promotions ahead of a refresh that could be announced at the upcoming BUILD conference. 3 Comments
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4:43 PM A little more on Adobe: Marketing Cloud bookings +25% Y/Y. 26% of Digital Marketing transactions now mobile (25% in FQ1). 42% of Document Services (Acrobat) revenue subscription-based; 1M+ paid subs. 3.9M shares repurchased. R&D spend +12% Y/Y to $203M, sales/marketing spend +4% to $402M. Company on track to reach goal of 1.25M Creative Cloud subs by end of FY13; 93% of CC subs on annual (rather than monthly) plans. Deferred revenue -1% Q/Q to $691.3M. 35% of company's revenue recurring at end of FQ2, up from 31% at end of FQ1. (PR) Comment!
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4:35 PM More on Adobe: FQ3 guidance is for revenue of $975M-$1.025B and EPS of $0.29-$0.35, vs. consensus of $1.01B and $0.35. FY13 guidance is for revenue of $4.1B and EPS of $1.45 vs. consensus of $4.11B and $1.44. Paid Creative Cloud subs +221K Q/Q to 700K in FQ2, better than FQ1's +153K. CC annual recurring revenue +$123M Q/Q to $356M (rose $80M in FQ1), 81% of subs use full suite. Digital Media revenue -18% Y/Y to $670M (shift to subscriptions), Digital Marketing (Omniture, AdLens) revenue +11% to $285M. ADBE +3.9% AH, CC at 5PM ET (webcast). (slides) (datasheet) (prepared remarks) (PR) Comment!
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4:02 PM Huawei says in an e-mailed statement it "has no plans" to acquire Nokia (NOK +4.6%). Shares have given back a big chunk of their earlier gains, but they still closed up sharply. Huawei consumer group chairman Richard Yu qualified his remarks about his company being willing to buy Nokia by suggesting Nokia's commitment to Windows Phone could be an issue. "Whether Windows Phone will be successful is difficult to say ... It has a very small market share." Huawei launched the W1, a low-end WP8 device, earlier this year. 17 Comments
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3:50 PM Is a bidding war breaking out for Kabel Deutschland? Bloomberg reports Vodafone (VOD +0.4%) has raised its preliminary bid for the German cable giant to €7.5B ($10B), or €85/share, matching an offer recently made by Liberty Global (LBTYA -0.1%). Vodafone is said to be studying Kabel's books "before it presents an official offer in the coming weeks." Kabel closed at €85.51 in Frankfurt, up 3.7%. (previous) Comment!
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