Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Keeping The Mouse House Finances In Order...


The Walt Disney Company released its financials for the third quarter(Q3) today...

- A 9 percent rise in net income for the third quarter based on the strength of Cable Networks.

- Net income of $1.284 billion or $0.66 per share, up from $1.178 billion or $0.57 per share the same quarter last year.

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Revenues in the latest quarter increased 2.1% to $9.24 billion from $9.05 billion in the previous year quarter. Beating most Wall Street analysts projections of $9.14 billion.

- Sequentially net income rose from $1.133 billion or $0.58 per share on revenues of $8.71 billion recorded in the second quarter of fiscal 2008.

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The Mouse announced that it bought back 93 million shares for $3.0 billion during the first nine-months period.

- Walt Disney's Media Networks grew 8% to $4.12 billion from $3.83 billion, while operating income increased 9% to $1.47 billion from $1.36 billion in the year-ago quarter.

- Income from cable networks grew 12% to $2.59 billion from $2.31 billion, income from broadcasting were $1.531 billion versus $1.524 billion in the corresponding period last year.

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Broadcasting divisions(read: ABC, ect.) witnessed 11% fall in operating income to $260 million from $293 million due to increased production cost for programs in syndication, lower advertising sales Disney owned television stations and costs for new scripted programming for the ABC Television network.

- The Parks and Resorts division contributed revenues of $3.0 billion, up 5% from $2.9 billion and operating income increased 3% to $641 million from $621 million in the year-ago quarter.

- Disney said that revenue growth at Disneyland Resort Paris was a bright spot mainly due to favorable currency translation and increased guest spending and attendance.

- The Walt Disney Company disclosed its higher operating income was achieved as a result of improved performances at its Walt Disney World Resort and the Disneyland Resort Paris, which partly offset by a fall in income at the Disneyland Resort.

- Walt Disney Studio generated a revenue of $1.43 billion, 19% lower than $1.78 billion in the previous year, 2007. Operating income plummeted 49% to $97 million from $190 million in the prior year quarter. This was due to the drop in worldwide theatrical distribution(read: number of films as well as successful films).

- Disney Consumer Products reported revenues of $642 million, up 20% from $537 million, but operating income slipped 4% to $113 million from $118 million a year earlier quarter.

- For the year-to-date period, Walt Disney reported net income of $3.67 billion, down from $3.81 billion but earnings per share rose to $1.87 from $1.81 in the year earlier period.

- Revenues increased to $28.4 billion from $26.6 billion in the corresponding period from last year.

Not bad. Disney seems to have weathered the economic slowdown quite well... let's just hope the economy continues to grow higher. This quarter's GDP was almost twice that of last quarter. No signs of a recession yet, so hopefully we've weathered the worst of it. Remember, the expansion and growth of Disney theme parks is based on a growing and thriving American economy and the world's as well..

4 comments:

Matt said...

Would have preferred the stocks to bounce up to $35 or something in response to this, but hey... beggars can't be choosers...

Anonymous said...

When a company buys back stock, what usually happens to the remaining stock? Does it go up in value usually (because I would think less shares at the same total value would equal higher value per share), or does nothing much happen?

PopCultureSpot.com said...

Our government has changed the way that they report financial numbers from unemployment to GDP, that it's getting difficult to ever have a classically defined recession. For the parks to have positive growth at this point is outstanding considering the economic conditions.

Anonymous said...

A recession is two quarters of economic decline, or negative growth. We've not had that in around seven years. The last two quarters were below what would have been normal, the last one was around two percent, the one before was slightly above one percent. To have the economy moving fully you need it to grow somewhere between three and a half to five percent. Below is a slow down and above causes inflation. We want neither.

It actually shows how good the financials are that the country is able to bounce back so quickly. A much different case than what would have happened in the 70's.

Nice blog. I just found it this week. Interesting perspective compared with the others I've checked out.