Posts Tagged 'company news'

breakup at Wynn Resorts (WYNN): what happened last Saturday

Published February 22, 2012 Casinos , earnings conference calls , Entertainment , Industry Analysis , Stock ideas Leave a Comment
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a little history

Steve Wynn is an iconic figure in the casino gaming industry.  Among other feats, he almost single-handedly re-glamorized the Las Vegas Strip while he was CEO of Mirage Resorts.  During the economic downturn of 2000, however, the board of that company accepted a takeover bid from MGM and showed Mr. Wynn the door.

Mr. Wynn then joined forces with Kazuo Okada, owner of a Japanese slot machine company, to develop a new upscale resort on nearby land.  Mr. Okada invested $380 million to obtain a 50% share of the venture.  Needing more money to advance his plans, Wynn Resorts went public in 2002.  So doing reduced Wynn’s and Okada’s ownership shares to 20% each.  Mr. Okada became the largest shareholder in WYNN when Mr. Wynn’s ex-wife received half of his stock in a divorce settlement.

the past year or so

The Compliance Committee of the WYNN board is led by board member Robert Miller, a former district attorney who served as governor of Nevada for ten years.  In February 2011, its investigation into the feasibility of opening a casino in the Philippines uncovered questions about possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by Mr. Okada in the Philippines while obtaining a casino license for himself there.

The board’s concern:  having a major shareholder and board member who could be deemed “unsuitable” to hold a casino license would put existing licenses in jeopardy.  As well, it would likely rule WYNN out as a candidate for new licenses (think:  Singapore, or permission to build a new casino in Macau).

In February 2011 the Compliance Committee opened an investigation of Mr. Okada.  Board worries were apparently heightened by Mr. Okada’s comments at board meetings, his unwillingness to participate in board FCPA training and his refusal to sign the company’s code of conduct.

(Reading between the lines, it also sounds like Mr. Okada continued to pressure the board to participate in his Philippine casino venture–something the board had ruled out–and had been intimating in the Philippines and elsewhere that he was secretly carrying out the board’s wishes.)

In September 2011, WYNN concluded there was a threat to WYNN’s business if Mr. Okada remained a board member/shareholder of WYNN and pursued his Philippine project.  The WYNN general counsel and compliance officer outlined the company position to Mr. Okada’s lawyers.  Mr. Okada said he didn’t see any conflict and declined to take any action.

WYNN then hired an outside law firm, run by a former head of the FBI, to conduct a detailed investigation.  According to Governor Miller, the inquiry turned up a pattern of violations of the FCPA by Mr. Okada and his companies.  Mr. Okada also told the investigators during a lengthy interview that he strongly believes he can continue to give valuable “gifts” to foreign officials, despite the fact this violates US anti-bribery laws.

last weekend

Last Saturday, after consulting with two sets of outside legal experts on gaming law, the WYNN board met.  It removed Mr. Okada as a director.  And it used the power given to in the corporate charter to cancel Mr. Okada’s shares in WYNN.  It issued him a 10-year promissory note for $1.9 billion, bearing interest at 2% (payable in arrears), in compensation.

my thoughts

…just when you thought you’d seen everything!!

1.  I’m an investor, not a lawyer.  So I have to remind myself that I don’t have the specialized knowledge and training that may be needed to evaluate this situation correctly.

Still, given the array of prominent experts WYNN has assembled, I’d be shocked if the Nevada regulators don’t declare Mr. Okada to be “unsuitable” to hold a casino license in that state once it conducts its own investigation.  If so, I’d guess that undercuts possible legal action by Mr. Okada.

2.  WYNN’s charter apparently gives it the right to immediately revoke the shares of any owner the company finds to be “unsuitable,” which is a determination the board made about Mr. Okada on Saturday.

There’s no question of asking Mr. Okada to sell his holding; as of Saturday those shares no longer exist.

3.  The company charter apparently specifies the manner of compensation for cancelled shares.  Payment is supposed to be based on fair value and can be through a promissary note of at most ten-year maturity, paying an annual coupon of 2%.

Mr. Okada’s shares are “certificated,” meaning there’s either an electronic notation or a stamped notice, if they’re physical shares, saying that the stock has restrictions on sale.  WYNN didn’t say what the restrictions are, but they probably give WYNN the right to vet any potential buyer.  The certification would presumably bind any buyer, not just Mr. Okada.  It stands to reason that restricted shares aren’t as valuable as unrestricted ones.  …but by how much?

