Clarification On Sears Holdings

Looking back at my recent posts on Sears Holdings (SHLD), I may have left the impression that improving same store sales trends are necessary to drive the stock higher. Just to be clear, Northlake’s long position in (SHLD) has never been about sales. It has been about free cash flow generation over the 2006 and […]

Making Money In Media Despite Weak Ad Spending

According to data from TNS Media Intelligence, advertising spending in the U.S., excluding paid search, fell by 0.3% in May 2006. According to TNS, this is the first comparable monthly decline since the advertising recovery began in May 2002. Network TV and newspapers suffered the biggest declines during May. Areas showing growth included non-search Internet […]

I Am Famous. Sort Of.

I Am Famous. Sort Of. Back on August 1, 2006, Jim Cramer of CNBC and theStreet.com, did a segment on Comcast on his nightly Mad Money TV show. During the segment, Cramer tells viewers how for the past year everyone hated Comcast. Everyone that is except, yours truly. Cramer says “”Birenberg’s the only guy to […]

Does The Cable Industry Require Another Hugely Expensive Network Upgrade?

I am surprised that cable stocks have held up since last Thursday’s Wall Street Journal article which indicated a recent report from Cable Labs, the industry’s internal R&D arm, said that to keep up with exploding broadband demand and Verizon’s fiber rebuild, the cable industry would have to complete another costly upgrade of its plant. […]

Is Sears Cutting Its Advertisng Expenditures Too Much?

I am no expert in retailing despite Northlake’s long position in Sears Holding (SHLD) so when my colleague at StreetInsight.com, Jeff Bagley, wrote a scathing post noting that most of the earnings upside at SHLD over the past few quarters had come from large cuts in advertising expenditures, I was very interested in learning more. […]

Sears Results Better Than Stock Price

Sears Holdings (SHLD) earnings reports was largely in line. However, the stock traded sharply lower, giving up most of its gains so far in August. The decline can be attributed primarily to two things. First, SHLD is owned by a lot of aggressive investors and they wanted another big positive surprise like the company delivered […]

NTL Sees Renewed Interest From Private Equity Firms

News broke yesterday in London that NTL Incorporated (NTLI) was again subject to takeover interest from private equity firms. Later in the day, Bloomberg reported that the company was in talks with a consortium of four private equity firms and the talks were beginning to focus on price. I covered these developments in two posts […]

Sears Holdings Earnings Preview

While fireworks are likely in the shares of Sears Holdings (SHLD) after the company reports earnings before the open today, there has been a virtual blackout as far as research is concerned ahead of the report. There are only five EPS estimates creating the First Call consensus of $1.69. The estimates range from $1.46 to […]

Icahn Ups His Stake In Time Warner

The Wall Street Journal is a few days late in reporting that Carl Icahn has upped his stake in Time Warner. When this news first broke on Monday, I wrote the following brief comment for StreetInsight.com: The facts that Time Warner (TWX) is giving back most of its post-earnings pop and the lack of positive […]

Newspapers In The News

There were some interesting developments in the newspaper industry yesterday. First, Nelson Peltz has filed with the SEC indicating he has an ownership stake in Tribune (TRB) of 1% of the outstanding shares. The amount is small and there is no way of knowing his intentions but it is probably fair to deduce that the […]