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Netflix Dilutes


Guest Hester

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I've been hoping Netflix would eventually dilute at these new low stock price levels, just for the comedy of it. Now they are.

 

They are raising $400 split between $200 million in new equity issuance and $200 million in new convertible bonds. Remember just earlier this year they bought back roughly $200 million in stock at $225 per share.

 

They also said they will swing a loss in 2012.

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-21/netflix-drops-on-convertible-note-sale-to-technology-crossover.html#

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I'm looking forward to the day that Salesforce.com has to do the same.  At some point, investors realize that they are paying up for unsustainable growth, with the biggest expenditures for these businesses being buying that growth.  Cheers!

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Threads like this make me sad because it just highlights the mismanagement of both companies.  The reason I get sad is I use both products, Netflix and Salesforce and they're both absolutely killer.  I worry that management will somehow find a way to destroy the companies and the products that I like..

 

I think both products will survive and do fine.  It's just valuations got way ahead of themselves.  They were valued maybe 2-3 times higher than the most optimistic scenario would indicate.  Opentable suffered the same.  Cheers!

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Salesforce.com is already diluting. Their convertible is in the money and they are issuing stock options like there is no tomorrow. However, these shares do not exist according to "management's non-GAAP" results.

 

After the stock being in neutral for about a year, I think that the billing miss in Q3 is now being felt by investors. As it moves into a show me story after the break in momentum, pressure on the stock will keep on building. Then someday maybe that we will hear from big mouth Herb Greenberg about accounting and other things at CRM.

 

Cardboard

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These developments are very good for us value investors. They remind the market participants that in the end Mr. Market always wins and that the value of a business today is the sum of all future cash flows discounted appropriately. There are other companies like NFLX that have attracted tens of billions in equity capital that would have otherwise been routed to other segments.

 

My list of such companies includes: OPEN, P, Z, GRPN, YOKU, RENN, BIDU, TODU etc.

 

Once investors get burnt they will look for stable cash flow from real businesses that may not be growing as quickly but are being offered by Mr. Market at such high discounts a buyer today will see wonderful returns as long as they just keep earning at the same pace.

 

Companies that come to mind include BAC, CSCO, DELL, BP...

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I really like Reed Hastings, but he clearly doesn't have a good sense of finance.  I can't believe he was buying back stock at such nosebleed prices.

 

Also, the Qwikster debacle was unbelievable.  I never thought Hastings would make such a mistake.

 

But I'm rooting for him in terms of transforming the company into a viable long term competitor with all the other content aggregators out there.

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