Buzz Stock of the Day- First Niagara Financial Group (FNFG)

Posted on Tuesday, April 7th, 2009


There are a few bright spots in the battered banking industry.

Our Buzz Stock of the Day — First Niagara Financial Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: FNFG) is one of them.

The Pendleton, Niagara County-based company operates as the holding company of First Niagara Bank, and provides retail and commercial banking, and financial services to individuals, families, and businesses.

We like First Niagara Financial Group because generates operating cash flow, is well capitalized, and seems to be weathering the storm better than a lot of other regional banks.

“They did it the old-fashioned way, got the money first and then decided how to use it,” said Richard Weiss, director of banks and thrifts at Philadelphia-based investment firm Janney Montgomery Scott LLC.

The company’s stock has been pretty resilient as well — down about 17 percent over the past 52-weeks. First Niagara’s competitors including KeyCorp (-67 percent) and M&T Bank Corp. (-44 percent) haven’t been as lucky.

And if today’s announcement by First Niagara is an indication of things to come, we think this regional bank owner could be a good long-term play, as well as a daily Buzz Stock.

The company just announced that it signed a definitive agreement to acquire $4.2 billion of deposits and 57 Western Pennsylvania bank branches from National City Bank, a subsidiary of The PNC Financial Services Group for a deposit premium of 1.3 percent. FNFG said in addition to $3.2 billion in cash, the company will also receive approximately $839 million of performing business and consumer loans. Divestiture of these branches was a regulatory condition of PNC’s purchase of National City in December of 2008.

First Niagara enters the Pittsburgh region as the fourth-largest bank by deposits, acquiring a $3.35 billion share here, and fifth by branches, with 50. It also bought seven branches outside Pittsburgh but in two other metro areas in western Pennsylvania.

This marks the eighth acquisition by First Niagara over the past decade. Not including the western Pennsylvania additions, it currently has more than $9.3 billion in assets, 114 branches, 139 ATMs and 2,000 employees.

“This transaction enables us to strategically expand our franchise, leverage our strong financial position and enhance shareholder value,” First Niagara President and CEO John Koelmel said in a statement.

The acquisition is expected to close in September 2009, and add about 20 percent to the company’s earnings per share in 2010.

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Buzz Stock of the Day- Carmike Cinemas (CKEC)

Posted on Monday, April 6th, 2009

Despite being entrenched in a recession, Americans are buying movie tickets.

Ticket sales this year are up 17.5 percent, to $1.7 billion, according to box-office tracking company, Media by Numbers.

The box-office surge started just before Christmas with the comedy “Marley & Me,” in which Jennifer Aniston was upstaged by a dog. And it has continued, weekend by weekend, with little sign of let-up, analysts say.

In 1982, theater attendance jumped 10.1 percent to about 1.18 billion (the top seller was “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial”) as unemployment rose sharply past 10 percent. Then admissions fell nearly 12 percent, an unusually sharp drop, in 1985 (the “Back to the Future” year), as the economy picked up — suggesting that theater owners have sometimes found fortunes in times of distress, and distress in good times.

Our Buzz Stock of the Day — Carmike Cinemas, Inc. (Nasdaq: CKEC) — is a U.S. leader in digital cinema and 3D cinema deployments and one of the nation’s largest motion picture exhibitors. As of December 31, 2008, Carmike had 250 theatres with 2,287 screens in 36 states. Carmike’s digital cinema footprint reaches 2,157 screens, of which 452 were also equipped with 3D capability. Carmike’s focus for its theatre locations is small to mid-sized communities with populations of fewer than 100,000.

Merriman Curhan Ford analyst Eric Wold recently reiterated his “Buy” rating Carmike shares, saying that the companies’ domestic box office revenues rose 9 percent to 10 percent in the first quarter despite a lineup of movies that he considered “fairly lackluster.”

He also thinks that Carmike is benefiting from its operation of 500 3-D movie screens, which accounts for about 21 percent of its total screens and 25 percent of the total 3-D screens in the U.S.

