Playboy’s (NYSE:PLA) Numbers Don’t Add Up to Much in Regard to the FriendFinder IPO
Jun 3rd, 2009 | By J. Christoph Amberger | Category: Stock Market InvestingA comparison of Playboy Enterprises, Inc. (NYSE:PLA) and Marvel Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:MVL) allows us to define the only proper strategy to trade the upcoming FriendFinder Networks IPO.
The times, they are a-changin’! These days, you could become 51% owner of Playboy Enterprises, Inc. (NYSE:PLA) for less than $50 million. I’m not sure what you’d do with half of Hef’s robe or half of his harem of nubile blondes. But it sure has a certain ring to it!
If you wanted to become half-owner of Marvel Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:MVL), however, you’d have to shell out $1.35 billion! Comic books are now worth 27 times as much as the well-written articles and witty cartoons that I hear are the sales engine of Playboy magazine.
The interesting part of this is that the demographic both businesses used to appeal to are nearly identical: Adolescent and post-adolescent male virgins.
Only that Playboy’s original audience apparently has outgrown the franchise. While Marvel’s demographics steadfastly refuses to grow up.
Of course, it’s never too late to have a happy childhood.
But there’s a lesson in it regarding what’s shaping up to be the most titillating IPO this year: After dragging their feet for over a year, “adult” social networking company FriendFinder Networks—which absorbed Playboy’s competitor Penthouse a while ago—filed it’s Form S1 with the SEC
on May 18.
The company remains heavily loss-making as free networking and porn sites are eroding what’s left of its market share. Whatever fizz there will be in the actual offering will be media-generated.
The proposed ticker for this stock is NYSE:FFN, which unfortunately remains taken by an unrelated company, the initial amount of the offering (filed last December) was $460 million.
It looks like a prime candidate to shorting the day after the IPO is launched.
Source: Playboy’s (NYSE:PLA) Numbers Don’t Add Up to Much in Regard to the FriendFinder IPO
Advertisement
42% on Nymox Pharmaceutical Corp....
23% on Emergent BioSolutions Inc....
38% on the first half of our position in a U.S. refiner...
26.68% on Synta Pharmaceuticals...
How's your favorite financial newsletter working out for you?
Hot Stock Confidential = Damn Good Stocks.
Learn more...
Amberger began his career as a freelance contributor to Agora publications before emigrating from Germany to the United States in 1989, when he joined the editorial board of Taipan. In 1991, he took over as managing editor for the publication and assumed responsibility as group publisher four years later. In 2007 Christoph left Taipan and founded Today's Financial News.
