siddharth18 Posted March 9, 2013 Share Posted March 9, 2013 Skullcandy, Inc. (NASDAQ:SKUL) develops and distributes headphones and other audio accessories. Balance sheet has $146M in current assets vs $44M total liabilities. P/E is 5.5, but everyone is fearing margin contraction. Moat is shallow to non-existent and eventually commoditization is feared. Any thoughts on this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
west Posted March 9, 2013 Share Posted March 9, 2013 I looked at it briefly. It didn't look *bad*, but I also didn't get too excited. Iirc, their sales dropped huge, year over year. Couple that will large inventory build up, quarter after quarter, and a pretty short public operating history, and I get a little nervous. I think the big question is: Is this company just a fad? I have a few of their cheaper products, by accident, and I guess I just don't see how their offering anything besides a generally low margin product with a brand name. Is the brand name really worth something? Has *anyone* in the past, in the audio products category, been able to offer a high margin product *and* get large sales volume for that product at the same time? If so, have they been able to sustain it over a decent amount of time? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eclecticvalue Posted March 9, 2013 Share Posted March 9, 2013 Definitely a commodity product, there are tons of earbuds and headphones which are better than skullcandy's and cheaper. This article talks about how the earbud sellers buy from the same manufacturer in China. http://gizmodo.com/5617200/the-secret-scam-of-cheap-earbuds Pretty much, Earbud sellers can get design and feature preferences in their earbuds and just place the brand name on the earbuds. Skullcandy does minimal manufacturing, nothing special imo. Instead they just market the product well with celebrities, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CONeal Posted March 9, 2013 Share Posted March 9, 2013 I can't name off the top of my head ever seeing someone wearing Skullcandy headphones around here. Beats by Dre seem to be popular lately in that I see them every time I look around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
siddharth18 Posted March 9, 2013 Author Share Posted March 9, 2013 Definitely a commodity product, there are tons of earbuds and headphones which are better than skullcandy's and cheaper. This article talks about how the earbud sellers buy from the same manufacturer in China. http://gizmodo.com/5617200/the-secret-scam-of-cheap-earbuds Pretty much, Earbud sellers can get design and feature preferences in their earbuds and just place the brand name on the earbuds. Skullcandy does minimal manufacturing, nothing special imo. Instead they just market the product well with celebrities, etc. Great article! So it's the marketing machine that's ringing the cash registers, not the product itself. I use Skullcandy earbuds myself, but only because they were the cheapest (entry level) earbuds I could find, that were made by a recognizable brand. All others (Sennheiser, Bose, Sony, Beats) were all priced too high for my taste and use. Notwithstanding, the stock has a NCAV of ~$3.6, and at the current price of $5.21, trades at a $1.61 premium to NCAV. For a business that generated $0.92 EPS in 2012. A slight back of the envelope calculation here - Conservative calculation entails Cash of $19M at full value + A/R of $57M (I did 75% of $76M) + Inventories of $20M (I did 50% of $41M) - for total value of $96M. Subtracting all liabilities of $44M yields $52M in conservative NCAV. Source http://investors.skullcandy.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=746441 At $143M in market cap, the market is asking for $91M ($143M - $52M) for all future cash flows of this company. Again, the company made $26M last year. Just trying to figure out, at what price then, would the purchase encompass a margin of safety to warrant a buy? Feel free to correct me; I'm still trying to figure this out! Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
west Posted March 9, 2013 Share Posted March 9, 2013 Definitely a commodity product, there are tons of earbuds and headphones which are better than skullcandy's and cheaper. This article talks about how the earbud sellers buy from the same manufacturer in China. http://gizmodo.com/5617200/the-secret-scam-of-cheap-earbuds Pretty much, Earbud sellers can get design and feature preferences in their earbuds and just place the brand name on the earbuds. Skullcandy does minimal manufacturing, nothing special imo. Instead they just market the product well with celebrities, etc. Great article! So it's the marketing machine that's ringing the cash registers, not the product itself. I use Skullcandy earbuds myself, but only because they were the cheapest (entry level) earbuds I could find, that were made by a recognizable brand. All others (Sennheiser, Bose, Sony, Beats) were all priced too high for my taste and use. Notwithstanding, the stock has a NCAV of ~$3.6, and at the current price of $5.21, trades at a $1.61 premium to NCAV. For a business that generated $0.92 EPS in 2012. A slight back of the envelope calculation here - Conservative calculation entails Cash of $19M at full value + A/R of $57M (I did 75% of $76M) + Inventories of $20M (I did 50% of $41M) - for total value of $96M. Subtracting all liabilities of $44M yields $52M in conservative NCAV. Source http://investors.skullcandy.