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Apollo Group - A must have stock

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 18:12:57 EST

Apollo Group - A must have stock - by felicia

S&P500 stock - Apollo Group, Inc (NYSE:APOL)

Evergreen Education industry- A must have stock.

The U.S.Department of education estimates the secondary education to be a $350 billion industry. National center for educational statistics estimated that 39 percent of all students enrolled in higher education programs were over the age of 24. Many of them are not satisfied with the traditional mode of education. Many working students seek accredited degree programs that provide flexibility to accommodate the fixed schedules of their professional commitment. Traditional universities and colleges have limited ability to market and provide the necessary courses to working students. Non traditional universities such as Apollo Groups offerings are well suited to satisfy these demands.

All of Apollo Group's educational programs are available worldwide through its online educational delivery system.

The Institute for Professional Development provides program development and management consulting services, including degree program design, curriculum development, market research, student recruitment, accounting, and administrative services to regionally accredited private colleges and universities at 21 campuses and 36 learning centers in 23 states.

The College for Financial Planning Institutes Corporation provides financial planning education programs, graduate degree programs in financial planning, financial analysis, and finance and certification programs in retirement, asset management, and other financial planning areas through its campus in Colorado.

Western International University offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs at local campuses in Arizona and through various joint educational agreements, in China and India. It also an online high school and engages in the business of servicing cyber high schools and other online education.

The company was founded in 1973 and is headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona. Apollo Group, Inc. (Apollo Group) was incorporated in 1981. Apollo Group's combined degree enrollment for UPX and Axia College as of August 31, 2007, was approximately 313,700.

UPX is accredited by The Higher Learning Commission (The HLC) and is a member of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. UPX has replicated its teaching/learning model at 79 local campuses and 117 learning centers in 38 states and the District of Columbia; Puerto Rico; Alberta and British Columbia, Canada; Mexico; and The Netherlands. In Canada, UPX operates through Canadian subsidiary corporations. In Mexico, UPX operates through two subsidiary corporations. UPX also offers its educational programs worldwide through its online educational delivery system. UPX has customized computer programs for student tracking, marketing, faculty recruitment and training and academic quality management. These computer programs are intended to provide uniformity among UPX's campuses and learning centers, which enhances UPX's ability to expand into new markets while maintaining academic quality. UPX's tuition revenues represented approximately 93% of its consolidated revenues for the fiscal year ended August 31, 2007 (fiscal 2007).

WIU is accredited by HLC and offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs at one campus and four learning centers in Arizona, and, through various joint educational agreements, in China and India. IPD provides program development and management consulting services to regionally accredited private colleges and universities (Client Institutions) that are interested in expanding or developing their programs for working students. These services typically include degree program design, curriculum development, market research, student recruitment, accounting and administrative services. IPD provides these services at 21 campuses and 36 learning centers in 23 states in exchange for a contractual share of the tuition revenues generated from these programs.

John G. Sperling is founder, Acting Executive Chairman and a director of the Board of Apollo Group. Dr. Sperling was President of Apollo Group from its inception until February 1998, Chief Executive Officer of Apollo Group until August 2001, and Chairman of the Board until June 2004. Prior to his involvement with Apollo Group, from 1961 to 1973, Dr. Sperling was a professor of Humanities at San Jose State University where he was the Director of the Right to Read Project and the Director of the NSF Cooperative College-School Science Program in Economics.

Gregory W. Capelli Executive Vice President of Global Strategy and Assistant to the Executive Chairman. He spent 10 years as a research analyst for Credit Suisse. Before joining Credit Suisse, he was Vice President and Senior Research Analyst with ABN AMRO.

Terri Bishop is the Chief Communications Officer and Senior Vice President of Public Affairs.She has been with the Apollo Group of companies since 1982.She was the founding director of the University of Phoenix online campus, providing oversight during it's first 10 years of start up and development.

Career Education Corp.,DeVry, Inc., ITT Educational Services Inc. compete with Apollo in almost all the segments that it operates in. Total consolidated revenues for Apollo Group for the first quarter of fiscal year 2007 were $668.2 million, a 6.3% increase over the first quarter 2006, and total student growth was 8.6% versus a year ago. The University of Phoenix, Inc. ("UOP") accounted for 91.2% of the $619.8 million in net tuition revenues from students enrolled in degree programs for the quarter ended November 30, 2006. Revenue for the quarter ending February 28, 2006, to be $570 million.Tuition and other net revenues also include fees, application fees, and commissions from the sale of education-related products, other student fees, and other income. Tuition and other revenues are shown net of discounts relating to a variety of promotional programs. Such discounts totaled $18.3 million (3.3% of gross revenues) and $13.1 million (3.1% of gross revenues) in the three months ended November 30, 2004 and 2003, respectively.

Apollo Group recently reported 12% lower net income due to higher costs in marketing expenses and retention program costs. The earnings miss, poor retention rates, higher capex, and an options backdating probe has brought these shares down 20% from last month's prices. At $77, the company is trading at 32 times its trailing twelve month P/E. Its profit margin is 15.01 % in the current fiscal year. This year the education industry is expected to grow by 12 % whereas Apollo is estimated to grow by 14 %. Apollo has become a global giant offering courses in emerging economies like China and India where more attention is given to adult education than before. A 5 investment horizon will reap rich dividends as it is expected to grow at a rate of 20%.

AmerisourceBergen Corporation - I'm bearish h ere

Sun, 25 Nov 2007 14:59:44 EST

AmerisourceBergen Corporation - I'm bearish h ere - by felicia

S&P500 Stock - AmerisourceBergen Corporation (NYSE: ABC)

Its the retail story- But caution advised

This industry comprises establishments known as pharmacies and drug stores engaged in retailing prescription or non-prescription drugs and medicines. The Pharmacy and Drug Store industry in the US retails a range of prescription and over the counter (OTC) medicines, apothecaries, health and beauty items such as vitamin supplements, cosmetics and toiletries as well as offering photo processing services. Major industry supplies are sourced from the Drug and Druggist Sundries Wholesale industry, the Toilet Preparation Manufacturing industry, the Soap and Other Cleaning Compounds Manufacturing industry, and the Photographic Equipment and Supplies Wholesale industry.

