Sun seeks 1-for-4 reverse stock split
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Sun Microsystems Inc. intends to pull off a 1-for-4 reverse stock split to boost its share price and improve perceptions of the computing company's recent turnaround, its top two executives told analysts Wednesday.
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The Mac maker splits its stock 2-for-1 for the first time since the dot-com days. Big whoop.
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WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) -- Fannie Mae, reeling from an accounting scandal that will force the mortgage giant to take a huge loss, plans to offer up to $4 billion of preferred stock to institutional investors, the company said Wednesday.
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Sun Microsystems went to Wall Street today, hoping to convince prized financial services customers that it still matters, has speedy kit on the way and unique pricing.
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Software giant's deal with Sun has raised some questions.
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The company talks down a recent inexplicable stock run-up.
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Don't let yourself get excited over stock splits.
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A group of shareholders led by investment manager K Capital Management LLC has urged newspaper publisher Sun-Times Media Group to immediately put itself up for sale, according to a regulatory filing yesterday.
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Apple Computer Inc. AAPL.O, whose  shares have almost quadrupled in value over the last year on  the success of its Ipod music player, on Friday said it has set  a 2-for-1 split of its common stock.
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(InfoWorld) - Sun Microsystems Inc. Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and President Jonathan Schwartz made it clear Wednesday what kind of customers his company hopes to lure now that long-troubled Sun finally appears to be in the middle of an upswing. "There are two customers we see [in the market]," Schwartz said, speaking at a Sun product launch event in New York. "Customers that look at information technology as a competitive weapon, and those that look at information technology as a cost center. We're obsessed with and focused on the former." Calling New York the "epicenter for those kind of customers" because of the technology-savvy financial services firms and media companies that have headquarters there, Schwartz outlined some of the positives for his company since he assumed the CEO position a little over 100 days ago. While his first 100 days "honeymoon is over," according to Schwartz, Sun is just beginning to see the fruits of a comeback strategy it's been crafting since it took the dot.com bust on the chin in 2001. The company seems to be finally climbing -- albeit slowly -- out of its unprofitable rut, and has shown promising revenue growth over the last couple of quarters as it cut costs by shedding employees. Schwartz said the company even expects to achieve sustainable profitability by its fiscal fourth quarter, which ends June 30, 2007. Schwartz had little new to report about the company's overall strategy, although Sun Wednesday launched some storage and server products -- and one, called "Thumper," that is a hybrid of the two. In a message he's been trumpeting for years, the new CEO continued to stress Sun's commitment to offering a mix of hardware systems, software, storage and services, and helping customers combine those products in heterogeneous IT environments so Sun's products run seamlessly alongside competitive offerings. Schwartz pointed to the success of Sun's open-source version of its Solaris OS as proof that Sun is happy to play well with others if it means winning customers. He said since the company open sourced Solaris last year, nearly 70 percent of its implementations have been on competing hardware from IBM Corp., Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co., not Sun's own servers. Sun to date has distributed nearly 6 million licenses for OpenSolaris, Schwartz added. One analyst who attended Wednesday's event said it was not meant to be a new product-driven launch. Instead, said Jonathan Eunice, an analyst with Illuminata, the event was to show that Sun's investment in open source and new products over the past several years, including its early adoption of Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s Opteron chips for its Galaxy server line, is finally beginning to pay off. Sun Wednesday sent a message that it's on the right path now and has something compelling to offer customers who shied away from it since it hit hard times, he said. "This is a drumbeat event," Eunice said. "This was not about the product pipeline, but about customer connections. [This is Sun saying], 'We continue to do the work, continue to get back with quality customers.'" Sun's announcement Wednesday that it has renewed its relationship with systems integrator Accenture Ltd., which is setting up an identity management practice on Sun's technology, is particularly important to reaching new customers or some it has lost since its downturn, Eunice said. "It's a very critical way for Sun to get new business and revenue," he said of the Accenture deal.
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Looking for a comeback on Wall Street, Sun Microsystems is trying to lure financial services companies back to the fold with promotional bundles of hardware and software for companies
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(InfoWorld) - Sun Microsystems, buoyed by its first profitable quarter in more than a year and a half, said Tuesday it has a goal of generating an operating margin of 10 percent by its 2009 fiscal year. Sun executives set the goal, though they cautioned that a lot of things have to happen in order to reach it, during a conference with analysts Tuesday in San Francisco. Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz said increased adoption of Sun's freely-distributed Solaris operating system,Â its recently announced partnership with Intel, and other strategic moves, will help it grow revenue. At the same time, said Sun CFO Michael Lehman, the company will continue to reduce its cost structure using a number of levers, though not employee layoffs. "Our cost structure is still too high," Lehman said, "but we do not intend to have a big layoff and just lower the numbers." The company is going to reduce general and administrative expenses and research and development spending as a percentage of revenue so that those expenses provide a better return, he said. For example, Sun is converting its own business software infrastructure to standardize on Oracle's 11i bundle of enterprise resource planning software, including general ledger, payroll, andÂ CRM software. The conversion is expected to cost more than $200 million, Lehman said, but it will save Sun the expense of having to manage 1,000 different types of software throughout its company. "We have put a stake in the ground, and we are on a journey," Lehman said. Sun posted net income of $126 million, or $0.03 per share, on $3.566 billion in revenue, in its fiscal 2007 second quarter ended Dec. 31, 2006. It was Sun's first profitable quarter after five successive quarterly losses. Sun recorded an operating margin of 2.9 percent in the second quarter and forecasts a 4 percent operating margin in its fourth quarter. On the revenue side, Schwartz said the company's decision to give away its Solaris operating system and open source its Java software create opportunities for Sun to sell hardware and services to those users. Sun's recently announced deal with Intel to install Intel processors in its servers, while Intel markets Solaris, will also create new sales opportunities. "We are now fully outfitted to pursue 100 percent of the market. There is no opportunity that we are precluded from bidding on. There is no customer that we cannot serve," Schwartz said. Sun's turnaround strategy is finally showing up in its financials, said Nathan Brookwood, an industry analyst with Insight 64, a research firm. "You had to take it on faith a year ago." Sun previously only sold servers and workstations running its Sparc processors. Now, because it also uses Intel and AMD processors, it can appeal to broader markets, said Brookwood. "Three years ago if you wanted to buy hardware from Sun, you had to sign up for the Sparc religion. Some people believe in other religions, and they didn't want to have to do a religious conversion to buy from Sun," he said. Sun's operating margin goals seem "conservative" to Sun financial analyst Andrew Neff of Bear Stearns & Co. In a research note to investors, Neff, who also attended the conference, said "Sun has more work to do on costs, [but] we believe its outlook can further improve."
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Sun Microsystems Inc.  on Thursday reported a small quarterly net profit, reversing a year-earlier loss, as narrower costs offset a slight revenue decline.
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Janus Capital Group plans to offer two new mutual funds in February as it tries to lure back investors who have pulled billions out of a company hit by scandal and lackluster performance.
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Apple Computer (Nasdaq: AAPL) announced a two-for-one stock split, giving investors one additional share of stock for each one they already own. After the announcement, the company's share price rose almost 4 percent.
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These companies want to buy back their shares, which just might boost their earnings per share.
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Sun Microsystems Inc. returned to a loss in its fiscal first quarter as the server and software maker paid for its recent restructuring efforts and a settlement with Eastman Kodak Co.