Go back to school with your Mac, iPhone and TUAW

AOL Money & Finance

Valuing GE's NBC Universal

I estimate General Electric Company (NYSE: GE)'s NBC Universal is worth between $36.5 billion and $42.5 billion -- that's down 13.7% at the low end -- from the $42.3 billion to $52.7 billion valuation range I calculated last July.

NBC Universal did poorly in 2007. Revenues declined 5%, or $0.8 billion, in 2007, primarily from the lack of current-year counterparts to the 2006 Olympic Games broadcasts ($0.7 billion) and 2006 sale of television stations ($0.2 billion), lower revenues in its broadcast network and television stations as a result of lower advertising sales ($0.5 billion) and lower motion picture revenues ($0.1 billion), partially offset by higher revenues for cable ($0.4 billion) and television production and distribution ($0.3 billion).

Segment profit improved though -- it rose 6%, or $0.2 billion, in 2007 as improvements in cable ($0.2 billion), television production and distribution ($0.2 billion), motion pictures ($0.1 billion) and the absence of Olympic broadcasts in 2007 ($0.1 billion) were partially offset by the lack of a current-year counterpart to the 2006 sale of four television stations ($0.2 billion) and lower earnings from its broadcast network and television stations ($0.2 billion).


To calculate NBC Universal's value I compared it to other publicly traded TV networks like Viacom Inc. (NYSE: VIA), The Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS), or CBS Corp. (NYSE: CBS). Those three trade at Price/Sales (P/E) ratios of 20.2, 16.1 and 18.6 which gave me a range of values between $36.5 billion and $42.5 billion when I multiplied those P/E ratios by NBC Universal's 2007 estimated net profit of $2.57 billion.

Related Posts

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Symbol Lookup
IndexesChangePrice
DJIA+32.7311,220.96
NASDAQ-3.162,255.88
S&P 500+5.481,242.31

Last updated: September 08, 2008: 05:26 AM

BloggingStocks Exclusives

Hot Stocks

BloggingStocks Featured Video

TheFlyOnTheWall.com Headlines

WalletPop Headlines

AOL Business News

Latest from BloggingBuyouts

Sponsored Links

My Portfolios

Track your stocks here!

Find out why more people track their portfolios on AOL Money & Finance then anywhere else.

BloggingStocks Partners

More from AOL Money & Finance