The Columbus, Ga.-based cinema owner and operator (NASDAQ: CKEC) reported Monday a net loss of $41.4 million and a loss per share of $3.27, compared with a net loss of $126.9 million and a loss per share of $10.07 in 2007.

Revenue dipped about 2 percent to $474.4 million.

Attendance went from 55.1 million in 2007 to 49.9 million in 2008.

“We finished 2008 with a solid fourth quarter, highlighted by a 10 percent increase in theater level cash flow, compared to the year-ago quarter,” said Carmike Cinemas Chairman David Passman, in an earnings release.

Carmike is also one of a few companies that is poised to profit from an uptick in the number of 3-d movies that are released.

“We are pleased with the positive response throughout our circuit to 3D films. Over the past few years Carmike has converted 2,157 of our screens to digital cinema and built a leadership position in 3D installations. As a result, Carmike now has the largest installed base of 3D screens of any domestic exhibitor. We believe we are well positioned to benefit from a growing pipeline of high profile 3D content planned for 2009 and beyond.”

Carmike generates about $25 million of operating cash flow on revenue of $474 million. The company has had year-over-year quarterly revenue growth of 1.5 percent, and shares trade near their 52-week low.

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Buzz Stocks for the week of 3/30/09- PESI, LCUT, TRMA, and XIDE

Posted on Friday, April 3rd, 2009


The bad news is there are only 4 daily Buzz Stocks to report this week. The good news is they all closed the week higher.

Here’s a quick rundown:

Monday
Buzz Stock of the Day:
Perma-Fix Environmental Services, Inc. (Nasdaq: PESI)
Open (3/30/09): $1.61
Close (4/3/09): $1.95
Percentage Change: +20.6
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Tuesday
We took the day off

Wednesday
Buzz Stock of the Day:
Lifetime Brands, Inc. (Nasdaq: LCUT)
Open (4/1/09): $1.38
Close (4/3/09): $2.19
Percentage Change: +58.6
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Thursday
Buzz Stock of the Day:
Trico Marine Services, Inc. (Nasdaq: TRMA)
Open (4/2/09): $2.39
Close (4/3/09): $2.55
Percentage Change: +6.6
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Friday
Buzz Stock of the Day:
Exide Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: XIDE)
Open (4/3/09): $3.75
Close (4/3/09): $4.23
Percentage Change: +12.8
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Buzz Stock of the Day- Exide Technologies (XIDE)

Posted on Friday, April 3rd, 2009

In early January, the Washington, D.C.-based Renewable Energy Policy Project released a study that said Kansas alone could create 11,500 jobs and draw $2 billion in investment in renewable energy.

“This analysis is not a prediction,” said George Sterzinger, who is with the Renewable Energy Policy Project and one of the principal authors of the report. “It is really an attempt to illuminate the potential (of renewable energy).”

It estimated that Saline County could see as many as 2,300 jobs and $430 million in investments, with the most potential coming from solar energy business and the large battery plant in Salina that’s owned by our Buzz Stock of the Day — Exide Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: XIDE).

Exide Technologies, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the manufacture and supply of lead acid batteries used in transportation, motive power, network power, and military applications in the Americas, Europe, and internationally. Its transportation batteries include ignition and lighting batteries for cars, trucks, off-road vehicles, agricultural and construction vehicles, motorcycles, recreational vehicles, boats, and other applications.

Exide has supply agreements with for its batteries with Toyota and Penske, among others.

We like Exide Technologies because the company generates free cash flow, spends its money wisely, and plans for the future.

The company generated $74.7 million of free cash flow for the three months ended December 31, 2008–up from a burn of $129.4 million for the year ago period. Net income for the quarter was $15.4 million, or $0.20 per-share, down from $19.3 million, or $0.25 per share for the same quarter a year earlier. Excluding the impact of a few non-operational items, adjusted net income for the fiscal 2009 third quarter was $18.2 million or $0.23 per share. This compares with adjusted net income for the comparable prior year period of $17.3 million or $0.23 per share.