WYNN hired yet another expert firm, to determine “fair value” for the Okada holding.  Its conclusion:  fair value is a 30% discount to last Friday’s closing price.

4.  WYNN’s market capitalization was $14 billion last Friday.  So the market value of the Okada holding, were the shares unrestricted, would have been $2.8 billion.  In a sense, remaining shareholders make a gain of $900 million ($2.8 billion minus the $1.9 billion note), or about 8%, on their holdings through the share cancellation.

My guess is that the benefit to remaining shareholders is greater than that, if for no other reason than that the increasingly public tussle between Mr. Okada and the rest of the WYNN board was depressing the share price.  Because this situation is so unusual, however, I doubt Wall Street will assign even 8% extra to WYNN shares.

5.  Can Mr. Okada say he’s been harmed by the WYNN action?  Over the past decade, he’s received almost twice the value of his initial investment in dividends.  He’s now getting a note for 5x that amount.  My layman’s hunch is that his would be a hard case to make in court.

We’re in a wait-and-see situation now, in my opinion.  WYNN has asked the Wynn Macau board to remove Mr. Okada as a director, which I presume it will do.  It would be very interesting if the Macau authorities were to okay 1128′s pending new casino application once Mr. Okada is gone.  Another potential positive would be a speedy determination by Nevada regulators that Mr. Okada is indeed an “unsuitable” individual.

 

 

lessons from the Eastman Kodak bankruptcy

Published January 30, 2012 Stock ideas 1 Comment
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A bankruptcy is never fun.  But studying what happens as a company approaches a financial crisis is an important and useful exercise in securities analysis.  Eastman Kodak’s Chapter 11 filing illustrates many general characteristics, as well as one or two novel twists.  Here’s what I see:

a close-in look

–bankruptcy fears feed on themselves.  One day a senior analyst at my first job told me about a research report he wrote on a small magazine publishing company.  He pointed out gently deteriorating subscriber trends and opined that–unless they were reversed within a year or eighteen months–the company could be out of business.  He called the publisher two months later and found out the company was closing its doors for good.  Why?  The CEO told my colleague that advertisers had read his report, concluded it made no sense doing business with a dying firm and stopped placing ads.  Cash flows dried up, the company began to bleed red ink and was forced to cease publication.

Maybe my former colleague’s report was that influential, maybe not.  But something did happen to accelerate the magazine company’s decline–a loss of market confidence.

On paper, a firm might appear to have plenty of time to fix current financial problems, but the situation can change dramatically and very quickly if business partners decide to defend themselves against a possible Chapter 11 filing.

What can happen?

working capital issues 

End users will likely worry that bankruptcy will mean the end to a product line, or at least a cessation of operating supplies, repair parts and service.  Warranties, too.  So they’ll hesitate to buy.  Anticipating a falloff in demand, wholesalers and retailers may no longer want to carry the products.  And they certainly won’t be in any rush to pay the manufacturers for units they have in stock–no matter what terms they’ve agreed to.

Suppliers, knowing that trade creditors have little clout in bankruptcy proceedings, may ask for payment in advance before they’ll ship raw materials.

In theory, these supplier and customer actions should show up on the balance sheet in expanding receivables and shrinking payables, or maybe a buildup in finished goods inventory.  In practice, however, my experience is that they’re almost impossible to detect.

–drawing down a bank credit line.  Contrary to what people commonly believe, a bank’s commitment to offer long-term finance can be very fragile thing.  For money already borrowed, restrictive clauses (covenants) in the loan agreements can easily mandate that if the borrower’s financial condition falls below specified levels, bad stuff will happen–say, the entire principal becomes due immediately, or the borrower has to devote all of its cash flow to repayment.

The same thing applies to unborrowed money, except that the line can be reduced or cancelled outright if the bank sees deterioration in the financials a company periodically submits as a condition of keeping the credit line open.  When Kodak suddenly borrowed its entire $160 million credit line (see my post), it signaled to Wall Street that it was worried about this possibility.

–fraudulent conveyance.  This is a new one for me.  Kodak had been supporting its turnaround efforts in recent years despite by selling patents.  According to newspaper reports, lawyers for potential buyers warned of a legal risk were Kodak to enter Chapter 11 soon after a purchase.  In that event, lawyers for the creditors could sue to reclaim the patents, arguing the sales price was too low (the fraudulent conveyance).  If this tactic were successful, the pre-bankruptcy buyer would have to give up the patents.   But it wouldn’t get its money back.  It would become an unsecured creditor of Kodak–at the end of the line of those hoping to be paid by the bankruptcy court.  If bankruptcy is imminent, why take the risk?

