Monday, September 30, 2013

Notable Articles (Sep-30-2013)

Leon Cooperman’s roadmap for Arbor Realty: With a tangible common equity ratio of 20, if Arbor was a bank you would say they should go out and make more loans.  And that is basically the story here.  They are currently constrained with the equity that is tied up in CDO’s and swaps, but as that equity frees up they will be able to deploy it in higher return assets.  Return on equity right now is 7.5% and there is a fairly clear path to how that ROE can be increased to the 12-13% range (ie. make more loans and don’t take any write-downs).  At those level of ROE’s, the company is going to earn between $40-$43 million of funds from operations, or pretty close to $1 per share.  In comparison, the company announced their second quarter dividend at 13c (or 52c annually), up from 12c in the first quarter… The potential for price appreciation is a bonus; if Cooperman is right and they can increase their loan book we could be looking at a $12-$13 stock in a year or two [Note: Sales Notes Only, just relaying, no comments]…Source: http://reminiscencesofastockblogger.com/2013/09/28/leon-coopermans-roadmap-for-arbor-realty/

Carlyle to Invest $500 Million in Dr. Dre's Beats Electronics: According to people familiar with the matter, the Washington-based private-equity firm is investing $500 million for a minority stake in Beats Electronics LLC, which makes pricey headphones branded by American rapper Dr. Dre….Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304526204579100711774280296.html

How Popeyes went upscale: Or rather, here’s their cook book to turnaround a struggling joint: (1) figure out what people think of you, (2) decide how you want them to think of you, (3) introduce the new stuff, (4) weed out the bad stores, (5) get good ones to expand into new markets, (6) Figure out Pepsi vs. Coke, (7) go national. Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/27/how-popeyes-went-upscale/?wprss=rss_ezra-klein

How The Economic Machine Works by Ray Dalio: In 30 minutes. Note: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHe0bXAIuk0

Why Would Anyone Buy Credit Default Swaps on the U.S.? Essentially long left-end tail risk where if the disaster strikes, one will have little way of getting paid. But people may just be paying for technical defaults, especially when you consider the owest-dollar-priced U.S. government bond is the 2.75 of November 2042, trading at a yield of about 3.72 percent or a dollar price of around 82.75, and there is interest / principal payment due by the US gov every 3-7 days….Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-26/why-would-anyone-buy-credit-default-swaps-on-the-u-s-.html


Why Ford CEO Alan Mulally Is A Good Choice To Run Microsoft (Despite His Lack Of High-Tech Chops): When it comes to a CEO of big, big tech companies, maybe they need a capital allocator, a man of focus, instead of a tech guru. Microsoft is overflowing with really smart people building amazing technology. We've been in the company's labs on off-the-record briefings and seen some really cool stuff. Microsoft doesn't need a great visionary to think of the next major product. It has plenty of those people at the company already. What Microsoft needs is an executive who can streamline operations, get everyone working together, and decide which projects get oxygen and which products get drowned. Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/alan-mulally-as-microsoft-ceo-2013-9

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