Barry Rosenstein will be following up David Einhorn and it seems logical that he’ll be talking Qualcomm, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM); touting his plans to break up the semiconductor company. Harder than expected, however. up the semiconductor company. Harder than expected, however.
Raymond James noted in a research note at the time that JANA went active on Qalcomm:
Among other suggestions, Jana is imploring management to consider a spin-off, separation, or other disaggregation of QCOM’s chip business (QCT) from its licensing business (QTL). Although this idea has been floated before in the investment community, there are meaningful R&D synergies between the two units (today’s R&D in QCT is tomorrow’s licensing stream in QTL), and QCT provides negotiating leverage that has aided QTL in license negotiations in the past (most recently with China’s NDRC).
Although we have not done a full breakup analysis as of yet, we would encourage others who are doing so to include the fact that QTL pays a materially higher tax rate than corporate average and would seemingly require some long-term relationship with QCT to provide QTL with the patent pool for future licensing streams.
That being said, one could certainly imagine a business with the characteristics of QTL could be materially levered with a
very high dividend payout given its recurring licensing stream and limited need for operating/capital investments
Barry Rosenstein live coverage begins below (note everything is in EST and PM).
Barry Rosenstein is bullish on Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. (WBA)
Barry Rosenstein also has some issue with how activism is portrayed in the media. The JANA founder notes that it is NOT about short-term performance.Barry believes that activism is about sustainable growth.
He tells attendees that they should have listened to him on WBA and now its time to buy Qualcomm. Barry says that the hedge fund’s activism will help QCOM just like it helped at WBA.
Focus on what the activist says , if the ideas are good they should work and be followed. Talking a little bit of politics.
His first company is Walgreens alliance boots. The PBM market caught them off guard. Most of the peers were kicking its ass and this one screamed for activists .
The Boots alliance has made a big difference for Walgreens.
Stephaneu investment has been helpful.
Is this a horserace or is this a long term alliance with shareholders who care about proper capital allocation . People missed the early opportunity we got 2 people on the board, with a possibility of a third. WBA closed the deal early stephaneu has really taken over the company. We are looking at a much more efficient and streamlined board
Cap allocation efficiency has been much better also. Shareholder return has been 36% we still see an improvement going forward. We see an improvement of margins
QCOM is another one there is a lack of ownership that cares the only insider transactions have been sales.
Since we have showed up stock price has stagnated for now. We see board renewal better capital allocation
We are seeing a return of capital thus far, 15 billion in shares repurchased
Reducing the size of the board. We think that the board is listening to us its been friendly negotiation. ( somewhat) China blessed QCOM licensing business
We see a lot of similarities between walgreens and qcom.
