Home Properties, Inc.
Home Properties, Inc. is a company that develops, operates, and sometimes acquires apartment communities. It is a self-managed and administered Real Estate Investment Trust and operates in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Southeast Florida markets. Its communities generate returns in profits mainly because of the company’s improvements of their communities and their devotion to their customers.
The company has been in the business of providing housing for families and various communities since 1967. It currently now has 38, 071 apartments – 36,921 of which are owned, 868 are managed, and 282 are being managed for third party operations. Home Properties Inc. remains to be one of the preferred choices of various markets when it comes to housing.
The strategy of its business is to continue managing and improving their housing communities so that their net operation income will increase. It also concentrates on getting apartment communities that give high returns at low replacement costs.
An investment in Home Properties is low in risk but provides high dividends and has very good potential to appreciate through growth internally and externally. It also offers diversification benefits. The business focuses on already stable markets so buying them will cost less than the replacement costs.
The common stocks of Home Properties are traded on the New York Stock Exchange at its current stock price of $53.56. It reached its peak in 2006 and gradually decreased by 2007 but is slowly picking up in 2008. For the past three months starting from May 2008, Home Properties Inc. has been experiencing an upward trend so analysts are recommending holding stocks before doing anything just yet.
Gannett Co., Inc.
Frank Gannet initially made an investment and founded the Gannett Company, Inc. in 1923. The company had its headquarters originally in Rochester, New York until the management decided to move to Arlington County, Virginia in 1986. The Star-Gazette remains as Gannett’s oldest newspaper and is still in circulation. Its headquarters are located in Elmira, New York. Meanwhile, the main office of Gannet is now located at Tysons Corner, a suburb of Washington, D.C.
Gannet Company Inc. is the largest newspaper publisher in the United States based on the total daily circulation of its newspapers. Considered as a publicly-traded media in the US, it has several assets including the USA Weekend which is published weekly and the USA Today, a national newspaper. On the other hand, its most popular non-national newspaper is the Arizona Republic and this is published in Phoenix.
There are other holdings that Gannet owns such as The Enquirer in Cincinnati, The Tennessean in Nashville, The Indianapolis Star, The Des Moines Register, The Courier-Journal which is published in Louisville, The Detroit Free Press as well as The Honolulu Advertiser. Aside from these holdings, Gannet has also acquired properties in digital media which includes ShopLocal and PointRoll.
Today, many critics are against Gannet’s increasing trend regarding outsourcing or using of Asian labor to produce most of its advertisements.
AngloGold Ashanti Limited
Operating twenty one facilities in four continents, the AngloGold Ashanti Limited is already a certified expert when it comes to matters regarding gold mining and marketing. As a global gold producer, it has an essential project pipeline and a wide exploration program. It is aiming at improved performance of current assets through efficient cost management and heightened productivity.
Realizing how important opportunities are to the company, the AngloGold Ashanti Limited continues exploration and a dedicated acquisition method. With an increased return on investments and provision of dividends, future growth is very promising, especially on the part of shareholders.
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You can try buying, selling, or holding your share, but with AngloGold Ashanti Limited, it is just practical to buy more shares and earn extra. You only have to know what you think will go up or down in the stock market and when your decision was good, that’s extra money for you.
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Microsoft: New talks for alternative Yahoo deal
Microsoft Corp. is once again trying to team up with Yahoo Inc. to challenge Internet search and advertising leader Google Inc., although at this point the renewed talks haven’t escalated to another attempt to take over Yahoo.
The Redmond, Wash.-based software maker disclosed the revived discussions Sunday without providing any specifics about the nature of the deal being explored except to say it involved bolstering the companies’ position in the online search and advertising markets.
“There of course can be no assurance that any transaction will result from these discussions,” the statement said.
In a statement late Sunday, Yahoo said its board is exploring several “value maximizing” alternatives and “remain open to pursuing any transaction which is in the best interest of our stockholders.”
Microsoft emphasized that it hasn’t resurrected a $47.5 billion takeover bid that its chief executive, Steve Ballmer, withdrew May 3 after Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang — acting on behalf of Yahoo’s board — demanded an additional $5.5 billion.
But Microsoft left open the possibility that it might dangle another buyout offer of Yahoo, depending on how the discussions progress between the two companies and their respective shareholders.
Yahoo is facing intense pressure from its shareholders to reopen sales negotiations, with activist investor Carl Icahn threatening to replace the Sunnyvale-based company’s entire board unless a deal can be working out before Yahoo’s July 3 annual meeting.
Although Microsoft hasn’t been in touch with Icahn yet, the software maker reached out to Yahoo after the billionaire revealed his plans Thursday to lead a shareholder mutiny, according to two people familiar with the current status of the discussions. These people requested anonymity because they aren’t authorized to speak on behalf of the companies.
Microsoft’s latest talks with Yahoo could be aimed at providing an alternative to a search advertising partnership that Yahoo has been exploring with Google as part of its attempts to remain independent.
Last month, Yahoo completed a two-week test that allowed Google to use its superior technology to sell ads alongside a sliver of Yahoo’s search results. Since then, the two rivals have been mulling a long-term alliance that would likely raise antitrust concerns because the two companies combined control more than 80 percent of the U.S. search advertising market.
While Google’s help probably would provide Yahoo with a short-term lift, it might hurt Yahoo in the long run by making Google even stronger, according to some analysts.
Ballmer already has said Microsoft will be less interested in Yahoo if it cedes control of search advertising to Google. Icahn has urged Yahoo’s board not to enter into any deals, such as a Google partnership, that might diminish the company’s value to Microsoft.
Nevertheless, some analysts believe a formal partnership between Google and Yahoo could happen any day.