AmerisourceBergen is in the drug retailing industry. National Association of Chain Drug Stores study reveals doctors give prescription to four out of every five patients they diagnose. Prescription drug sales were at a record $250 billion and this is expected to go up by another 75 percent in the next five years. Traditional drug stores, Mail order, Independent stores, Supermarket and mass merchants are the traditional avenues for drug retailing.

Sales Distribution

AmeriSource Health Corporation and Bergen Brunswig Corporation merged to form AmerisourceBergen Corporation. AmerisourceBergen Corporation is now the largest pharmaceutical services companies in the United States. It serves both pharmaceutical manufacturers and healthcare providers. The Company's drug distribution business model the aimed at reducing costs. It distributes generic pharmaceuticals, over-the-counter healthcare products, and home healthcare supplies and equipment. Acute care hospitals and health systems, independent and chain retail pharmacies, mail order facilities, physicians, clinics and other alternate site facilities, and skilled nursing and assisted living centers buy the drugs from AmerisourceBergen. Long-term care, workers' compensation and specialty drug patients benefit from the company's services. Growth of the pharmaceutical industry in the United States is mainly due to an aging population, introduction of New Pharmaceuticals, increased use of drug therapies, pharmaceutical supply channel changes, medicare and medicaid Legislative developments and expiration of patents for branded pharmaceuticals.

Pharmaceutical Distribution and PharMerica are its two operating models. The Pharmaceutical Distribution provides drug distribution and related services throughout the United States, Puerto Rico and Canada. The PharMerica segment is in the long-term care business and a workers' compensation-related business. Long-Term Care provides pharmacy products and services to patients in long-term care and alternate site settings like skilled nursing facilities, assisted living facilities and residential living communities throughout the United States. Long-Term Care's institutional pharmacy takes care of bulk quantities of prescription and nonprescription pharmaceuticals from Pharmaceutical Distribution segment, and the dispensing of those products to residents in long-term care and alternate site facilities.

Working with AmeriSourceBergen, drug retailers and institutional retailers can cut their cot of inventory as the company directly purchases from the manufacturers and supplies it on a just in time basis. This allows the retailers to focus on quality service.

R. David Yost is the President and Chief Executive Officer. He has been with AmerisourceBergen for a very long time serving under different capacities.

Michael D. DiCandilo is the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. He was with Ernst & Young for eight years before joining AmerisourceBergen.

Thomas H. Murphy is the Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer. He was with Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. before joining the company.

All the three key memebers have been with the company for a very long time to understand its business and operations.

McKesson,Cardinal Health, Omnicare, Henry Schein, Omnicell, Covance are its key competitors. But AmeriSourceBergen has been performing really well. The sales and profit has always shown a steady increase year on year. As always this company will declare slightly increased percentage sales at the end of the full financial year. Other smaller companies have emerged to take a small lead in terms of sales. A little caution is advised before buying the stocks.

Broncus Technologies Inc. - IPO - a buy

Fri, 23 Nov 2007 14:26:20 EST

Broncus Technologies Inc. - IPO - a buy - by felicia

Broncus Technologies Inc. - IPO (NASDAQ (GM): LUNG Proposed)

A good stock to own

Why? Because there's no company with a commercial solution to treat emphysema. Let me start with the industry overview to get a fair idea of how well Broncus Technologies is positioned to move from strength to strength.

National Center for Health Statistics found that 3.8 million adults were diagnosed with emphysema and many more still undiagnosed. Emphysema is responsible for $5 billion in direct health care costs. National Emphysema Treatment Trial study says $20,000 per patient is the cost for treatment. This particular study was co-sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. Emphysema develops due to chronic smoking and the characteristics of the diseases are difficult breathing and shortness of breath. The World Health Organization estimated 1.3 billion smokers worldwide. United States is the home for 45 million smokers. Currently there's no cure for this disease. Patients are encouraged to stop smoking to slow disease progression and in severe cases are prescribed supplemental oxygen.

Broncus has patented its Airway Bypass treatment method and uses Exhale emphysema product line to perform the bypass treatment. Airway Bypass is a catheter-based bronchoscopic procedure and helps the patients to breath easy. Typically air gets blocked in the lungs as tissues in the lungs die. Airway Bypass procedure uses Exhale Doppler Probe to search for these dead tissues and Exhale Transbronchial Dilation Needle creates new passages that bypass the collapsed airways and the trapped air exists from the lungs. The new passages created are kept open by Exhale Drug-Eluting Stents. This entire procedure reduces breathlessness. ( aargh...all ye smokers beware of the stents!!!). Broncus Technologies is a medical technology company focused on developing and commercializing minimally-invasive medical devices for emphysema and other lung diseases.

Cary B. Cole is the President, Chief Executive Officer. He was the co founder CompuRAD, Inc. Prior to this he worked with Lumisys Incorporated and engineered CompuRAD's merger with Lumisys.

Dean MacIntosh is the Senior Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer. Dean worked with WebEx Communications, Inc before joining Broncus. She took care of finance in Lumisys Incorporated.

Samuel L. Omaleki is the Vice President of Operations. He was with Access Closure, Inc, Radiant Medical, Inc, before joining Broncus.

Interestingly all the ex employers of this elite team dealt with medical imaging. This makes me conclude that this team has come together to form Broncus after prolonged thought and planning. The company at the moment seems to be in good hands.

As i mentioned earlier theres no one to challenge broncus but several start ups are exploring other possibilities to ease the sufferings. Large companies have directed their efforts to find a cure for emphysema. Until then the company will walk laughing all the way to the bank. The only hitch seems to FDA approval which will eventually be granted. But Broncus is classified as a development stage company and so far has not generated any revenues. Extensive clinical evaluation, regulatory review and approval is needed before it can market the Exhale product line.

