Glazer family chooses greediest bankers on Wall Street [The Slog]
August 2, 2012 Leave a comment
Man United to use ‘emerging company’ loophole to retain muddy reporting
With their valuation of Manchester United at £3bn ($20 a share), the Glazer Clan owners of the world’s most famous football club are, it seems to me, confusing the investment mood on Wall Street in 2012 (“This is a heavily indebted soccer club with a poor season behind it”) with the City of London at the height of the Dotcom Tulip in 1996 (“All things good must be excellent”).
We students of social psychology call this confusion ‘desperate greed’. So it is perhaps unsurprising that, for their launch advisers, the Glazers of Delaware have chosen the most desperately greedy firm on the Street of Covetous Mammon, Jefferies Group Inc.
But don’t just take my word for it: consult the numbers. The net income for Jefferies has fallen to $63.5 million (28 cents per share) vs. $80.6 million (36 cents per share) a year earlier. This is a decline of 21.2% from the comparative quarter. In fact, the company’s net income has fallen for the last three quarters. Over the last 30 days, analysts have not been optimistic about the company’s next-quarter performance. The average estimate for the third quarter is now 25 cents per share, down from 30 cents. For the fiscal year, the average estimate has moved down from $1.32 a share to $1.16 over the last thirty days.
