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Analyst downgrades 8-07-07: CLWR, FFIV, JBLU and LUM

Posted Aug 7th 2007 11:05AM by Kevin Shult (RSS feed)
Filed under: JetBlue Airways (JBLU)

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Luminent Mortgage (LUM), JetBlue (JBLU), Thornburg Morgtage (TMA) and Harmony Gold (HMY) were today's noteworthy downgrades:

Luminent Mortgage (NYSE: LUM) was downgraded by a host of firms following suspension of its dividend and 10Q filing delay:

UBS cut shares to Sell from Neutral.
Deutsche Bank downgraded Luminent to Sell from Buy.
Friedman Billings and JMP Securities downgraded shares to Underperform from Market Perform. Keefe Bruyette downgraded Luminent to Market Perform from Outperform.

Morgan Stanley downgraded JetBlue (NASDAQ: JBLU) to Underweight from Equal Weight based on expected competition from Virgin American and their stretched balance sheet.

Deutsche Bank downgraded shares of Thornburg Mortgage (NYSE: TMA) to Sell from Hold telling accounts it does not believe REIT taxable earnings will be able to support the dividend.

Deutsche Bank and UBS cut shares of Harmony Gold (NYSE: HMY) to Sell from Neutral after the company lowered its earnings forecast and the CEO resigned...

OTHER DOWNGRADES:

Thomas Weisel downgraded F5 Networks (NASDAQ: FFIV) to Market Weight from Overweight.

AG Edwards cut Nuveen Investments (NYSE: JNC) to Sell from Hold.

Pali Capital downgraded Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR) to Neutral from Buy.

Matrix USA downgraded PPG Industries (NYSE: PPG) to Buy from Strong Buy.

Wachovia cut U-Store It Trust (NYSE: YSI) to Underperform from Market Perform.

Analyst summaries provided by TheFlyOnTheWall.com (subscription required).

Nuveen Investments going private

Posted Jun 20th 2007 11:10AM by Tom Taulli (RSS feed)
Filed under: Private Equity

Back in 1898, John Nuveen started the firm Nuveen Investments (NYSE: JNC) to trade municipal bonds. It was a smart move. Now, the firm is a big player in the asset management space, with about $165 billion in assets under management.

Well, soon Nuveen will no longer be a public company. It announced today that private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners LLC has agreed to a $5.42 billion buyout.

Interestingly enough, Nuveen wants to do the transaction so as to have more flexibility in pursuing its long-term growth goals. After all, it can be distracting to deal with the mind-numbing regulations of Sarbanes-Oxley and also the quarter-by-quarter pressures of Wall Street analysts.

No doubt, Nuveen's business is growing nicely. In fiscal Q1, net income increased 17% to $52.3 million.

On the news of the deal, shares of Nuveen spiked 17.15% to $63.45. The current buyout bid is $65.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.