The company has not yet announced the number of shares it wants to sell and the pricing, but watch for this stock. Its a good investment as long as smokers around the world live!!

CampusU - IPO, Expected on 10 Dec 2007

Fri, 23 Nov 2007 14:23:48 EST

CampusU - IPO, Expected on 10 Dec 2007 - by felicia

CampusU - IPO, Expected on 10 Dec 2007

Interesting - but be on your toes

The moment I read the word "online communities", I can see trailer load of dollars, particularly after Microsoft's adventure. CampusU offers an online community devoted to college student market, at least for the time being. I am interested in investing in this one. Here is why

360Youth and Jupiter Research conducted independent research and concluded college student spend $200 billion every year shopping. Out of this, $4 billion is spent online. With so many credit cards on offer for students, this does not surprise me. 87 percent of the college students use credit cards, declares Online Advertising Habits Survey. I always wonder when these survey results are published what number constitutes the percentage, so this time i checked another statistics. There are 115,000 schools, 53.5 million students and 3.5 million faculty and staff in the k-12 market. 5,700 educational institutions, more than 17.3 million college students and 1.5 million faculty and staff belong to the higher education market. To be fair 87 percent covers a lot of students. If i dissolve the age considerations of the students, then adults who are returning to school, both full-time and part-time add the numbers. For long online communities have always focused on the student market to begin their business the reason being, this segment offers huge opportunities for commerce, advertising and marketing revenue. Being a part time student i spend close to 25 hours a week on the net browsing and downloading stuff, now the same online ad habit survey says 95% of all college students own a computer. Out of these 30 percent spend 20 hours a week online buying the same stuff I do. Most K-12 students and the youth in higher education are idealistic and prefer to take a stand on any and all topics. CampusU intends to exploit this by asking these college students to buy the brands on offer and show their loyalty life long.

CampusU generates money (note: not earns) selling all its products and services to college students. These idealistic students should find a compelling reason to use the online community, CampusU offers blogs, videos and other multimedia content all generated by the students. All products and services are sold at discount prices of 80 percent. The company boasts of 8,000 distinct name-brand software and other technology products available at discounted prices. Manufacturers have made these products available on the condition that the sale be to students and other qualified purchasers in the academic community. So how does the company maintain its integrity? National Student Clearinghouse is a non-profit organization which maintains student's official school picture identification card and CampusU verifies all its buyers electronically. For teachers and academic institutions purchase orders on school stationery as confirmation of academic status is accepted. Advertisers deliver products and messages directly to college students on a regular basis and while students but on the websites through company's Internet marketing programs. So this forms a niche audience to target ads based on the student preferences. E-commerce activities are conducted through its campustech.com website.

Robert S. Frank is the President and Chief Executive Officer. He is an attorney by profession and used to work with Weil, Gotshal & Manges and Rosenman & Colin law firm. F3 Software Corporation, MCI Communications Corp., and the Hamilton Securities Group are some of the other places he has worked.

Christopher Eimas is the Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. He handled Time Warner AOL's new products division's finances before joing CampusU. Before this he helped VIA NET.WORKS, Inc with its Initial public offerings. He served in the finance divisions of MCI and Price Waterhouse.

Susan Hogan is the Vice President, Marketing and Sales and is considered to be a key employee. She was the Senior Marketing Account Executive for Technology Resource Center, Inc.

Andrew Fredrick is the Vice President of Systems and Operations and again a classified as a key employee. Virtual Business group, Sprint Nextel Corporation,PeopleSoft ERP Consultant are some of the places he has worked.

The other Key employee according the company is Ramendra Singh who is the Director of Business Development. He joined CampusU from Time Warner AOL. He started his career in IBM Global Services, India before changing jobs.

As i mentioned earlier CampusU competes with MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube, now owned by Google, Inc. All these companies target the youth audience and have blockbuster business model to generate revenues. Besides these big companies have started making profits. Apple Computer and Microsoft have always offered discounts to the educational institutions and students. CampusU needs to bring it own block buster application to raise above the herd.

I noticed the company has raked in $11.9 million in 2006 which is a 73 percent increase from the previous year. This year, until September the company says it has increased sales to 112.6 percent. No set number of dollars is mentioned. But this percentage increase is commendable in itself. The company plans to generate sales through its marketing and media businesses by the end of year 2007. CampusU does not have any fixed agreement with the advertisers and hence does not generate any revenues at the moment from them, but intends to start post its listing.

The company is offering 3,500,000 for sale and has priced the shares between $5.5-$6. This i feel is a reasonable price considering it focuses on niche segment to do business.

Social networking sites have been a target for takeovers for a long time. The service offerings generally compliment the acquirers business strategies. CampusU for the moment does not have any differentiating factor to attract advertisers and users. But the current product portfolio is good. If I log in to buy a product I can connect with communities to understand the quality before I can buy. The data and habits of users that CampusU collects will be invaluable when it starts signing agreements with advertisers. CampusU will get greater visibility because of the IPO, and might generate some interest from different sectors. For the moment I feel this stock is a good investment.

IPO - K12 Inc - Good long term investment

Fri, 23 Nov 2007 14:20:51 EST

IPO - K12 Inc - Good long term investment - by felicia

IPO - K12 Inc

A great investment for a long term

We have online universities; online graduate schools, and now comes online public school. Education as a business is greener than the greenest grass. From brick and mortar classrooms to online classroom has been slow to evolve, but it has caught the fancy of the world. The possibilities are without any limits and without the confines of geographic boundaries.

The U.S. market for Kindergarten to 12th grade or K-12 education is massive by any standards. U.S. Department of Education says 49 million students enrolled in K-12 public schools in 2006 and this bound to be higher this year. Next National Home Education Research says 2 million students are home schooled and 5 million students are enrolled in private schools. This study covered 17,000 districts and discovered 98,000 public schools. It finally concludes $558 billion was spent in K12 education in 2006.

