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Filed under: Deals, China, Israel

In what’s becoming more and more common, a small Israeli company Silicom Ltd. (NASDAQ: SILC) announced that it has received a $1.8 million order from one of China’s largest domestic server companies, representing its first significant penetration into the vast Chinese market. The order is for production quantities of Silicom’s advanced fiber multi-port Gigabit Ethernet adapters scheduled for delivery during the first quarter.

“We are excited to achieve this significant initial penetration of the strategic Chinese market,” commented Shaike Orbach, Silicom’s President and CEO. “China’s rapid growth represents a massive new opportunity for Silicom, especially the fact that its server usage is growing in step with the phenomenal development of its telecom, transportation, banking and other sectors. In fact, according to CCID Consulting, more than half a million x86 servers were sold in China in 2007, with additional strong growth projected for 2008.”

Silicom stock is up strongly on the news. Silicom is the latest Israeli company to break into the Chinese market, and I would expect the trend to continue. With Israeli Venture Capital firms doing joint ventures with Chinese investment firms, we should see more and more hi-tech deals being signed between the two countries.

Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and Senior Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com. DISCLOSURE: Writer’s fund has a position and owns stock in SILC and is long the stock.He has no positions in any other stock mentioned as of 2/4/08.

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Filed under: Deals, China, Israel

In what’s becoming more and more common, a small Israeli company Silicom Ltd. (NASDAQ: SILC) announced that it has received a $1.8 million order from one of China’s largest domestic server companies, representing its first significant penetration into the vast Chinese market. The order is for production quantities of Silicom’s advanced fiber multi-port Gigabit Ethernet adapters scheduled for delivery during the first quarter.

“We are excited to reach this significant initial penetration of the strategic Chinese market,” commented Shaike Orbach, Silicom’s President and CEO. “China’s rapid growth represents a huge new opportunity for Silicom, especially the fact that its server usage is growing in step with the phenomenal development of its telecom, transportation, banking and other sectors. In fact, according to CCID Consulting, more than half a million x86 servers were sold in China in 2007, with additional strong growth projected for 2008.”

Silicom stock is up strongly on the news. Silicom is the latest Israeli company to break into the Chinese market, and I would expect the trend to continue. With Israeli Venture Capital firms doing joint ventures with Chinese investment firms, we should see more and more hi-tech deals being signed between the two countries.

Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and Senior Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com. DISCLOSURE: Writer’s fund has a position and owns stock in SILC and is long the stock.He has no positions in any other stock mentioned as of 2/4/08.

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Filed under: Deals, Dell (DELL), Motorola (MOT)

Last week, news that Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT) might want to shed its well-known wireless handset division amid a breakup of the company, sent some odd waves through the marketplace. Motorola’s name brand recognition, after all, revolves around its cellphones, not its set-top boxes in the homes of digital cable customers.

The company’s cellphone division has a long and storied history, but it has consistently lost money and market share in the last 18 months. Who would want to purchase the division and turn it around? Anyone? Or, would it just be better for it to operate as an independent company? It’s hard to envision any corporation wanting to acquire the troubled Motorola handset division, although the brand name itself is worth billions.

Instead of laying down existing cellphone manufacturer candidates for a possible purchase of Motorola’s cellphone division, Deutsche Bank Securities analyst Brian Modoff chalked up a very strange buyer — Dell, Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL). In the midst of a company-wide reorganization and a new global retail business, could the world’s second largest PC maker have some strategy to compete in the brutal wireless handset market?

Former Motorola marketing pitchman Ron Garriques left the cellphone giant for Dell in 2007, and former Dell CFO Tom Meredith is now the CFO at Motorola. Connections or coincidences? Regardless, it would be a boneheaded move for Dell to try and acquire Motorola’s handset business unless it has wireless plans in the works that can compete right out of the gate with billion-dollar cellphone makers like Samsung and Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK).

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Filed under: Deals, Dell (DELL), Motorola (MOT)

Last week, news that Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT) might want to shed its well-known wireless handset division amid a breakup of the company, sent some odd waves through the marketplace. Motorola’s name brand recognition, after all, revolves around its cellphones, not its set-top boxes in the homes of digital cable customers.