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=746441 At $143M in market cap, the market is asking for $91M ($143M - $52M) for all future cash flows of this company. Again, the company made $26M last year. Just trying to figure out, at what price then, would the purchase encompass a margin of safety to warrant a buy? Feel free to correct me; I'm still trying to figure this out! Cheers! We can't answer all questions :D. Try projecting what you think their revenues will be versus their expenses in the future. If your not sure about how accurate you can be, either you need to research it some more, or put it in the "too hard" pile. Best of luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShahKhezri Posted March 9, 2013 Share Posted March 9, 2013 I can't name off the top of my head ever seeing someone wearing Skullcandy headphones around here. Beats by Dre seem to be popular lately in that I see them every time I look around. Kate Upton uses them, that should be enough to buy the stock. Check out the youtube video, if you're married (I'm not), it's probably a good excuse for doing research on the company. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ericd1 Posted March 11, 2013 Share Posted March 11, 2013 New 52-week low... Skullcandy (SKUL) 5.06 5.21 -1.51 -22.47 7,421,386 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
petey2720 Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 They named a new CEO the other day....and the stock popped off their lows: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/skullcandy-names-nikes-hoby-darling-212917796.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
petey2720 Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 In case anyone is interested, they released their latest earnings and the stock popped, up about 33% so far today. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/skullcandy-announces-fourth-quarter-2013-210000916.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yadayada Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 lol why? Revenue was a lot lower. I looked into it, and competition seems heavy. Alot of artists have followed dr dre's footsteps, and the headphones section in my local entertainment store just seemed saturated. They dont really have a mentionable moat. Just seems that their new CEO is a good sales man, and the market is irrational here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
siddharth18 Posted March 7, 2014 Author Share Posted March 7, 2014 lol why? Revenue was a lot lower. I looked into it, and competition seems heavy. Alot of artists have followed dr dre's footsteps, and the headphones section in my local entertainment store just seemed saturated. They dont really have a mentionable moat. Just seems that their new CEO is a good sales man, and the market is irrational here. http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/03/07/why-skullcandy-inc-shares-skyrocketed.aspx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yadayada Posted March 8, 2014 Share Posted March 8, 2014 "With our five key growth pillars established and a clear understanding of our consumer, where we will innovate and focus, and a segmented distribution strategy, it is now about executing," said President and CEO Hoby Darling. "We are confident we can achieve our vision of being a global audio leader while delivering profitable growth, increased shareholder value and living by our core values." This sounds like a bunch of crap Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jschembs Posted March 8, 2014 Share Posted March 8, 2014 "With our five key growth pillars established and a clear understanding of our consumer, where we will innovate and focus, and a segmented distribution strategy, it is now about executing," said President and CEO Hoby Darling. "We are confident we can achieve our vision of being a global audio leader while delivering profitable growth, increased shareholder value and living by our core values." This sounds like a bunch of crap + infinity! Also, never trust anyone named Hoby Darling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crastogi Posted March 8, 2014 Share Posted March 8, 2014 Speaking of no moat businesses like these which get cheap, does anyone take a flier on them and wait for a rebound? I did buy them in dec around 5.5 and sold around 7.5 promptly a month later. A very small position just based on it being cheap. A speculation really. I guess my question when do things get cheap enough to warrant a buy even though the business is just ok, but still making money. Any thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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