Exide has also spent wisely. The company announced plans for a $7 million expansion at its Kansas City lead-acid battery manufacturing facility earlier this year, and anticipated the expansion will result in increased production performance and volume capacity.

We also like the company’s long term prospects. Exide just announced a collaboration with Nano-Terra, a Cambridge, Mass.-based nanotechnology company to develop more efficient stored energy solutions. The solutions under development in this collaboration are based on the surface engineering methods pioneered by Nano-Terra and its Co-Founder, Professor George M. Whitesides of Harvard University.

“Exide is one of the world’s largest producers and recyclers of lead-acid batteries and the first in our industry to collaborate with Nano-Terra. This strong collaboration will allow our Company to draw upon unique nanotechnology resources to implement innovative energy solutions for the global marketplace.”

Join the discussion on Exide Technologies, Inc. on its official Buzz Board thread.

Here’s a cool video of Exide’s Liberator line of batteries in action (kind of):

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Buzz Stock of the Day- Trico Marine Services (TRMA)

Posted on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009


According to a recent study, daily offshore oil & gas production, which currently stands about 43 million barrels of oil equivalent (BOE), is forecast to grow to 53 million barrels of BOE in 2010. That growth should drive the industry annual expenditure from $193 billion in 2006 to $248 billion in 2010.

“What’s more, considerable growth is forecast for all forms of deep water production facilities, but especially floating production systems and subsea production and processing hardware. Subsea systems are also expected to attract an increasingly larger part of the shallow water offshore spend as marginal development programmes escalate,” the report stated.

That’s where our Buzz Stock of the Day– Trico Marine Services, Inc. (Nasdaq: TRMA) comes in.

The Woodlands, TX-based company. through its subsidiaries, provides subsea and marine support vessels to the offshore oil and gas industry. It operates in three segments: Subsea Services, Subsea Trenching and Protection, and Towing and Supply.

The Subsea Services segment provides technology oriented subsea services, including inspection, maintenance, and repair services; survey and light construction support; decommissioning; onshore engineering work; post processing of survey data; and associated reporting. The Subsea Trenching and Protection segment offers subsea trenching and protection services for the burial of subsea transmission systems. This segment’s customers are primarily within the offshore oil and gas, power (electricity transmission systems), telecommunications (intercontinental and regional systems), and military industries.

In early February the company announced new contract awards and extensions valued at around $80 million. All of the contracts were with Trico Marine’s subsea services company, DeapOcean AS, or its subsea protection company, CTC Marine. In fact, about three-quarters of Trico Marine’s business in Q4 came from its subsea business.


“Our fourth quarter EPS met expectations but the more important point is that 2008 marked the transformation of Trico from an OSV operator to an international subsea services provider with our acquisitions of DeepOcean and CTC Marine,” said Trico Marine’s chairman and chief executive, Joseph Compofelice.

In a conference call with analysts, the company stated its CTC division is likely to do well and meet expectations throughout 2009 largely because of Trico Marine’s strategy to geographically expand CTC’s footprint into stronger markets including South East Asia and Mexico, and generate a larger portion of business from military contracts.

As of Dec. 2008, Trico Marine had $95 million in cash and $712 million in net debt. During the fourth quarter of 2008, the Company converted $22 million of convertible debt into equity and drew down $30 million under its credit facilities.

Most recently, Trico rejected the board nominations of two executives from Kistefos AG, a Norweigan private equity company that holds about 22 percent of Trico’s outstanding stock. In a response to one of the two executives, Trico stated that if the nominations were approved, Kistefos would have 29 percent control of the board, exceeding the 25 percent or less mandated by the Jones Act, the U.S. federal statute that regulates maritime commerce in U.S. waters between U.S. ports. Trico also said it will disregard the nominations if they are made at its upcoming annual meeting.

Join the discussion on Trico Marine Services on the company’s official Buzz Stock thread.


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