Archive for June, 2008
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Business First of Louisville: Local Business News
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Business extra description The Georgia Department of Labor reported Thursday that the unemployment rate in the metro Macon area rose to a preliminary 5.9 percent in Might, up 0.7
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Business Just as management lessons came from my father, wisdom and life lessons came from my mother at our kitchen table as she cooked, cleaned and listened.
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Sioux City Journal: Business
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Filed under: Deals, Rumors, Products and services, Apple Inc (AAPL), Amazon.com (AMZN), Marketing and advertising, Viacom (VIA), Activision Inc (ATVI)
 The Financial Times reported last week that representatives for The Beatles, Activision Inc. (NASDAQ: ATVI), and MTV Games, a division of Viacom Inc. (NYSE: VIA), are in talks about developing Beatles-themed video game versions of Guitar Hero and Rock Band “in a move that could pave the way for a broader licensing of the Fab Four’s catalog.” Although the final deal would eventually be worth several million dollars, it would have to win over both Apple Corps and the EMI Group, the two companies that oversee the band’s business interests and the master recordings.
The Beatles have been one of the major artists to resist any move into the digital world, but if such a deal were to occur it would likely happen simultaneously with any move by The Beatles into digital stores and the digital market. In the past year and a half, numerous rumors have appeared that cited 2008 as the year that would see the move, including comments made by Olivia Harrison, George Harrison’s widow. Unfortunately, no such appearance by the band into stores like Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) iTunes or Amazon.com Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AMZN) MP3 Store has happened even with a new management team led by former Sony BMG executive Jeff Jones.
Any deal would send a huge shockwave through the music industry and no doubt come with numerous marketing and advertising techniques that have become popular and successful in current years. Even though many Beatles purists and fans might be put off by an iTunes-themed commercial featuring The Beatles and the band’s music, the exposure provided by such a method would increase awareness of the band to younger and newer audiences.
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Filed under: Deals
 Deloitte LLP, which is over 100 years old, has built a wealth of knowledge. In fact, last year the firm posted $9.85 billion in revenues.
Well, Deloitte has put together an interesting series of small pieces - called Straight Talk guides. The goal is to help companies “rely less on guesses.”
The guide that caught my attention was “M&A Lies, and Why They’re Sometimes True.” It’s a swift read but has some valuable insights.
Keep in mind that - according to various studies - roughly half of M&A deals fail. That’s certainly daunting.
But, this doesn’t mean that companies should forgo deals. Rather, many companies have been particularly good at M&A, such as Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO).
Some of the pieces of Deloitte’s advice include:
- Don’t get caught up in deal fever. After all, investment bankers can push hard (and they are incentivized to do so). Thus, if you detect some serious problems, slow things down - and perhaps even walk from the deal.
- Buying a company is fairly straight forward; integration, on the other hand, can be extremely complex. In other words, as you’re putting together the deal, make sure you are also planning for the post-sale activities. Actually, one of the biggest issues is forgetting about customers (one study shows that customer neglect can result in a 50% drop-off in revenues after four years).
- You need to make sure you see good deals. To this end, it’s important to cultivate relationships with various players, such as deal attorneys, CPAs and investment bankers.
- Taxes matter. Can you find ways to lower the tax burden?
So, to get the ebook, you can go to the Deloitte site.
Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar On the web Guide to Decoding Financial Statements . He also operates MergerBook.com.
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Filed under: Deals, Industry
 A number of corporations bought auction rate securities with their excess cash. They believed that since the instruments offered better yield than many market funds, they would be good for balance sheet management. They also thought that since auction-rate paper had been liquid and widely traded since 1985 that moving in and out of the market would be simple.
It was simple until it wasn’t.
The investment banks and money center banks which made the market in these instruments pulled out at the beginning of the credit crisis. They did not want to keep risking their own capital to buy the paper and hold it to keep the market trading. Traditionally what wasn’t bought at one auction was picked up by banks and held until the next round of trading. In essence, huge financial firms kept the market trading by underwriting the system in exchange for big commissions.
A new study shows that financial executives at companies which bought the securities would make sure they kept their value even if the market broke down. According to the FT, “More than 85 per cent of companies that invested in the collapsed market for auction-rate securities thought Wall Street banks would provide support during crises.” The results are from a survey by the Association for Financial Professionals.
What companies which bought into the market didn’t do was read the fine print in their sales agreements. The guarantees which they thought the banks provided simply weren’t there.
It is hard to believe that sophisticated CFOs and treasurers at big companies could be taken in. But as they say, a sucker and his money are soon parted.
Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.