Parents have always been demanding increased standards and for political mileage lawmakers have joined them, but this not idle talk, each state is required to establish standards to gauge performance. This can happen only with more and more innovations. The other constant worry for all parents is the attention their child gets in these schools. Some students are special and need undivided attention, some are slow learners and need encouragement, some are just not interested, innovative activities needs to be developed to hold their attention. These kind of varieties led to the formation of charter schools in 1988 as an alternative to traditional classroom based education. These charter schools are publicly funded schools and are free from some of the rules, regulations, and statutes that apply to other public schools, in exchange for some type of accountability for producing certain results. Due to the popularity of this mode of imparting education, there are now 4000 charter schools across 40 states.

Besides this online education and testing is now slowly catching on as it offers flexibility to students and allows parents to get directly involved in the child's progress. Online testing is now wide spread now. Michigan became the first state to pass legislation mandating that high school students take part in an "online learning experience" in order to graduate. Virtual school is one approach to online learning. Center for Education Reform has checked 173 virtual schools where 92,000 students have enrolled. These schools are spread across in 18 states.

K12 is one such Virtual Public school. Kindergarten to 12th grade are exposed to its proprietary curriculum and educational services. The company has spent $100 million to develop curriculum and an online learning platform and establish its intent. Curriculum is designed after conducting extensive research and includes a personalised approach, accounting for the child's weakness and needs. 39,500 students were enrolled as of 2007, this is an increase from an earlier 11,000 students. Accounting for this growth compound annual growth rate is 35 percent. An engaging online curriculum has been developed to hold the child's fickle attention. This is combined with system to test and assess students and processes to manage school performance and compliance. The proprietary software enables teachers to utilize technology for instruction. K12 proudly says all students who have been using this learning system for three years perform better on standardized tests.Internal survey by K12 reveals 97 percent of parents and students were happy with the curriculum. This means increased referrals and reduced marketing expenses. K12 provides assignments, complete lessons, and obtain instruction from certified teachers. Parents who wish to embrace private school but cannot do so for compelling economic reasons will find K12's offering a cheaper alternative. Virtual public schools saves taxpayers money when compared with traditional public schools. U.S. Department of Education said virtual schools need lower per pupil funds than the per pupil state average.

How does the system work? As with any public school, these Virtual schools meet state educational standards, administer exams.The difference is that students need not travel to physical classroom but instead attend virtual public schools primarily. Since this system of imparting education is cost effective, students from different economic back grounds can enrol for quality education. K12 gets its enrollments through 32 virtual public schools. These schools then enroll students on a statewide basis in 17 states and the District of Columbia. The services are custom designed so these districts can launch their own distance learning programs. The services include student account management systems, administrator and teacher training programs, and student placement support. Parents have the option of directly purchasing the curriculum and online learning platform supplement their children's education. Parents no longer need to worry about the safety of the schools or travel constraints.

Ron Packard is the founder and CEO. He worked with McKinsey & Company and Goldman Sachs before founding K12.

John F. Baule is the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer. He worked with Headstrong, Bristol-Myers Squibb before joining K12.

Connections Academy, LLC, White Hat Management, LLC and National Network of Digital Schools are K12's competitors. Traditional textbook publishers like McGraw-Hill Companies, Harcourt, Inc., Pearson plc and Houghton Mifflin Riverdeep Group plc pose a significant threat. post-secondary and supplementary education providers, Apollo Group, Pearson plc and Kaplan, Inc. are snapping at K12's feet for long. K12 along with its competitors face the threat of closure as regulators are battling in the court to stop such online learning activities. But since K12 is regulated in all the states it operates, it can comfortably look into the future.

K12 intends to sell 6,000,000 shares to be priced at $16- $18. It intends to use the money for developing new courses and products. And also to retire its debt. In the year 2007, revenues increased to $140.6 million, net loss decreased to $3.9 million. Contracts with virtual schools provide the basis for a recurring revenue stream as students progress through successive grades. Since physical classroom are not required, virtual school can be scaled quickly to include entire student population. This allows more capital resources to be allocated towards teaching, curriculum and technology rather than physical infrastructure. Students who start early and who remain for a longer duration as and when they progress over the years bring in recurring revenues as well. For the moment K12 has a good business model and i propose to invest a major chunk of my savings in this IPO.

IPO - Triple-S Management Corporation

Fri, 23 Nov 2007 14:14:51 EST

IPO - Triple-S Management Corporation - by felicia

IPO - Triple-S Management Corporation- (NYSE: GTS Proposed)

A Must have Stock in the Portfolio

Triple-S Management Corporation is cozily entrenched in the Puerto Rican economy. It is in the managed care business since 1959 and is now the number one company in the territory. The company is a good buy from all measures.

An increasing focus on health care costs by employers, the government and consumers has led to the growth of alternatives to traditional indemnity health insurance. HMOs and PPOs were introduced by the managed care industry in an attempt to contain the cost of health care by negotiating contracts with hospitals, physicians and other providers to deliver health care to members at favorable rates. PPO products generally provide reduced benefits for out-of-network services, while traditional HMO products generally provide little to no reimbursement for non-emergency out-of-network utilization. These products usually feature medical management and other quality and cost measures such as pre-admission review and approval for certain non-emergency services, pre-authorization of certain outpatient surgical procedures, network credentialing to determine that network doctors and hospitals have the required certifications and expertise, and various levels of care management programs to help members better understand and navigate the medical system. Providers may have incentives to achieve certain quality measures or may share medical cost risk. Members generally pay co-payments, coinsurance and deductibles when they receive services. An HMO plan may also require members to select one of the network primary care physicians to coordinate their care and approve any specialist or other services.