–foot-dragging in litigation.  Kodak has also been suing tech companies for violating its intellectual property rights.  After its Chapter 11 filing, Kodak complained that the other parties had been dragging out settlement talks, ostensibly in hopes of getting better terms from the bankruptcy court.   Maybe so, but what’s so surprising about that?

–resigning directors.  Shortly before Kodak’s bankruptcy filing, three independent (that is, not company employees) directors resigned.  This isn’t an everyday occurrence.  It’s almost never a good sign.  In this case, it signaled to me that Kodak had made a very important decision that these directors not only disagreed with but wanted to forcefully distance themselves from.

stepping back a bit

From the Kodak case, I think an analyst can develop a useful checklist of possible bankruptcy symptoms.  I have one further, Kodak-specific comment though:

why printers?

I’ve followed printer companies in the US and Asia off and on for the better part of twenty years.  My take is that printers, both corporate and personal, are a very mature, brutally competitive, commodity business, whose heyday was three decades ago.  Corporate customers play one supplier off against another to get discount services.  Retail customers buy machines for well below the cost of making them, while the printer companies hope to eventually earn a profit through ink sales (I understand this may not exactly be the Kodak model, but that in itself is another potential worry).

In my view, this is an industry to get out of, not get into.  My questions about Kodak’s strategic direction would make me less willing to back the company, not more–and I suspect I’m not alone in this view.  That alone would make business partners quicker to adopt defensive measures than they ordinarily would.

AAPL’s awesome 1Q12

Published January 26, 2012 earnings conference calls , Industry Analysis , Stock ideas , Technology , Wireless Leave a Comment
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the report

After the close of New York trading on Tuesday January 24th, AAPL announced results for 1Q12 (AAPL’s fiscal year ends in October).

The company reported its best single quarter ever, with diluted earnings per share of $13.87 on revenue of $46.3 billion.  Sales were up by 73% year on year for the three months; eps were up by 116%.  Wall Street analysts had been anticipating earnings of $10.16 per share.  AAPL not only handily beat that figure, but also blew through the high end of the estimate range at $11.26.

Management’s (notoriously lowball) guidance for 2Q12 is for revenue of $32.5 billion and per-share profits of $8.50.

AAPL shares rose by 6.3% in the Wednesday market.  On the surface at least, this strikes me as a tepid response to the numbers.  More on this topic below.

the details

quibbles first…

–AAPL is another one of those companies that uses the week rather than the month as their basic unit of time.  This creates a problem, because a year is equal to 52 weeks plus one day for regular years, plus two days for leap year.  So companies like AAPL have to throw in an occasional quarter that has an “extra” week in it to keep their reporting year and the calendar in sync.

1Q12 was one of those adjustment quarters.  Not only that, but the extra week was the high-volume sales period between Christmas and New Year’s Day.  So AAPL’s sales for the three months were likely 10% or so higher than they would ordinarily have been.

–the introduction of the iPhone4S shifted revenue out of 4Q11 and into 1Q12, because AAPL ran down inventories of its older phones and consumers deferred iPhone purchases until the new model became available.

–don’t make the same mistake I’ve heard from Bloomberg radio commentators of saying that this quarter’s earnings were more than AAPL made in a whole year not that long ago.  This sentiment is correct, but the comparison isn’t.  AAPL changed its accounting treatment for iPhone sales a couple of years ago to recognizing all the profits from a sale (markup on the device + a share of revenue collected by the telecom company over the life of a contract) up front, rather than recognize them gradually over the (usually two-year) contract term.

…followed by stunning numbers (ex the iPod)

iPhone

In 1Q12 AAPL sold 37 million iPhones, with iPhone4S leading the way.  That’s up 126% yoy, in a market that expanded by 40% over that time.  It’s also 17 million more than AAPL’s previous record for a quarter.   Sales would have been even higher except AAPL ran out of phones to sell in key areas.

iPhone 4S wasn’t available in China during 1Q12.  It went on sale there earlier in the month.  Demand has been “staggering.”

iPad

APPL sold 15.4 million iPads during the quarter, up 111% year on year.  According to CEO Tim Cook, the launch of AMZN’s new Kindle lines has had no effect, good or bad, on sales.

