Month: April 2012

We have recently downgraded our recommendation on International Paper Company ( IP ) from Outperform to Neutral due to the integration risks associated with the Temple-Inland merger, margin headwinds and high debt levels. Mergers and acquisitions continue to be International Paper’s key strategy to strengthen its business for the long term. […]

Last week, Fiserv, Inc. ( FISV ) announced that Badan Sertifikasi Manajemen Risiko (BSMR) has again formed an alliance with Fiserv to develop and manage four educational financial risk management workshops in Indonesia in 2012. The primary intent of these workshops is to educate professionals in the risk management industry and provide them with practical first hand experience to increase proficiency in such aspects. […]

Continuing with its strategy of making acquisitions and thereby expanding its portfolio Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. ( VRX ) recently purchased US-based, privately owned specialty pharmaceutical company, Pedinol Pharmacal, Inc. The deal, expected to boost Valeant’s earnings immediately, is worth less than one and half times the sales recorded by Pedinol Pharma, a drug maker focused on foot-related disorders, in 2011 […]

We recently reiterated our recommendation on Atmel Corporation ( ATML ) Atmel is in the process of transforming itself into a purely microcontroller-based company, which it believes will improve its cost structure and unlock value. The company is focusing on its core Microcontroller business and is halting development in non-core areas with the aim of targeting high-growth and high-margin businesses. […]

The U.S. Energy Department's weekly inventory release showed that crude stockpiles jumped to their highest level since June 2011 amid a 1.9% drop in refinery utilization. However, on the bullish side, the agency’s report revealed that refined product inventories – gasoline and distillate – dropped sharply from their previous week levels […]

Itron, Inc. ( ITRI ) reached a new milestone with the installation of its four millionth smart meter by Southern California Edison (SCE). Earlier, SCE had installed Itron's smart meters and associated smart metering systems to support various programs and services which allow customers to manage their electricity usage and cut energy usage and utility bills. […]

Leading health care products maker Covidien ( COV ) recently revealed a definitive agreement to take over Oridion Systems Ltd. The boards of the two companies have inked the deal. Subsequently, a full subsidiary of Covidien will furnish $23.00 for each share of Oridion […]

Altera Corporation ( ALTR ) recently announced that one of its early customers in the Open CL for FPGAs program – goHDR has achieved successful results with the same. Altera Corporation manufactures a wide array of products such as programmable logic devices (PLDs) which consist of field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and complex programmable logic devices (CPLDs). These are standard semiconductor integrated circuits or chips which customers program to execute required logic functions in their electronic systems. […]

We continue to rate the shares of MGIC Investment Corp. ( MTG ) at Neutral prior to its fourth quarter earnings release. […]

We are downgrading our recommendation on The Travelers Companies Inc. ( TRV ) to Underperform from Neutral given its exposure to catastrophe losses and low interest rate environment, which will continue to weigh on the results. Cat loss almost quadrupled in the fourth quarter from the year-ago level due to early snowstorms in northeastern United States. […]

Fitch Ratings, the global credit rating firm, has reaffirmed the credit rating of BBB for Regency Centers Corporation ( REG ), a real estate investment trust (REIT). The BBB-rating denotes a fairly stable outlook with a relatively strong credit quality, low default risk, and adequate capacity to meet current financial commitments. […]

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services (S&P) allotted “B+” issuer credit rating (ICR) to DFC Global ( DLLR ) with a stable outlook. Concurrently, the credit rating agency also allotted “B+” rating to the company’s expected $200 million notes issue. DCF Global has also priced its proposed $200 million notes offering […]