Walt Disney

[tec7]

Ik blijf voorlopig aan de kant staan maar hou de evolutie wel in het oog.

[sjos]

Ik blijf voorlopig aan de kant staan maar hou de evolutie wel in het oog.

Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS) is set to report its fourth quarter results on Wednesday and investors will watch out for improvement in the streaming business after the media conglomerate’s announcement regarding price hikes, cost-cutting initiatives and focus on making quality content.
Wall Street expects Disney to report earnings per share (EPS) of $0.71, while revenue is expected to grow 6.3% at $21.41 billion.
Disney, which is aiming to achieve profitability for its streaming segment by 2024, is facing a host of challenges including the Hollywood strike that delayed production, higher production cost and falling subscribers due to intense competition from rivals including Netflix (NFLX) and Amazon’s (AMZN) Prime Video.
However, to allay investor worries, Disney boosted price for the core ad-free Disney+ service by 27% in August, while raising Hulu’s ad-free service by 20%. Mirroring Netflix’s move, Disney CEO Bob Iger also said the company will get in to the issue of password sharing by 2024.
“We are optimistic that Disney Plus price increases will be highly revenue and OI accretive and that the adsupported tier will drive strong advertising revenue growth at DTC in FY24,” said Morgan Stanley analyst Benjamin Swinburne.
Disney also hired PepsiCo veteran Hugh Johnston as its CFO, aiming to help the entertainment giant turn its fortune amid pressure from activist investor Nelson Peltz, sagging share price and decline in its streaming business.
The stock has fallen more than 5% so far this year.
“Disney needs a hard catalyst, which refers to a tangible event that exerts an immediate and straightforward influence on a company's stock price,” pointed out Seeking Alpha analyst Piotr Kasprzyk.
Investors are also looking for the company to maintain growth in its Disney Parks, Experiences and Products, while expecting commentaries regarding capital spending for its park business, the sale of its India operation and acquiring Hulu stake.
Over the last two years, Disney has beaten both EPS and revenue estimates 50% of the time.
Seeking Alpha analysts, Wall Street and Seeking Alpha’s Quant ratings are bullish considering the stock a “buy”.
Over the last three months, EPS estimates have seen three upward revisions, compared to 14 downward revisions, while revenue estimates have seen one upward revision versus 13 downward moves.

Bron: https://seekingalpha.com/news/4032006-s ... q4-results

[sjos]

Entertainment- en mediaconcern Walt Disney heeft het afgelopen kwartaal het aantal abonnees bij zijn streamingdienst Disney+ zien stijgen met bijna 7 miljoen tot 112,6 miljoen abonnees. Met name buiten thuismarkt Noord-Amerika is het aantal afgesloten abonnementen toe, toegenomen meldt het bedrijf bij de presentatie van zijn kwartaalcijfers. De afgelopen kwartalen liep het aantal abonnees nog terug.
In totaal hebben de streamingdiensten van het mediaconcern, waar naast Disney+ ook Hulu en Disney+ Hotstar onder vallen, ruim 5 miljard dollar (4,7 miljard euro) opgebracht. Dat is 12 procent meer dan in hetzelfde kwartaal vorig jaar.

In het derde kwartaal heeft Walt Disney een omzet van 21,2 miljard dollar (19,7 miljard euro) geboekt, een stijging van 5 procent vergeleken met hetzelfde kwartaal vorig jaar. Overige inkomsten zijn afkomstig uit de pret- en themaparken, maar ook uit sportzender ESPN en de filmdivisie, met studio's als Pixar Animation, Lucasfilm en Marvel Studios. Onder de streep bleef een winst over van 694 miljoen dollar, tegenover 254 miljoen dollar in hetzelfde kwartaal vorig jaar.