Macs

AAPL sold 1.48 million iMacs and 3.72 million laptops, both records, during the quarter.  Desktops were up 21% in units yoy; laptops were up 28%.  Industry growth was zero.

iPods

This declining category of devices was up 133% quarter on quarter for AAPL, but down 21% yoy.  iPod Touch remains the lion’s share of sales.  APPL retains a 70% share of the MP3 player market in the US and is the top-seller in most other markets (not that any investor is going to buy AAPL’s stock because of the iPod anymore).

other stuff

Sales at the Apple Stores, which make up almost a third of retail revenue for AAPL, were $6.1 billion during the quarter.  Average revenue per store was $1.7 million, up 43% yoy.

The iTunes store took in $1.7 billion.

Weak worldwide demand for tech components gave AAPL a lot of buying clout for NAND flash and DRAM during 1Q12.  As a result, the company’s gross margin was unusually high at 44.7%.  To give a basis for comparison, full-year 2011 gm came in at 40.5%.  This favorable development probably also boosted net income by 10%.

AAPL has $97.6 billion in cash on the balance sheet.  Of that, $64 billion is being held offshore.

the stock

Trying to “normalize” 1Q12 eps by correcting for the extra week and the elevated gross margins, I come up with a figure of $11.50 or so for the quarter.  If I had to guess, I’d peg full-year eps at least $40, even after a downward adjustment of 1Q12 results–meaning reported figures could be closer to $45 a share.

If I’m correct, AAPL shares are currently trading at, at most, 11x this year’s earnings, with 40%+ earnings growth in prospect.  That strikes me as really cheap.  Subtract AAPL’s cash from the equation and the forward multiple is 8.5x.

In contrast, WMT, which has nothing like the recent growth record or current prospects of AAPL, is trading at about 12x.

COH, a global semi-luxury company, whose stock has paralleled AAPL over the past year, and which has far better growth characteristics than WMT, trades at almost double the PE of AAPL.  But even COH probably won’t grow as fast as AAPL this year.

Why the low valuation for AAPL?

I think Wall Street views AAPL as a firm built at present on a single product, smartphones.  It perceives the global transition from feature phones to smartphones, which is at least part of what’s driving the company’s extraordinary growth, to be mostly played out.  Therefore, investors theorize, AAPL will sooner or later–and probably sooner–be reduced to depending on replacement demand.  When that happens, its earnings growth will shift into a much lower gear.

There’s some truth to this idea.  Look at the breakout of AAPL’s revenues during the current quarter:

iPhone     53% of sales

iPad     20%

Macs     14%

iPods     6%

Music services     4%

Other stuff     3%

Total = $46.3 billion.

After iPhone and iPad, nothing else moves the needle that much.  A half-decade ago, the iPod doubled the size of AAPL; the iPhone then doubled (a much larger) AAPL again.  Can iPad perform the same trick for AAPL a third time?  Eventually, maybe, as part of a transformation of the personal computer market over the next decade.  But I’m not sure many people would like to bet on that.

And, of course, NOK and RIMM are reminders of how fast the tech world can change.

Potential pitfalls may be Wall Street’s current focus, but it’s by no means the whole AAPL story.

As I’ve been writing for some time, AAPL shares have suffered immense PE contraction over the last four or five years, both in absolute terms and relative to the market.  According to Value Line, AAPL traded at a 40% premium to the market multiple in 2007 and a 60% premium in 2008.  By my reckoning, AAPL is now selling at a 25% discount to the market–a much lower level than firms (like WMT) with weaker business models and balance sheets.

That’s actually the good news.  The fact that a huge amount of potential future bad news seems to me to be already baked into the stock price is a powerful argument for owning the stock.  In fact, I think the market is discounting a far worse future for AAPL than is likely to develop.

Can AAPL do anything to help its own cause?  The company could begin to pay a dividend or split the stock.  Either would give the shares a short-term boost.  In the final analysis, however, all AAPL can really do is continue to post strong earnings to show that Wall Street fears are overblown.

INTC: 4Q11, prospects for 2012

Published January 24, 2012 Current Market Thoughts , earnings conference calls , Industry Analysis , Portfolio management , Stock ideas , Technology Leave a Comment
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the report

4Q11

After the close of trading in New York on Thursday January 19th, INTC reported 4Q11 results.  Revenues came in at $13.9 billion.  Profits were $3.4 billion, eps $.64.  Both figures were down slightly quarter on quarter during what’s normally the company’s seasonally strongest period.  Eps surpassed the Wall Street consensus of $.61, though.  Wall Street’s habitually somewhat downbeat stance toward INTC was certainly influenced by the firm’s early December warning that near-term orders for its PC chips were being cancelled by device manufacturers who are unable to get enough hard disk drives to make new PCs.