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Business Travel Vendors | Plan a Business Trip | Business.com
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Business - Salt Lake Tribune
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Business | www.macon.com
Business extra description The Georgia Department of Labor reported Thursday that the unemployment rate in the metro Macon area rose to a preliminary 5.9 percent in Might, up 0.7
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Filed under: Deals, Sprint Nextel Corp (S)
 I’ve seen it many times: a cool product that finds few customers. That seems to be the case with Helio’s mobile phones. Basically, customers didn’t want to pay premium prices for such things as access to MySpace and other new-fangled features.
It’s a tough lesson (and expensive). SK Telecom and EarthLink (NASDAQ: ELNK) formed Helio as a joint venture in 2005 with start-up capital of $440 million. SK Telecom invested an additional $270 million in the venture last year.
Yet, in the end, Helio turned out to be a huge dud. That’s, the company sold out for a measly $39 million to Virgin Mobile USA (NYSE: VM). In fact, the space is full of dead companies, such as Disney Mobile and Amp’d Mobile.
I had a chance to interview Frank Dickson, the co-founder and chief research officer of MultiMedia Intelligence. According to him:
Honestly, the merger is a desperate move. Overall, the MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) model makes sense in a limited number of situations. For example, if a cable MSO wants to leverage its customer base and offer triple or quadruple play offering, there’s a clear distinctive competency and the MVNO route makes sense.
For MVNOs such as Virgin Mobile and Helio, where is the competitive advantage? What can be offered that the “big boys” can’t? In the current environment of price competition, with Sprint (NYSE: S) firing the latest $99 dollar all-you-can-eat salvo, MVNOs are hard pressed to maintain an advantage. Their positions are tenuous at best.
In the end, one has to view this as two weaker competitors trying to combine to create a critical mass. When one has competitors like Verizon (NYSE: VZ) Wireless, AT&T (NYSE: T), Sprint and T-Mobile, the merger will just not create enough scale.
Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates MergerBook.com.
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Filed under: Forecasts, Deals, Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Entrepreneurs
 This post is part of my series featuring established companies and the smaller, more aggressive or innovative rivals that may eventually succeed them.
I remember way, way back to November 2006 when Wall Street was stunned that Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) was paying the ungodly sum of $1.65 billion for privately held YouTube. How were they to monetize this goofy, home video web site? Since November 2006, it appears that Google got a bargain when compared to other social networking web sites.
Facebook has over 80 million users including a new Facebook profile for Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. Facebook attained Wall Street relevancy last year when Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) concurred to pay the unheard of $246 million for a 1.6% ownership stake. That October 24, 2007, Microsoft investment valued Facebook at nearly $10 billion in the private equity world. As of yet, there’s no filed Facebook IPO, but investors bet the company will file an IPO before the end of 2009.
The new player capturing headlines in the social networking world is LinkedIn. The company is designed for the business and professional world. The more than 23 million registered users represent over 150 different industries. It’s a place to swap ideas, best practices and other opportunities.
LinkedIn was founded in 2002 specifically for the business community. LinkedIn just received a $53 million venture capital investment led by Sequoia Partners. The $53 million represents a 5% stake in the company, therefore valuing LinkedIn at $1.06 billion.
The easy business model of social networking web sites grants for an instant global presence, thus enhancing the underlying values of these companies. In the case of Google, the monetizing of YouTube will begin shortly as Google strategically places quick 15 second ads on the bottom of the requested video. Google will be watched closely by other industry insiders as no one wants to cheapen the freedom and ease of use of the social networks by cluttering them with countless ads.
With fresh growth capital, LinkedIn will expand its marketing efforts globally and grow its user list. The user list is the most valuable asset and Sequoia Partners valued each member at over $50.
The next couple of Google-type IPOs may come from this sector of the Internet … stay tuned.
Georges Yared is the editor of YaredsGameChangers.com and the author of the new report “How to Spot the Next Google.”
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Filed under: Deals, Management, Anheuser-Busch Cos (BUD)
Funny how companies get religion when there’s a takeover threat. It states a great deal about how poorly many large firms are run and how lax their boards are when it comes to supervision.
Anheuser-Busch (NYSE: BUD) now plans to cut 1,000 people and raise prices. It is trying to hold off a bid from InBev. Now that its independence is at stake, it is taking decisive actions. It may not work because the plan probably comes too late. According to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), “The St. Louis brewer’s strategy, laid out in a conference call with investors, included $500 million in new cost savings, and higher earnings targets.”
Yes, and what took them so long? Shares of BUD have hung around the $50 range for a number of quarters. Operating profit growth at the brewer has been modest. The InBev offer has driven the shares as high as $62.77. It isn’t a bad bet that they’ll go back to $55 if InBev is not successful.
BUD wants investors to think it can simply raise prices in a tough economy and bring in more revenue. That probably won’t work. It if would, the company should have done it a long time ago.
Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.
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