Bron: Belga

[sjos]

De Tijd echter zorgt voor entertainment:
"ENTERTAINMENT
Groei pretparken dempt verder afkalvende klassieke tv-business Disney
Entertainmentreus Disney houdt koers om zijn verlieslatende streamingdivisie breakeven te krijgen. Dat is cruciaal omdat zijn traditionele cashkoe, klassieke tv, verder krimpt."
Bron: De Tijd vandaag 08.00 h

[sjos]

De Tijd echter zorgt voor entertainment:
"ENTERTAINMENT
Groei pretparken dempt verder afkalvende klassieke tv-business Disney
Entertainmentreus Disney houdt koers om zijn verlieslatende streamingdivisie breakeven te krijgen. Dat is cruciaal omdat zijn traditionele cashkoe, klassieke tv, verder krimpt."
Bron: De Tijd vandaag 08.00 h

Biggest stock gainers
Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS) gained as much as 6% after exceeding profit expectations in its Q4 earnings report. The increase was attributable to more aggressive cost-cutting and stronger-than-expected growth in streaming subscriptions. Despite falling short of the consensus mark in top-line revenue, the company is on track to achieve $7.5B in annualized cost savings, surpassing expectations by $2B.

Momenteel: DIS 90.63 +6.13 +7.25%

[sjos]