The mere acknowledgment that Microsoft and Yahoo are at least talking again will likely cause more investors to conclude it’s only a matter of time before the two sides work out an amicable deal.
The theory that Microsoft would eventually renew its takeover attempt helped cushion the blow to Yahoo’s stock since Ballmer withdrew an oral offer of $47.5 billion, or $33 per share, after Yang held out for $53 billion, or $37 per share.
Yahoo shares ended last week at $27.66, down by just $1, or 3 percent, since Ballmer walked away from the discussions. They were trading at $19.18 when Microsoft announced its initial bid of $31 per share Feb. 1.
Despite the intensifying pressure from Icahn and some of Yahoo’s major shareholders, Yang and Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock reiterated last week that they won’t sell the company for less than the board believes it’s worth.
While Yahoo’s board has set a $37-per-share target, many analysts believe Microsoft could probably seal a deal by offering $34 or $35 per share.
Most analysts believe Microsoft needs to make a dramatic move, such as buying Yahoo, to slow Google’s rapid rise as the Internet reshapes the way people interact with computers. The shift is weakening Microsoft’s core franchise of providing software tethered to the individual hard drives of personal computers.
“We continue to maintain our view that there is no other company that needs Yahoo as much as Microsoft and Microsoft does not have compelling plan-B without Yahoo,” Collins Stewart analyst Sandeep Aggarwal wrote in a research note last week.
Although it still ranks as technology’s richest company, Microsoft’s Internet expansion efforts have been largely ineffectual. Since the end of the company’s fiscal 2005, Microsoft’s online operations have lost $1.5 billion.
“The fact is that we are not where we want to be in this business yet and we’ve been in this position longer than we’d all like,” Kevin Johnson, the head of Microsoft’s online division, wrote in a Sunday e-mail to employees. Even if Microsoft can’t work out a deal with Yahoo, Johnson assured “we will be accelerating elements of our core strategy, and breaking ground in new areas.”
Microsoft’s latest advances in Internet advertising and search will be outlined in a conference this week, Johnson said.
Once the Internet’s kingpin, Yahoo was overtaken by the more nimble and innovative Google several years ago. With Yahoo’s profits shrinking and revenue growth decelerating, Yahoo lost about half its market value — more than $25 billion — in the two-year period leading up to Microsoft’s initial bid.
Yang, a Yahoo founder who became CEO 11 months ago, maintains the company is on the cusp of a turnaround that will boost net revenue by at least 25 percent in 2009 and 2010. That would be a dramatic improvement from the company’s recent net revenue gains of about 12 percent.
Microsoft first broached the possibility of forming a business alliance with Yahoo in late 2006, according to a letter that Ballmer released in February. In early 2007, Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo for about $40 per share, according to a person familiar with those discussions. The person didn’t want to be identified because that bid was never publicly disclosed.
AOL sheds its brand to draw specialty audiences
Unless you’re looking carefully, you’ll likely miss the fact that the new Asylum Web site for young men is a creation of Time Warner Inc.’s AOL. Same for WalletPop on personal finance, Spinner on indie music and StyleList on fashion.
The AOL brand is taking a back seat as the company long associated with dial-up Internet access for the masses quietly launches dozens of sites targeted at specialized audiences.
AOL figures that to grow its audiences — and draw additional advertising the company crucially needs to offset plunging revenue from its shrinking base of Internet access subscribers — it must break from a one-size-fits-all model and let its specialty sites set their own designs and editorial tone, shedding the AOL brand when necessary.
Bill Wilson, AOL’s executive vice president for vertical programming, said the company has been retaining the AOL name for some sites — AOL Body is one, after research showed women 25 and up respond well to the brand.
And the brand isn’t completely invisible even if AOL isn’t part of the site’s name. There’s usually a small AOL logo somewhere, along with links to other AOL sites. The right mix, Wilson said, is the product of research on what makes the most sense for consumers.
Take Asylum, which has grown into a leading site for young men since its December launch. The name was chosen partly to convey humor and irreverence.
“If we put it out as AOL Men, we got the feedback it wouldn’t connect,” said Mike Rich, a senior vice president who oversees Asylum and other specialty sites. “People just didn’t connect this type of content with the AOL brand.”
Wilson said AOL’s unbranding can help potential visitors know that the site isn’t part of its subscription service, which AOL started breaking down in late 2004 in favor of free, ad-supported sites.
AOL parent Time Warner was more blunt in a regulatory filing:
“If AOL cannot effectively build a portfolio of alternate brands that are appealing to Internet consumers, AOL may have difficulty in increasing the engagement of Internet consumers on its Web products and services. AOL believes that the `AOL’ brand is associated in the minds of consumers with its dial-up Internet access service.”
AOL is by no means alone in promoting alternative brands.
Google Inc. has its homegrown Orkut social-networking service alongside its Picasa photo products and YouTube video-sharing site, both brands that came in through acquisitions. On the other hand, the Keyhole brand disappeared when Google bought the mapping concern, which became Google Earth.
Yahoo Inc., meanwhile, has Flickr photos and recently launched Shine for women.
Microsoft Corp. has a slew of brand names, including MSN, Hotmail and Live.
But unbranding represents a reversal for AOL after it tried to make its Moviefone and Netscape acquisitions more AOL-like. Type in “Moviefone.com,” for instance, and you’re automatically redirected to “movies.aol.com.”
“AOL currently implies legacy. It implies old. It implies out of date,” said Rob Enderle, an industry analyst with the Enderle Group. “If you want to attract a new, young audience to a site, attaching ‘AOL’ is probably a kiss of death. They are wise to use the new individual property brands.”