The federal government provides hospital and medical insurance benefits to eligible persons aged 65 and over as well as to certain other qualified persons pursuant to the Medicare program, including the Medicare Advantage program. The federal government also offers prescription drug benefits to Medicare eligibles, both as part of the Medicare Advantage program and on a stand- alone basis, pursuant to Medicare Part D (also referred to as PDP stand alone product). In addition, the government of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico provides managed care coverage to the medically indigent population of Puerto Rico through the Reform program.

Total annual premiums in Puerto Rico for the life insurance market approximate $700 million. The main products in the market are ordinary life, cancer and other dreaded diseases, term life, disability and annuities. The main distribution channels are through independent agents and banks.

The total property and casualty insurance market in Puerto Rico is $1.8 billion. There are no new sources of business in this segment, and property and casualty insurance companies compete for existing accounts through aggressive pricing, more favorable policy terms and better quality of services. The main lines of business in Puerto Rico are personal and commercial auto, commercial multi peril, fire and allied lines and other general liabilities. Approximately 70% of the market is written by the top six companies in terms of market share, and approximately 80% of the market is written by companies incorporated under the laws of Puerto Rico.

The economy of Puerto Rico is closely linked to that of the mainland United States, as most of the external factors that affect the Puerto Rico economy are determined by the policies and results of the United States. These external factors are exports, direct investment, the amount of federal transfer payments, the level of interest rates, the rate of inflation, and tourist expenditures. During the fiscal year ended June 30, 2006, approximately 83% of Puerto Rico's exports went to the United States mainland, which was also the source of approximately 51% of Puerto Rico's imports. In the past, the economy of Puerto Rico has generally followed economic trends in the overall United States economy.

Triple-S Management Corporation is the largest managed care company in Puerto Rico covering 25% of the population. This percent in terms of numbers translate to 1 million members. The company has the exclusive rights to use the Blue Shield name and mark throughout Puerto Rico. Its Portfolio covers managed care and related products in the Commercial, Medicare and the Reform ,similar to Medicaid and life insurance and property and casualty insurance. Corporate accounts, federal and local government employees and individuals to Medicare recipients and Reform enrollees are its members.

I have highlighted the details of its managed care products.

Health Maintenance Organization (HMO)- Provides health care coverage Reform and Medicare Advantage members for a fixed monthly premium. Health care covers emergency care, inpatient hospital and physician care, outpatient medical services and supplemental services, such as dental, vision, behavioral and prescription drugs.

Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) - Provides its members and their dependent family members with health care coverage for a fixed monthly premium.

BlueCard- BlueCard program offers members the access to Blue Cross Blue Shield plans in the United States. This is for its PPO members only.

Medicare Supplement - Provides supplemental coverage for many of the medical expenses.

Life insurance - Covers group life coverage funeral and cancer policies.

Property and casualty insurance includes commercial multiple peril, commercial property mono-line policies, auto physical damage, auto liability and dwelling insurance.

Ramón M. Ruiz-Comas is the President,Chief Executive Officer. He is a Certified Public Accountant and worked with KPMG LLP before joining Triple-S.

Juan J. Román-Jiménez is the Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer again an ex KPMG LLP.

Medical Card Systems Inc is its nearest competitor with a market share of 22 percent. Aveta Inc, Humana Inc., are not far behind to steal its business.

Triple-S wants to sell a total of 14,000,000 shares and has priced the deal between $16- $18. The company intends use the money for capital expenses and further expansion and acquisition. In the year ended December 31, 2006, total revenue was $1.6 billion. Majority from its managed care businesses. The rest from from life insurance and property and casualty insurance businesses. In 2007, total revenue generated was $1.2 billion, because the data is until September. Its customer retention rate is 90%. Considering a small population, this is big.

IPO - Entropic Communications, Inc - Looking Good

Thu, 22 Nov 2007 16:46:46 EST

IPO - Entropic Communications, Inc - Looking Good - by felicia

IPO - Entropic Communications, Inc

Strong Potential

Entropic wants to change the way HD video and other multimedia content such as movies, music, games and photos are brought into and delivered throughout the home. This propels me to start thinking about their products and business. Just can't wait to get my hands on some of its shares.

A leading fabless Semiconductor Company, designs, develops and markets systems solutions to enable connected home entertainment. A founding member of MoCA, Multimedia over Coax Alliance, it builds chip sets on these global standards for distribution of video content over the co axial cable. It has remained a pioneer of technologies of content delivery. Video communications, networking algorithms and protocols, system-on-a-chip design, embedded software, mixed signal and radio frequency integrated circuit design, and communications and radio frequency systems form the companie's core competencies. The technology helps in streaming video, voice and data services through the co axial cable infrastructure.

Yankee group says in 2006 cable service providers generated average revenue per user of $68.50 per month from digital cable television subscribers compared to $36.94 from broadband access subscribers, while telecommunications carriers generated average revenue per user of $47.09 per month from traditional voice subscribers and $32.81 from broadband access subscribers. A successful video offering is critical for service providers to increase average revenue per user, drive subscriber growth and reduce subscriber turnover. Competition is intense among service providers seeking to maximize revenues. This has led to a revolution in the delivery of video and other multimedia content into and throughout the home. Differentiate offerings like high-definition television, video on demand, voice and broadband data is being offered to the customers leading to increased infrastructure investment by the service providers.