The company’s cellphone division has a long and storied history, but it has consistently lost money and market share in the last 18 months. Who would want to buy the division and turn it around? Anyone? Or, would it just be better for it to operate as an independent company? It’s hard to imagine any corporation wanting to acquire the troubled Motorola handset division, although the brand name itself is worth billions.

Instead of laying down existing cellphone manufacturer candidates for a possible purchase of Motorola’s cellphone division, Deutsche Bank Securities analyst Brian Modoff chalked up a very strange buyer — Dell, Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL). In the midst of a company-wide reorganization and a new global retail business, could the world’s second largest PC maker have some strategy to compete in the brutal wireless handset market?

Former Motorola marketing pitchman Ron Garriques left the cellphone giant for Dell in 2007, and former Dell CFO Tom Meredith is now the CFO at Motorola. Connections or coincidences? Regardless, it would be a boneheaded move for Dell to try and acquire Motorola’s handset business unless it has wireless plans in the works that can compete right out of the gate with billion-dollar cellphone makers like Samsung and Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK).

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Filed under: Deals, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo! (YHOO), General Electric (GE), Viacom (VIA), Comcast Cl’A’ (CMCSA)

Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) apparently wants to take its time to “mull over other alternatives” to the generous offer from Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT). Ya gotta be kidding Yahoo!. Sure, the duty of the board of directors is to weigh in and evaluate all possible offers and business combinations including remaining independent. But in this case Yahoo! had already guided investors and analysts to a challenging year ahead. So, who else would want to purchase Yahoo! and why is Yahoo! a difficult buy?

First, the Microsoft offer: Microsoft is offering $44.6 billion in cash and stock for Yahoo!. The dollar amount is eight times Yahoo!’s sales and a stunning 67 times 2008 consensus earnings of 46 cents per share. Now, you can see why Microsoft’s stock was down 6.6% on Friday after the news was announced. This would be a dilutive transaction for Microsoft and Wall Street has a way of penalizing companies for dilutive deals. But for Microsoft, long term, the transaction could be quite valuable and productive and set it up as a clear number two to giant Google (NASDAQ: GOOG).

Yahoo! is kidding itself if the board of directors thinks it could choose to remain independent. The shareholders have spoken, and loudly, with Yahoo! stock up over $9 on Friday. Taking away a swift $9 followed by a flat year in revenues and earnings as Yahoo! had itself forecast, isn’t going to be acceptable. So, let’s forget that possible option.

Other potential buyers could be General Electric (NYSE: GE) , Viacom (NYSE: VIA), or Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA), but I don’t think they hold any real promise. Viacom’s market capitalization is $26 billion, Comcast’s is $57 billion, and of course, GE is a behemoth at $363 billion. Any counter offer for Yahoo! by any of these three would be highly dilutive, even more so than Microsoft. I doubt Comcast or Viacom would spend more than their own market cap to buy a struggling Yahoo!. General Electric would treat Yahoo! as a straight subsidiary with very few synergies.

Yahoo! is lucky to have this generous offer in hand. As I wrote on Friday, the cultural differences will be the most challenging with a Microsoft marriage. Other potential suitors might be lying in the weeds, but at $44.6 billion for a struggling player, that seems somewhat impractical.

Yahoo!, you’re mulling over? Ya gotta be kidding.

Georges Yared writes about great growth stocks today in GameOn Investing.

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Filed under: Deals, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo! (YHOO), General Electric (GE), Viacom (VIA), Comcast Cl’A’ (CMCSA)

Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) apparently wants to take its time to “mull over other alternatives” to the generous offer from Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT). Ya gotta be kidding Yahoo!. Sure, the duty of the board of directors is to weigh in and evaluate all possible offers and business combinations including remaining independent. But in this case Yahoo! had already guided investors and analysts to a challenging year ahead. So, who else would want to buy Yahoo! and why is Yahoo! a difficult buy?

First, the Microsoft offer: Microsoft is offering $44.6 billion in cash and stock for Yahoo!. The dollar amount is eight times Yahoo!’s sales and a stunning 67 times 2008 consensus earnings of 46 cents per share. Now, you can see why Microsoft’s stock was down 6.6% on Friday after the news was announced. This would be a dilutive transaction for Microsoft and Wall Street has a way of penalizing companies for dilutive deals. But for Microsoft, long term, the transaction could be quite valuable and productive and set it up as a clear number two to giant Google (NASDAQ: GOOG).