On a non-GAAP basis (adjusting for acquisition-related goodwill),  eps came in at $.68.

Investors were pleased with the results.  INTC shares rose by about 3% in a flat market on Friday.

full year 2011

During 2011, INTC achieved lots of all-time financial highs, including:  revenues at $54 billion; net income at $12.9 billion; eps at $2.39 (non-GAAP, $2.53).

one-time factors

There are two:

–Historically, INTC has used the week as the basic time period for its accounts rather than the month.  Because  52 weeks x 7 days/week = 364 days, or not quite a year, this approach requires the company to have occasional 53-week years to keep their accounting in sync with the calendar.  2011 was one of those “extra-week” years.  That probably added $.05 to 2011 eps.

(By the way, INTC has just shifted to the month as its basic time measure, so the “extra week” adjustment will no longer be necessary.)

–Thailand produces about 40% of the world’s hard disk drives. Massive flooding there during 4Q11 took many HDD factories out of commission.  In early December, unable to build PCs without storage, device makers began to cancel orders for the INTC chips slated to go into those machines.   INTC thinks we’re now passing the worst of the HDD shortage and that Thailand will be back at full HDD production late in 2Q12.  INTC is adamant that component supply, not a falloff in demand, is the problem.  Assuming the company is correct–and I see no reason to doubt it–the result of the cancellations has probably been to shift $.10 – $.15 a share in earnings for INTC from 2011 into 2012, as well as to make the firm’s 2o12 eps more second-half loaded than normal.

prospects for 2012

INTC expects another up year in 2012, with revenues advancing by “high single digits” and gross margins expanding by 1.5 percentage points to around 64%.  Despite a massive increase in R&D spending to $10.1 billion this year (up by 21% from the 2011 level) this company guidance probably implies eps on a GAAP basis of $2.60 ($2.75, non-GAAP).  If we correct for the one-time factors I’ve cited above, I read the guidance as being for flattish eps on, say, 5% revenue growth.

my thoughts

down Memory Lane

At the peak of the internet bubble in 2002, INTC was a $75 stock.  It traded at 36x eps (a relative multiple of 2.4x the market) and yielded .1%.  After a decade of wretched relative performance, the stock is now trading at less than 10x 2012 earnings, yielding 3.4% and at a price earnings multiple discount to the market of about 25%.

If you think that’s bad, in early October 2011 INTC was trading at 7.3x 2012 eps and yielding 4%+, more than the 30-year Treasury!  Interestingly, despite Wall Street skepticism, INTC shares are enjoying their longest period (and one of only a few) of relative strength in the last decade.

where to from here?  (I wrote this on Sunday January 21st)

I think there are four potential positive points to the INTC story:

1. valuation.   …low PE, high dividend yield, massively cash generative operations

2.   demand for PCs.   …that emerging markets have reached wealth levels where average citizens are able to afford PCs.  According to INTC, two-thirds of PCs worldwide are currently being sold to customers in emerging economies.  None of these markets are as yet well-penetrated.   So this business, INTC’s biggest by unit volume, appears to me to have much better growth prospects than is commonly thought.  Ultrabooks, using reference designs supplied by INTC, may well be an added plus.

3.  servers/the cloud.   …the continuing evolution of the internet is creating strong demand both for the INTC chips that drive sophisticated servers for the cloud and for those used for general corporate purposes.  These tend to be advanced (read: expensive and high-margin) chips.

4.  INTC’s immense technology investments.     …in 2012, INTC plans capital expenditures of $12.5 billion, in addition to R&D outlays of $10.1 billion.  In 2011, those figures were $10.8 billion for capex and $8.3 billion on R&D.  The two-year total comes to $41.7 billion!

Three possible consequences:

–increasing INTC’s already large technological lead over other manufacturers

–creating chips that will be accepted by makers of cellphones and tablets.  For instance, Lenovo has announced its first INTC-powered smartphone for the mainland Chinese market.

–creating an environment for collaboration on design of increasingly complex multi-function chips, either with independent design firms or with device manufacturers.  In other words, INTC would use its advanced chip fabs to attract and lock in customers.     …like AAPL?

It seems to me that at $20 a share, Wall Street was factoring into the INTC stock price a belief that:

–none of its turnaround efforts would be successful,

–that the parlous state of the PC market in the US and Europe is indicative of the global market for these devices,

–that INTC parts will be displaced by ARMH components, and therefore

–that INTC will gradually go out of business.

the stock

To buy the stock at $20 a share, you’d only have to believe that stories of INTC’s demise have been greatly exaggerated.