Disney: More Pain Likely - Only For Contrarian Buyers
Nov. 14, 2023 10:00 AM ETThe Walt Disney Company (DIS)CMCSA
Summary
DIS may face more pain in the near term, as rumors suggest a potential sale of its profitable linear network business as a way to fund the unprofitable Hulu acquisition.
The restart of its content productions from December 2023 may also trigger expanded expenditures, delaying its eventual FY2024 cost savings.
Depending on the DIS management's choice of fund-raising for Hulu, be it through debt, share dilution, and/ or cash, we believe that its near-term prospects are uncertain.
Iger continues to push for a potential reinstatement of dividends before the end of the calendar year as well, with any announcement likely to be disappointing.
As a result of the mixed prospects, it is immediately apparent that the DIS stock is only suitable for growth-oriented investors looking for undervalued contrarian plays.
We previously covered Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) in August 2023, discussing its intensified streaming monetization efforts, likely taking a leaf out of NFLX's playbook with paid sharing from 2024 onwards.
This was on top of the raised D2C subscription prices from October 2023 and entry into sports betting, likely to bring forth improved top and bottom lines, resulting in our Buy rating then.
In this article, we will be discussing DIS's mixed prospects as the restart of content productions from December 2023 may trigger expanded expenditures, delaying its eventual cost savings. This is on top of the potential divestiture of its highly profitable linear networks, as a way to finance the Hulu acquisition.
Given its mixed near-term prospects, the stock is only suitable for contrarian investors who are looking to buy and hold for the long term. We shall discuss further.
DIS' Near-Term Prospects Appear To Be Uncertain
For now, DIS has recorded a bottom-line beat in its FQ4'23 earnings call, with revenues of $21.24B (-4.8% QoQ/+5.4% YoY) and adj EPS of $0.82 (-21.1% QoQ/+173.3% YoY).
DIS Cost Optimizations
DIS' profitability tailwind in the latest quarter is partly attributed to the management's aggressive cost optimizations at an annualized sum of $7.5B, compared to the original guidance of $5.5B.
However, we believe that eagle-eyed investors may note that most of the cost savings is attributed to the reduced content spend of $1.5B, thanks to the previous SAG-AFTRA/WGA strikes.
With both strikes already concluding, we believe that DIS is unlikely to sustain this one-time cost saving, attributed to the restart of content productions from 2024 onwards, if not December 2023.
While we maintain our optimism surrounding the media company's robust IPs, it remains to be seen when the superhero fatigue may end, with the management already delaying several of its upcoming Marvel movies. The latter is likely attributed to the underwhelming box office returns thus far, while partly delayed by the strikes.
We believe that Mr. Market and shareholders are keenly aware of these headwinds as well, with the DIS stock already returning most of its hyper-pandemic and pre-pandemic gains, drastically returning to its 2014 levels.
It is also uncertain when bullish support may materialize, given the stock's lower lows and lower highs since the March 2021 top.
We believe that DIS' headwinds have yet to end as well, since it may have to fork out approximately $15B for Comcast's (CMCSA) 33% stake in the streaming service, Hulu. This is based on our assumption that Hulu may be valued at $45B, in our previous CMCSA article here, with an FWD EV/Revenue valuation of 4x, thanks to its high growth trend.
It also remains to be seen if its rumored linear TV divestment may occur, as a speculative way to raise funds for the potentially expensive Hulu acquisition. While its linear networks may not be a revenue driver at $2.6B (-61.1% QoQ/-10.3% YoY) by the latest quarter, it is a bottom-line driver at $0.8B (-57.8% QoQ/in line YoY) for the entertainment segment after all.
While it is unknown how the DIS management may actually execute the divestment, we believe that it may be a mistake to sell off its profitable cable channels to pay for the currently unprofitable Hulu, despite cable's irreversible secular decline and the potentially "accretive synergy/churn benefit worth $30B."
For now, the media company already reports a moderating long-term debt of $42.1B (-5.4% QoQ/-7% YoY) and growing cash/short-term investments of $14.18B (+23.8% QoQ/+22.1% YoY) by the latest quarter.
Depending on the DIS management's choice of fund-raising for Hulu, be it through debt, share dilution, and/or cash, we believe that its near-term prospects are uncertain, especially since Iger continues to push for a potential reinstatement of dividends before the end of the calendar year.
If a dividend is declared, we believe the sum may not match the annualized sum of $1.76 prior to the suspension in FY2019, attributed to its reduced Free Cash Flow generation of $4.9B in FY2023 (+345.4% YoY), compared to FY2019 FCF levels of $8.7B (-11.2% YoY).
As a result of these developments, we believe that things may get worse for DIS, before it gets better.
DIS's Valuations Have Merely Normalized To Its Historical Means
For now, DIS' FWD valuations appear to be drastically moderated compared to their 1Y and 5Y means.
However, we would like to highlight that its FWD EV/EBIT of 13.96x and FWD P/E of 19.95x have only normalized from the hyper-pandemic heights of 66.93x/479.99x to its 3Y pre-pandemic means of 13.72x/18.01x.
Based on DIS' FY2023 EBIT generation of $12.9B (+6.6% YoY) and its FQ4'23 share count of 1.83B, we are looking at an EBIT per share of $7.04 (+6% YoY). Combined with its FWD EV/EBIT valuation of 13.96x, it appears that the stock is trading well below its fair value of $98.27.
For now, the consensus forward estimates seem to be rather optimistic, with DIS expected to record a top and bottom line CAGR of +6.2% and +8.7% through FY2026, reversing the decline in its EBIT profitability at a CAGR of -2.3% between FY2017 and FY2023, respectively.
Based on the consensus FY2026 adj EBIT estimates of $16.5B, it appears that there is still an excellent upside potential of +42.4% to our long-term price target of $125.77 as well.
While these growth projections may occur in the far future, thanks to its highly profitable theme park business and improving monetization of the D2C segment, we are not certain if the floor to the DIS stock's decline may materialize in the near term. This is especially with the relatively intense FY2024 content and capex spending guidance of $25B (-8% YoY) and $6B (+20% YoY), respectively.
This is compared to its FY2019 levels of $17.6B and $4.9B, implying that we may see its FCF generation temporarily disappoint, depending on the speculative divestment of its linear networks.
So, Is DIS Stock A Buy, Sell, Or Hold?
As a result of the mixed prospects, it is immediately apparent that the DIS stock is only suitable for growth-oriented investors looking for undervalued contrarian plays.
While we are cautiously optimistic about its long-term prospects, there may be more pain over the next few quarters of uncertainties, with it remaining to be seen if the $80s bottom may hold.
Therefore, while we may rate the DIS stock as a Buy, investors may want to observe its movement for a little longer, before adding according to their risk appetite and dollar cost averages, preferably at its tried-and-tested support level of $80s for an improved margin of safety.
Additionally, investors should closely monitor the management's next few moves, since they may be crucial in reversing Mr. Market's currently pessimistic sentiment.

Bron: seekingalpha

[sjos]

""Niet de films, maar de parken zijn de grootste geldmachine van Disney. Het zijn dan ook de derde en vierde "Frozen"-film die het merk relevant moeten houden. Want dat is wat het is: "Frozen" is een sterk merk op zichzelf", vertelt Broos."

Bron: https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2023/11/23 ... franchise/