Variety of video, music, photos and other multimedia content is being converted from analog to a digital format. This makes an increase in the availability of digital multimedia content. This is a revenue opportunity for the service provider. A number of multimedia applications utilize digital video and other multimedia content for consumer home entertainment. Some examples of these applications include video "timeshifting", or the ability to pause, fast forward and rewind live or stored video, the ability to watch and record multiple television shows at once, video on demand, personal computer-to-television personal content sharing, multi-room and online gaming, and streaming of downloaded movies stored on a personal computer to a television. According to IDC, approximately 90% of households in the United States, or 99 million households, subscribe to pay-television services including cable, satellite and telecommunications carrier television services. S2 Data Corporation estimates approximately 500 million households worldwide to have cable or satellite pay-television subscriptions by 2011, representing nearly 50 percent of total worldwide television

FCC's mandate that all television broadcasts in the U.S. be in digital format by 2009 has spurred the demand. As a result, according to S2 Data Corporation, the number of households with single or multiple HDTVs is expected to increase from 20 million in 2006 to more than 60 million in 2011. The Consumer Electronics Association estimates that an average U.S. household has three televisions, one desktop personal computer, one notebook or laptop personal computer, and a growing number of other digital multimedia devices such as DVRs, DVD players, CD players, MP3 players and gaming consoles. This is now a worldwide phenomenon. DVRs represent one of the fastest growing consumer electronics device categories. CEA estimates that one in four U.S. households now own a DVR and projects that household penetration may reach 33% by the end of 2007. Tremendous opportunity lies in seamlessly bridging these devices.According to iSuppli, the number of network-enabled devices is expected to increase from 321 million in 2007 to 760 million in 2011, representing a compound annual growth rate of approximately 24%. To address this opportunity, service providers are introducing new customer premises equipment and service offerings such as multi-room DVR, which allows for video "placeshifting", or the ability to access content from multiple locations and devices

High bandwidth,Cost-effective deployment, Co-existence with other services and devices,Security will be expected from any technology in order for these service providers to enable the distribution of content while maintaining the requisite high-quality standards demanded by subscribers.

High bandwidth is needed for streaming video, real-time visual experience. If there is any kind of delay in delivery of these digital packets then the Video will appear distorted causing frustration in the household.

Cost-effective deployment for service providers to leverage the existing installed network infrastructure.Service providers prefer plug-and-play installation of new services as opposed to having to dispatch a service vehicle to customer premises, often referred to as a "truck roll." Service providers are focused on saving installation time and minimizing customer service calls, thereby reducing total costs to deliver video services

Consumers have easy access to a wide range of communication services which is delivered using different technology platforms. Co-existence with these services and devices needs to be addressed to avoid any escalation in cost and degradation in services.

Protection should be given to the consumer's content as a networking of devices and services are prone to leaks. Hence security paramount for service providers

Entropic systems solutions comprises of silicon integrated circuits and associated software as a platform to enable delivery of multiple streams of HD video and other multimedia content into and throughout the home. Video communications, networking algorithms and protocols are offered as a combined platform. Entropic has developed physical layer and media access controller protocols as well as networking, routing and security protocols.

Its products get classified into four categories.

Home Networking: c.LINK technology which was designed helps delivery of high definition video content seamlessly to any of the networked device.

Broadband Access or c.LINK access helps in video and data networking using existing coax cable infrastructure. This technology is used for data distribution, video streaming, video conferencing and VOIP.

DBS Outdoor unit helps the reception of multiple channels from various satellites through a single cable.

Silicon TV Tuners works with satellite, cable and terrestrial applications. This helps in reducing the investment required for a change to the new technology.

Patrick Henry is the Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer. His experience includes start ups and large companies. Pictos Technologies, LinCom Wireless, LSI Logic, C-Cube Microsystems, AMD and Hynix have helped Patrick hone his skills.

Mark Foley is the President & Chief Operating Officer. He started his career in Adams Russell Electronics and Ford Aerospace where he took care of the sales. Conexant and ComStream followed post which he started RFmagic which is looked upon with awe as Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits builders.

Itzhak Gurantz is the Chief Technology Officer. He co-founded ComStream Corporation. He led the development of integrated circuits solutions for digital DBS, digital cable STB and cable modems, digital wireless STB and others.

David Lyle is the Chief Financial Officer.He has taken care of finances for Rfmagic and Broadcom before joining Entropic.

This is the elite team of Entropic.

Entropic is the only supplier for MoCA compliant chipsets for home networking solutions.Ethernet, HomePNA, Home Plug AV, Wi-Fi and WiMedia offer products based on non-MoCA home networking solutions. DOCSIS, xDSL and WiMAX are well established broadband technology and these are main competitors for Entropic's broadband offer. In the digital broadcast satellite market, band translation switch and channel stacking switch products face competition from discrete solution providers and other semiconductor manufacturers. In the market for television tuners, silicon television tuners face competition from silicon and non-silicon tuners that offer similar functionality

Entropic proposes to sell 10,000,000 shares and has priced the deal between $9 and $10. The company wants to use the money thus raised for capital expenditure and to retire some of its debt. Needless to say this IPO will give it an increased visibility. It was predicted in the year 2004 that the cable TV landscape is bound to undergo a tremendous change. This was the period when networking giant Cisco Systems, cable provider Comcast, satellite provider EchoStar Communications, chip maker Entropic Communications, retailer RadioShack and consumer electronics makers Panasonic, Motorola and Toshiba formed the the Multimedia over Coax Alliance to develop standards and promote the use of coaxial cable to send high-quality video, voice and data between a variety of household devices, such as TVs, digital video recorders and PCs. Today the phrase tremendous change is an understatement. The companies share is bound to open at a huge premium and 10 year outlook makes me drool at the earning possibilities.

IPO - Iggys House Inc - Careful on this one

Thu, 22 Nov 2007 16:43:41 EST

IPO - Iggys House Inc - Careful on this one - by felicia

IPO - Iggys House Inc

Caution Caution!

Iggys sounds interesting but I would stay away from it for now.

The first question I ask myself while analyzing any IPO is whether there is a chance of getting the stock any cheaper once demand and supply forces start dictating its price. Especially when there is a sector that is going through turmoil, a sector that includes companies that finance customers of your product/service are not being too kind as compared to the past; there is a great chance of a draw down in the short term.

Iggys House brings a smile on buyers and sellers by providing real estate solutions online and sharing 75 percent of the commission that it receives from sellers, with the buyers. This spurs activity on the website as buyers make money each time they buy real estate from Iggys. To acquire and retain sellers Iggys offers free multiple listing services, or MLS as it is known. This means sellers can post their homes for no charge at all. The service was launched under the Iggys brand name on March 2007 and since then 11,500 properties have been posted on the website.

