American Airlines (AMR) Vice President and Treasurer Describes Citigroup (C) and GE (GE) Financings
2009-11-23 19:01:52
TWST: More recently, I believe the company has focused on strengthening its liquidity and its financial standing in what is clearly a challenging environment for all airlines. Talk a bit about those initiatives.Ms. Goulet: As you said, it has been a very challenging environment in which to raise liquidity, but year-to-date, we have been very successful. We have raised substantially more than $5 billion year-to-date. Even during the first half of the year, when conditions were about as bad as they could get, we were able to arrange financing both for new delivery aircraft as well as for aircraft already in our fleet. And I think all of this is frankly testament to the fact that we have met our obligations as they have come due, as opposed to resorting to the bankruptcy courts as a number of our competitors have.
Things really got cranking early in the third quarter as the capital markets did begin to reopen. We raised about $800 million of financing in both public and private transactions secured by aircraft, again, already in our fleet or new aircraft that we will be taking delivery of. But the cornerstone of our efforts was laid in September, when we arranged $2.9 billion of financing with two of our long-time key business partners. The first of those is Citigroup (C). We did a $1 billion advance sale of AAdvantage miles with Citi. And then we did two transactions with General Electric (GE) - a $282 million loan facility secured by owned aircraft, and then we put in place with GE a $1.6 billion sale-leaseback commitment that will finance aircraft that we will take delivery of in 2010 and 2011. So those three transactions, the Citi transaction and the two GE transactions, totaled just about $2.9 billion.
GSI Commerce (GSIC) unique e-commerce operator offers great upside
2009-10-26 12:57:07
In our Recent Online And Direct To Consumer Retailing, Frederick Moran Managing Director of The Benchmark Company, LLC compares online retailers' performance to that of traditional brick-and-mortar retailers, noting that the former group better withstood the economic recession as a result of being younger, less burdened by inventory and generally more efficient. However, he goes on to clarify that the secular market shift toward online retailers continued but did not accelerate during the downturn. Mr. Moran had four buy recommendations below is one to get the other three read the full Online And Direct To Consumer Retailing Report ;Mr. Moran: Maybe I will just mention my specific thesis on each of my buy recommendations. I have four "buy"-rated stocks right now. The first one is GSI Commerce, ticker GSIC, a $19 stock with a $25 price target. GSIC is a $1 billion company, both in terms of revenue and market cap, and it is an extremely unique e-commerce operator. They don't actually brand anything or sell any of their own products, all they do is facilitate the Internet service for other retailers. They basically produce the Web site, control the warehouse, take the orders and do the deliveries for 100 different partners from Dick's Sporting Goods to Sports Authority to the professional sports leagues and others. This year GSI is growing new partners at a record pace and seeing positive growth out of their existing partners. The company has never lost a partner to taking the service in-house or to a competitor. The only time they've lost a partner is because that partner went bankrupt for company-specific reasons. So I think GSI has the ability to grow cash flow 15% to 20% a year, including this year during the downturn. And we could possibly see an acceleration from that level if the economy allows for it.
Amazon a Sell ?
2009-10-20 10:29:44
As part of our Online And Direct To Consumer Retailing Report we spoke with Hamed Khorsand Analyst BWS Financial Inc. where he talked about E-commerce Investment Themes and his decision to downgrade Amazon to a sell;Mr. Khorsand: From a business perspective, they (Amazon:AMZN) are doing everything right, and they've always done everything right. They have the best brand, they've always maintained the best pricing and the customer is always happy. Our "sell" rating has nothing to do with what management is doing, our "sell" rating has to do with what the market is doing, and the market is putting the astronomical valuation on the stock. And the fundamentals are starting to deteriorate compared to what expectations areFollow us on TWITTER for exclusive content and content updates
What's next for Education and E-Learning ?
2009-09-11 10:07:58
In our recent 57-page Education Report we spoke to Robert L. Craig and Jerry R. Herman of Stifel Nicolaus focusing on the OUTLOOK FOR EDUCATION & E-LEARNING and what Investors should be looking at;Mr. Craig: We continue to be positive on the group. We don't follow every company in the sector, we follow most of them and most of those quite frankly are rated buy and have been rated buy for some time. We think these valuations are attractive and there are various ways you can play this group. If you take a longer-term perspective, then in our opinion, the best attributes to look for are relative nascency or small size, quality as measured by student outcomes and satisfaction and value proposition for the student. Valuation is of secondary importance. On a nearterm basis, if valuation is what drives your investment decision, then there is an awful lot to work with here because, in our opinion, PE's are very attractive relative to sustainable rates of growth.Also the impact of the current Administration on the Industry is discussed;
Mr. Herman: Given the backdrop and the vision of this Administration, there are certain companies clearly positioned to be part of the solution to the problem of the shortage of post-secondary education capacity. Companies that we believe are positioned to help solve that problem and also have good student outcomes and academic performance include the likes of DeVry and Strayer and Capella, and even Apollo. Those companies have generally very solid metrics.
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Has Speciality Retail found True Religion ?
2009-09-09 08:41:03
As part of our recent Specialty Retail report we spoke with Christine Chen Principal & Senior Research Analyst Needham & Company, LLC had this to say about True Religion (TRLG);Ms. Chen: Their jeans are the brand that's extremely, extremely hot with teenagers, older customers, international customers. But I think the most important thing is they continue to innovate their product, meaning they look different from any other premium denim brand out there. I have mentioned consolidation. Premium denim is one of the areas where there probably will be a lot of consolidation and True Religion continues to take market share in this environment because the product looks better than the competition. The product also looks different from what they tried to sell you last year. That's a very important point because in this environment, if you try to sell the customer something at $260 or at $10 that she already has in her closet, she is just not going to buy it. It has to be something new. A lot of the other premium denim brands out there that are selling more basic merchandise that looks too similar to what they tried to sell you last year - even if it's only $160 - she is just not buying it. She already has it.Ms. Chen expects to see increased stability in the specialty retail sector as companies enter into the second half of 2009. Inventories should fall in line with demand and previous cost-cutting measures should have left retailers with lower fixed leverage points, which could lead to margin improvement in 2010.
Companies mentioned: Urban Outfitters Inc. (URBN); True Religion Apparel Inc. (TRLG); GUESS? Inc. (GES); American Eagle Outfitters (AEO); VF Corp. (VFC); Aeropostale Inc. (ARO) and Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (ANF).