Yahoo! is kidding itself if the board of directors thinks it could select to remain independent. The shareholders have spoken, and loudly, with Yahoo! stock up over $9 on Friday. Taking away a swift $9 followed by a flat year in revenues and earnings as Yahoo! had itself forecast, isn’t going to be acceptable. So, let’s forget that possible option.

Other potential buyers could be General Electric (NYSE: GE) , Viacom (NYSE: VIA), or Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA), but I don’t think they hold any real promise. Viacom’s market capitalization is $26 billion, Comcast’s is $57 billion, and of course, GE is a behemoth at $363 billion. Any counter offer for Yahoo! by any of these three would be highly dilutive, even more so than Microsoft. I doubt Comcast or Viacom would spend more than their own market cap to purchase a struggling Yahoo!. General Electric would treat Yahoo! as a straight subsidiary with very few synergies.

Yahoo! is lucky to have this generous offer in hand. As I wrote on Friday, the cultural differences will be the most challenging with a Microsoft marriage. Other potential suitors may be lying in the weeds, but at $44.6 billion for a struggling player, that seems somewhat impractical.

Yahoo!, you’re mulling over? Ya gotta be kidding.

Georges Yared writes about great growth stocks today in GameOn Investing.

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Filed under: Deals, Competitive strategy, Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo! (YHOO), Viacom (VIA)

Yahoo, Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO), which is going to have an interesting week after last week’s unsolicited bid by Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), is outsourcing its on the internet music business. Instead of operating its own music download service (which apparently has not been very profitable), the company will give that chore to Rhapsody America, operated by RealNetworks, Inc. (NASDAQ: RNWK) and Viacom, Inc. (NYSE: VIA).

Yahoo! will migrate customers of its in-house music subscription service to Rhapsody in the coming months. With RealNetworks and potential Yahoo! owner Microsoft being bitter enemies, it will be interesting to see if this partnership lasts should Microsoft succeed in taking ownership of Yahoo for $44.6 billion.

Does Yahoo! have the chops to do much outside the email, search and display advertising arenas? It has not seen growing profit despite being the world’s largest internet property (until recently), but shedding itself of assets like its on the web music business is in line with the company’s recent turns as it concentrates on core businesses and trying to be everything to everyone — and making money from just a few pieces of its business.

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Filed under: Deals, Competitive strategy, Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo! (YHOO), Viacom (VIA)

Yahoo, Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO), which is going to have an interesting week after last week’s unsolicited bid by Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), is outsourcing its online music business. Instead of operating its own music download service (which apparently has not been very profitable), the company will give that chore to Rhapsody America, operated by RealNetworks, Inc. (NASDAQ: RNWK) and Viacom, Inc. (NYSE: VIA).

Yahoo! will migrate customers of its in-house music subscription service to Rhapsody in the coming months. With RealNetworks and potential Yahoo! owner Microsoft being bitter enemies, it will be interesting to see if this partnership lasts should Microsoft succeed in taking ownership of Yahoo for $44.6 billion.

Does Yahoo! have the chops to do much outside the email, search and display advertising arenas? It has not seen growing profit despite being the world’s largest internet property (until recently), but shedding itself of assets like its on the web music business is in line with the company’s recent turns as it concentrates on core businesses and trying to be everything to everyone — and making money from just a few pieces of its business.

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Filed under: Deals, Internet, Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo! (YHOO)

With the proposed Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) merger grabbing headlines, for investors looking at the next internet company that may be put in play, have a look at CNET Networks (NASDAQ: CNET). CNET shares a lot of similarities with Yahoo!, the most glaring being the continued underperformance of both the stock price and the company in general.

About two weeks ago, federal antitrust regulators cleared hedge fund Jana Partners LLC’s increased stake in on the internet media company. Jana Partners leads an investment group that stated last week it now owns 10.6% of CNET’s voting stock, up from 8.1%. Antitrust law requires companies and other investors to seek antitrust approval when they cross certain ownership thresholds.

The timing is interesting. If you’re trying to profit from M&A in the web space, take a look at CNET. It may be the next company to be acquired.

Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and Senior Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com. DISCLOSURE: Writer has no positions in any stock mentioned as of 2/3/08.

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