Iggys calls its services Buy-side real estate services and Sell-side real estate services. Buy-side services are offered in six states in the US representing 26 percent of the home market. Buyers have access to a database of 600,000 MLS listings and the company's proprietary software allows buyers to schedule home visits, make offers and monitor each step of the offer/counteroffer process. The Average transaction is more than $570,000. This allows Iggys to pay $11,000 as incentive to the buyers.(I started searching for homes on Iggys!!!).

Sell-Side real estate services. Sellers get a free MLS listing and hence appear on major websites, most notable is realtor.com. Iggys is the only company providing such listing for no charge covering 20 states. Sellers and agents from all over the country can list and write marketing materials to sell their home. Iggys says it offers these service for no charge as most sellers happen to be buyers as well. So theres a cross selling happening.

Buy-side services was launched in April 2006 in three states, California, Florida and Illinois. Georgia came next in June 2006 then followed Virginia in July 2006 and Washington in June 2007. Sell-side services took birth on March 2007 in 20 states. Mortgage brokerage operations in California started in May 2007, and in Florida in September 2007. BuySide Realty, Inc.,Iggys House Realty, Inc are the principal subsidiaries. BuySide takes care of buy-side service and Iggys House takes care of MLS service.

National Association of Realtors said 6.5 million existing homes were sold in the U.S. in 2006. REAL Trends which is a provider of news, research and consulting services to real estate industry participants, said $59.7 billion was paid as residential real estate brokerage commissions in 2006.National Association of Realtors again estimates that the percentage of buyers using the Internet to search for homes increased from 41% in 2001 to 80% in 2006. This has empowering buyers to independently search for homes. California Association of Realtors says using the Internet in the home sale process has increased from 9% in 2002 to 62% in 2006 in California. Interestingly studies have shown that most buyers find their homes all by themselves as they are dissatisfied with traditional real estate agents. Iggys has put a biggie foot forward at the right time!

41 year old Joseph Fox is Chief Executive Officer. He co founded Web Street, Inc., an online stock brokerage firm, in 1996, took it public and then sold it to E trade Group.

45 year old Joseph Barr is the Chief Financial Officer. ReView Video LLC, Web Street, Arthur Andersen LLP were the places where he handled the fiances before taking over Iggys's finances.

David Homan is the Vice President-Technology Operations. DeVry Inc, Attenuate Group Inc forms part of his work experience.

Traditional brokerage firms will always remain Iggys competitors. Prudential Financial, Inc., RE/MAX International Inc. and Realogy Corporation are Iggys's sworn competitors with their national brokerage firms or franchisors. Realogy owns the Century 21, Coldwell Banker and ERA franchise brands.Non-traditional real estate brokerage firms such as ZipRealty, Inc., iNest Realty, Inc. (a subsidiary of IAC/Interactive Corp) and Redfin Corporation form the second set of competitors for Iggys because these companies offer cash rebates to clients. The third set of competitors is discount real estate listing services, such as ForSaleByOwner.com and BuyOwner.com. Iggys advantage in comparison is the no fee for MLS listing in contrast to the fees charges by ForSaleByOwner.com and BuyOwner.com.

To raise money Iggys wants to sell 1,400,000 shares of its common stock and has priced it at $6 per share. It intends to use the money from the proceeds for expanding its operations and invest in its brand through advertising and marketing. Iggys has a vision of developing its technology infrastructure and systems.

Before the sub prime mess affordability and availability of mortgage financing spurred demand for homes. After the sub prime mess financing comes with loads of conditions that will deter new home buys. Iggys will go through a rough patch initially. But as and when the years progress more and more consumers will opt for Iggys service as it offers them an incentive. An investment horizon of less than five years does not make a lot of sense to me. A longer term than that is what I would look at.

3PAR Inc, Review - A buy

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:53:58 EST

3PAR Inc, Review - A buy - by felicia

Good Listing, will buy it

IDC estimates 2007 global market for Storage business at $8.5 billion. Traditional SAN (Storage area network) and NAS (network attached storage) needs huge storage silos. To manage this, investment is needed in networking infrastructure such as switches, appliances and management software. Along with this Companies have to deal with inefficiencies and limitations like slow storage services, performance bottlenecks and under- utilization. Because of the ever increasing demand for storage and responsiveness these traditional technologies are proving to be inadequate. Utility storage such as virtualization, automation and clustering to create shared infrastructures for flexible workload is slowly emerging as the in thing. Organizations are able to significantly improve their storage environment with higher storage utilization, better data management and more calculative administrative costs by deploying these next generation technologies. To top it all utility storage products enhance service delivery and storage economics by offering higher performance at a lower total lifetime cost of ownership.

Founded by veterans of Sun Microsystems 3PAR started operations in May 1999, 3PAR does business in the high-end storage market. The company's storage servers and software allows large enterprises pool their storage assets across multiple departments or lines of business, consolidating data management while allowing differentiated service levels. Its customers include medium and large corporations and government agencies worldwide. It markets primarily through a direct sales force, utilizing resellers in some Asian and European markets. Solutions offered is simple, efficient and massively scalable tiered storage arrays designed to dramatically enhance the economics and performance of storage. The technology is designed to enhance storage services by reducing administrative costs, improving server and storage utilization, lowering power requirements and scale efficiently to support the continuous growth of data. Utility computing is an emerging IT architecture that virtualizes application servers and storage arrays, to create shared infrastructures for workload consolidation that can enable services to be delivered more rapidly, flexibly, reliably and economically. Utility computing aims to capture key advantages of both mainframe computing and client/server, distributed computing and improves efficiency in the storage infrastructure.

