firsthand
Author Archives: firsthand

News of the World – Will amputation save the patient (bid)

“Murdoch shutters the venerable ‘News of the Screws’” Was this an act of contrition for the phone tapping scandal or an act of desperation to secure regulatory (read political) approval for News Corporations bid for the outstanding shares in BSkyB? If so, will it work when the editor of the NoW at the time of these infractions […]

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Healthcare information assets still hot

Hot on the heals of Thomson announcing its intention to sell its Healthcare operations, which primarily service US healthcare payers with infomation services to manage the ever spiralling costs of healthcare, Experian has today reported a purchase in the same space, albeit of a considerably smaller operation. Experian is paying $185m for Medical Present Value (MPV) which maintains […]

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Another example of how legacy print media valuations have tanked

David Levin’s long term re-structuring of UBM to exit its declining legacy print businesses continues. Yesterday UBM announced that it is selling its UK entertainment and technology portfolio (including Music Week and Pro Sound News) to Intent Media. In itself, there is little of surprise as UBM exits this small segment which represented less than 4% […]

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Groupon in need of a Groupon

Good to see that markets have a handle on valuing the current batch of internet IPO’s. Having initially more than doubled from its listing price, Linkedin’s subsequent -35% share price retrenchment means that it is now only 47% ahead on its original offer price last month. Pandora meanwhile also seemed be getting off to a good start […]

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Q1 Agencies Postscript

The City narrative on the Q1 results seems predictable enough; a positive underlying revenue momentum which is encouraging managements to raise full year trading expectations and return to acquisition led expansion – a big hurrah for the bankers! Equity markets however are proving a tougher nut to convince, given its broader macro focus and as a consequence consensus forecasts for revenues […]

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Publicis Q1 – positive revenue momentum, but is this the real story?

PUBLICIS CAGR and Revenu

The narrative the markets will focus on will remain the group’s ability to translate its digital and emerging market investments into premium revenue growth and further margin progress. From this perspective, Publicis’s Q1 revenue performance should be well received. A +6.5% rise in organic revenues pipped Omnicom’s +5.2%, reflecting continued progress in digital (+12.6% to 28.2% of revenues) and […]

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