Seth Gilbert, 04-21-2008
It has been the case time and again in recent memory: Wall Street is less about “what you’ve done for me lately” than about “what you plan to do for me next.” That was a lesson served anew today to Netflix which reported decent earnings after the close of markets but disappointed with their forward projections.
After building positive momentum in recent quarters, the movie rental service reported Q1 earnings of $13.4 million or (21 cents a share) on revenue of $326.2million. Less stock compensation related charges, the winter quarter would have yielded 23 cents a share. Those results were a reasonable increase over earnings of $9.9 million (14c/share) on revenue of $305.3 million for the same period a year ago.
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Seth Gilbert,
After the compensation information revealed in Friday’s proxy filings, Monday morning coffee talk and water cooler conversations might well have been peppered with gossip about hefty executive pay packages at Viacom in 2007. Instead, an oddly timed Sunday announcement marrying Paramount, MGM and Lions Gate in joint venture to launch a cable TV channel of their own played the trump card. The bigger headline than pay: New Channel coming 2009, news at 11.
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Seth Gilbert, 04-14-2008
In the past few months, shareholders have gotten especially active in pushing their corporate boards to act as they wish. Carl Icahn squeezed Motorola to a new Chairman and an eventual breakup plan. Electronic Arts has Take Two by the collar. Microsoft is chasing Yahoo. It used to be proxy fights and hostile takeovers were rare but now the rules are changing. The rough games are becoming common and they seem to be looming like a scripted sequel to Oliver Stone’s Wall Street. Is something in the water on Wall Street?
Today, just when it seemed more surprises were unlikely, up popped Blockbuster with a billion dollar Gordon Gecko maneuver of their own. Click to Read More
Seth Gilbert,
Recently published data from the National Venture Capital Association showed fewer venture funds have been out raising capital (57 in Q1 2008 versus 83 in 2007 and 75 and 2006) but there’s no shortage of funding. So far this year, about the same amount of money has been raised for new funds (compared to the same period last year) despite the smaller group of fund partnerships with their hands out. The cumulative cash raised in 2007 was also high, insuring plenty of capital waiting to be deployed. But if that’s not evidence enough, then recent investment rounds should be; three companies, Move Networks, Visible World and Realtime Worlds have all raised more than $25m in new rounds just announced.
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Seth Gilbert,
The revolving doors of corporate suites are always turning. New hires coming in, new executives restocking teams with teams of their own choosing, people moving to new challenges or to pasture. It’s a constant. This past week, however, has seen enough executive staff shifting to keep any HR team busy. From Motorola to AMD, from the BBC to NBC and CBS, from the Washington Post to the Wall Street Journal, the corporate trees got a good shake. Here’s the recap of who’s in and who’s out: Click to Read More
Seth Gilbert, 04-11-2008
Do the Justices of the Supreme Court use TiVo or record programs on a DVR? And if they do, what do they watch? Gossip columnists stand by. There could be a story coming, probably not, almost definitely not, but it’s possible. Today, the DC based U.S. Court of Appeals denied Dish Network’s appeal for a new hearing in the Satellite provider’s long running battle with TiVo over digital video recorder (DVR) patents. The next stop for the case could be the Supreme Court.
The dispute underlying the appeal began in 2004 when TiVo charged DVR’s offered by Dish Network (EchoStar) violated their patents. Click to Read More
Seth Gilbert, 04-10-2008
As part of an effort to fix an ailing business, Blockbuster scaled back their big spending marketing campaign to compete with Netflix mail order DVD rental service. The first order of business for Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes was to fix the stores. Now rumors suggest Blockbuster is gearing up to fight Netflix again only this time the battlefront is different. In the new frontier, instead of targeting mail-order, Blockbuster is reportedly aiming for the digital landscape.
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