At the current $26 or so, in contrast, it seems to me the price already factors in a grudging acceptance that the PC business may not be on its deathbed.  I don’t think, however, that the value of the server business is fully reflected.  Nor is there anything, in my view, for the possibility that ultrabooks may expand the PC category or that INTC will have any success cracking the smartphone or tablet market.  Wall Street analysts are merrily downgrading the stock, meaning they don’t want to be seen as endorsing any of these possibilities.

$30 a share seems to me to be the next price objective.  At that level, I think the idea that the current business, PCs and servers, is viable would be in the quote.  But I don’t think there would be very much for new products.  In addition, I don’t think that very many have considered the thought that, after more than a decade of foundry success, the economic winds may be shifting in favor of integrated design/manufacturing firms like INTC or Samsung.

My bottom line:  INTC is no longer the one-way street it was in October, but I think it still has very attractive prospects.  I have no desire to sell any of the stock I own.  On the other hand, given the strong run it has made over the past four months, the size of my holding, and the possibility that good news probably won’t arrive before 2H12 begins, I don’t feel a powerful urge to buy today.  I do think the stock will outperform the S&P over the coming year, though.

TIF’s 4Q11 earnings misstep

Published January 16, 2012 Current Market Thoughts , earnings conference calls , Industry Analysis , Luxury goods , Retail , Stock ideas Leave a Comment
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background

When TIF reported 3Q11 earnings (Tiffany’s fiscal year, like that of most retailers, ends in January), it lowered its 4Q profit guidance (see my post).

By then, the company had seen sales for virtually the entire month of November and had detected weakness in spending by residents of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions of the US.  At that time, it still expected a “low-teens percentage increase” in worldwide sales during 4Q11.  But it effectively clipped $.10 from its estimate of per share profits for the year’s final three months, saying it expected to earn $1.48 – $1.58 per share during the period.  That would be 6.3% more than the $1.44 it earned in the comparable period of fiscal 2010.

the weakening holiday selling season

Last week, TIF reported the results of its worldwide sales for November plus December.

The news wasn’t good–especially in the US and Europe.

Rather than the low-teens increase in sales the company had been anticipating, revenues were only up by 7%.

By region, they broke out as follows:

Americas    total sales = +4%,     comp store sales = +2%  (3Q11 comps = +15%)     ←

Asia-Pacific (ex Japan)     +19%, +12%, (+36%)      ←

Japan     +13%, +6%, (+4%)

Europe     +1%, -4%, (+6%).

In the US, sales to residents were down year on year.  Buying by foreign tourists pushed results into the plus column.

In its press release, TIF reduced its eps forecast for 4Q11 by another $.10-$.15.  It now expects to earn $3.60 – $3.65 for the full year.

The stock fell 10% on the news.  Unlike other stocks with negative earnings surprises, TIF hasn’t rebounded.

my thoughts

December must have been a particularly disappointing month for TIF, since management had already revised down its expectations  based on November weakness.

Recent macroeconomic reports are almost universally signalling that the US economy is improving.  In the jewelry industry in particular, Signet reported on the same day as TIF that its same store sales in its Kay business were up +9.8% and in Jared, +10.0%.  Similarly, Zale reported that its non-kiosk US jewelry business had same store sales growth of +9.0%.  Neither is showing anything like the weakness in TIF’s business.

TIF is much farther up-market than either Signet or Zale.  Presumably, that’s the source of the difference.  It looks like TIF’s high-end US customers left their credit cards at home last month.  My guess is that the problem resides in the waning fortunes of executives in financial services and the industries, like legal, which support it.

Look at the Asia-Pacific figures above, as well.  TIF didn’t highlight this area.  Same store sales are still high at +12%. But three months ago they were growing at a +36% pace, or 3x the current rate.

what to do

At last Friday’s price of $59 or so, TIF is trading at 16x fiscal 1011 eps and yielding 2%. That looks cheap to me.

On the other hand, we have only guesses as to what’s causing the current deceleration in company sales.  They’re probably good guesses, but still…

For investors, the more pertinent question is probably when earnings comparisons will begin to pick up again.  My tentative answer is–not soon.  In fact, earnings comparisons could be negative or flat until late in 2012.

So my thoughts remain unchanged from late November.  I don’t feel any need to sell the stock I own, but I don’t think I have to hurry to buy more.  If I didn’t own any I might buy a small part of a position now, but no more than that.

 

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