3PAR delivers utility storage solution through InServ Storage Server arrays powered by InForm Suite of software. Shipments of these servers and sofware started in March 2002 and so far have shipped over 400 systems to more than 200 end customers. Some of the big clients that 3PAR services are Credit Suisse Group, Department of Justice (FBI), Dow Jones & Company, Inc., MySpace.com, Omniture, Inc., Priceline.com, SAVVIS, Inc., TransUnion LLC, United States Census Bureau, USinternetworking, Inc. (an AT&T company), Verizon Business and the Virginia Information Technologies Agency.

EMC Corporation, Hitachi Data Systems Corporation, IBM, Network Appliance, Inc., Hewlett-Packard Company, Sun Microsystems, Inc. and Dell Inc. are 3 PAR's biggest competitors. Since all these companies have better name recognition, a larger base of customers and more established customer relations, 3PAR needs to do a lot things right to garner a significant market share. The other area of concern is that these companies control and influence a particular industry standard which might not work in 3PAR's favour. In the same breath these companies have the strength to offer bundled IT solutions along with the servers which 3PAR does not do so at the moment. Since 3PAR has introduced a new product it will devote a lot of time in educating customers and hence the sales cycle is prolonged and frustrating. 3PAR uses third party vendors to supply its hardware, if these big companies gang up against 3PAR then significant losses will have to be accounted for. And lastly the company has a history of losses.

Top Management is in good hands, no problems there.

CEO- David C Scott is a veteran from Hewlett-Packard Company

CFO- Adriel G. Lares comes from Techfuel Inc. He was also with Morgan Stanley as an investment banking analyst in the technology practice

CTO- Ashok Singhal is the co founder and was a member of the architecture team at Sun Microsystems.

3PAR intends to use proceeds from the IPO for working capital and to finance growth, develop new products. It also intends to repay outstanding borrowings. As of June 30, 2007, the company had $8.8 million outstanding under a revolving line of credit. The revolving line of credit expires on March 31, 2008. For the time being 3PAR is working on a good technology and as long as it stays focused, it'll be in this business for a long time. The first half of this year top line has seen a whopping 51% spike to $57.1 million. This is a good long term bet.

The great Rubicon Technology, Inc

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 14:18:05 EST

The great Rubicon Technology, Inc - by felicia

Rubicon Technology, Inc

Evolving Science. Evolving Evolution, trumpets the tag line. For more emphasis, it has shortened this to ES2 and then adds "Evolving science makes evolving solutions possible. So Rubicon puts enormous energy into technology for today, and research and development for tomorrow." Looks like some copywriter burnt the midnight oil. Rubicon builds sapphire substrates and components. Rubicon's sapphires are used in making Light emitting Diodes(LED), radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs), blue laser diodes, optoelectronics and other optical applications.

Its LED's are used in mobile displays, flashes for digital camera, back lighting in laptops desktops and LCD television, display signs, car lights, traffic signals and general lighting.RFIC is used in mobile phones, broadband television set-top boxes, satellites and radiation-hardened applications for the defense industry and finally Optical applications include Blu-ray high definition DVD drives which is currently in vogue as manufacturers are battling for standardisation of this technology in the highly fragmented HD DVD storage devices.

For the layman

Substrate (with reference to this company) is a body or base layer of an integrated circuit, onto which other layers are deposited to form the circuit.Rubicon builds substrates from Sapphire for all its applications since Sapphire is radiation resistant. This Sapphire is cut in the form of a thin wafer. It is then used as the electrical ground for the circuit. The Sapphire used for such manufacture is synthetically produced, man made. "Boule" is the term used in material science language to describe a single crystal ingot.This boule is then cut with a diamond saw to produce the familiar wafers onto which the integrated circuits are etched.

Rubicon calls its evolving science as ES2 technology. Its claim to fame through ES2 tech is its Proprietary manufacturing. ES2 covers everything from Research and development to fabrication, polishing and quality assurance. All this is in house and proprietary. This, to use a more overused phrase, gives Rubicon a distinct edge. The technology covers five distinct and fast growing markets around which all its products are designed,

1. Opto- Electronics- this is where all LEDs are discussed about.

2. Compound semiconductor- this market covers everything that includes the word electronics

3. Semiconductor fabrication- Sapphire is slowly taking over this industry due to its chemical mechanical and heat resistant properties.

4. Optical & Laser- this covers medical, photography and the scanning industry.

5. Telecommunications- Rubicons products are targeted for all portable devices used for telecommunication.

Raja M. Parvez is the president and CEO of the company. His experience includes a stint in CyOptics, Inc, Optigain, Inc,Lucent Technologies Incidentally all these companies deal with optical and semiconductors. So he happens to be a natural choice to head Rubicon.

William F. Weissman is the CFO, treasurer and Secretary. He joined the company after a successful innings in Kanbay International, Inc.

Hap R. Hewes is the senior VP for Sales and marketing. He was with Saint-Gobain Crystals Division and Saphikon, Inc. Both these companies deal with crystals and spphires.

Rubicon has 122 employees, all devoted to developing their sapphire technologies. Its 2006 sales stands at $20.8 million and 27.2 percent is its one year sales growth. In the same year it was estimated that Rubicon's performance outpaced the overall industry estimates. In May 2007 the company announced an increase in its manufacturing output and proposes to still increase it by 40 percent in the first quarter of 2008. Cross Atlantic Capital Partners, River Cities capital funds, AH Ventures, KB Partners, Gazelle TechVentures and more recently Hercules Technology Growth Capital was in the news after providing late stage funding to the tune of $16 million. Rubicon now wants to issue 6,700,000 and hopes to raise approximately $ 87,100,000. The expected price for its stock is between $12 to $14.

Is the company crystal grazing or will its IPO get a thundering response? From all angles the company is doing everything right to gain space in the news reels. If it continues with its current thrust on R&D, there's no stopping. At the moment the stock is reasonably priced for all who intend to invest for a long time. Sapphire is now being widely used in the semiconductor industry. Rubicon has the right ruby to work with at the right time. As its customer base increases with its newer and better technology, the future for this company will shine as bright as the rubies it synthetically manufactures.