>>> Polo Ralph Lauren (RL US) stock is +6.5% on the last 3 trading sessions

>>> Polo Ralph Lauren (RL US) stock is +6.5% on the last 3 trading sessions

on these 3 days volume have almost double compare to average daily volume...

we can see some decemt options activity on the name today : 1600 Apr 140 calls trade at $1.60


Stock is trading not so far from 3 years lows, and is trading below its historical average in term of PE...

Next event is on the 8th of May...

Has growth in the sector is more an issue, we could see some M&A, re-surfacing...

RL US :
Mkt Cap : $12.23bil

>>> Schnitzer Steel misses by $0.24, misses on revs --> SCHN - flat pre-market

Schnitzer Steel misses by $0.24, misses on revs
Reports Q2 (Feb) loss of $0.33 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.24 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.09); revenues fell 29.9% year/year to $439 mln vs the $564.1 mln consensus.

The Company has commenced two strategic initiatives:
  • (i) A cost reduction, capacity reduction and productivity improvement initiative which, in the aggregate, is intended to improve financial performance by $60 million annually by the end of 2016; and
  • (ii) The integration of the Auto Parts and Metals Recycling Businesses into a single division by the end of fiscal 2015 which is intended to further optimize the efficiencies in our operating platform, enable additional synergies to be captured throughout our supply chain and global sales channel, and more effectively leverage our shared services platform.
  • "significantly lower prices have been driven by softer global steel markets due to overproduction, the strong dollar, lower iron ore prices, and weaker demand in end-markets, including the energy, agriculture and mining sectors. In addition, during the quarter our business activity was impacted by harsh winter weather in the Northeast and Midwest which impacted retail sales in our Auto Parts Business and supply flows in our Metals Recycling Business, and by a labor slowdown at the West Coast ports. As a result of all of these factors, year-over-year ferrous sales volumes in Metals Recycling declined by 27% and nonferrous sales volumes declined by 20%."

>>> US Gapping down

Gapping down
In reaction to disappointing earnings/guidance: SHLM -2.9%, ABGB -2.8%, AZZ -2.1%

Select metals/mining stocks trading lower: AG -3.5%, SSRI -2.8%, GFI -1.6%, ABX -1.3%

Other news: OCUL -33.3% (reported topline clinical data for its second Phase 3 clinical trial evaluating OTX-DP), HELI -12.8% announced tender offer to purchase up to $80 mln of its outstanding 9.375% senior notes due 2021), MX -8.3% (announced it received an expected notice of noncompliance with NYSE continued listing requirements due to failure to file Form 10-K), GEL -5.9% (announces pricing of 4 mln unit public offering at $44.42/unit), VLTC -5% (modest pullback after yday's advance), FCH -4% (announced that it is commencing a public offering of 14.5 mln shares of its common stock; reported Q1 RevPAR grew 13.1% yoy to $132.9), WBAI -3.6% (issued clarifiaction on announcement regarding online lottery sales in China; believes approval to provide online lottery sales in China is valid and has not been revoked or amended), DYAX -2.8% (announced proposed 7 mln share public offering of common stock), NBG -2.3% (cont uncertainty surrounding Greece), NRZ -2.1% (announced public offering of 40 mln shares of common stock; ~28.3 mln shares being offered by Home Loan Servicing Solutions (HLSS), remainder being sold by the company), GM -2.1% (Government of Canada announced the divestiture of its remaining shares in GM), HPP -1.6% (announces the pricing of an underwritten public offering of 5.25 mln shares of its common stock by selling stockholders), VIAB -1.6% (details strategic realignment), CERU -1.5% (priced its underwritten public offering of 5.84 mln shares of its common stock at a public offering price of $6.00 per share)

Analyst comments: UBNT -2.9% (downgraded to Underperform at BofA/Merrill), AXP -1.3% (downgraded to Underperform from Perform at Oppenheimer), TM -0.9% (downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS
)

>>> US Gapping up

Gapping up
In reaction to strong earnings/guidance: HOFT +6.8%, GBX +5.6%, MY +4.8%, ISCA +2.9%, .

M&A news: INFA +5.2% (confirms agreement to be acquired by the Permira Funds and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board; transaction valued at approx $5.3 billion or $48.75 per share), FDX +4.5% (FedEx and TNT Express (TNTEY) agree on recommended all-cash public offer for all TNT Express shares for $4.8 billion), .

Select oil/gas related names showing strength: SSL +3.6%, STO +1.6%, BP +1.2%, RDS.A +1.1%, SDRL +0.8%

Other news: VBIV +20% (announced collaboration with Sanofi Pasteur (SNY) to to apply VBI's Lipid Particle Vaccine formulation technology to further the development of Sanofi Pasteur vaccine candidate), ONVO +13.5% (disclosed it entered into a research collaboration agreement with L'Oreal (LRLCY) USA products), BLDP +10.2% (announced that the world's first hydrogen fuel cell powered fixed rail electric tram was successfully demonstrated; production and testing facility of CSR Qingdao Sifang Company), CLVS +8.9% (received breakthrough therapy designation for Rucaparib for monotherapy treatment of advanced ovarian cancer in patients with BRCA-mutated tumors), OCN +8% (co disclosed it amended its agreement with Home Loan Servicing Solutions (HLSS); New Residential Investment (NRZ) agreed to a multi-year extension of the servicing contracts with OCN), LSG +7.9% (announces record quarterly production in the first quarter of 2015), ARNA +7.8% (Arena Pharm and Eisai (ESALY) receives additional patent for Belviq), QEPM +7.2% (to be acquired in full by Tesoro Logistics LP (TLLP); consideration is valued at $17.09 per QEPM common unit), CYTX +5.3% (announces the European Commission has designated Cytori's ECCS-50 cellular therapeutic as an orphan medicinal product for the treatment of scleroderma), AXTA +3.5% (announces that an affiliate of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) has entered into a definitive stock purchase agreement with certain affiliates of The Carlyle Group (CG) for the purchase of a total of 20 mln of Axalta's common stock at $28.00 per share), SHPG +2.7% (announces clear regulatory path forward for SHP465, an investigational treatment for adults with ADHD), CLDX +0.9% (announced that data from the Phase 2 EMERGE study of glembatumumab vedotin in metastatic breast cancer have been published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology)

Analyst comments: BIND +10.2% (initiated with an Outperform at Oppenheimer), CLDN +4.6% (initiated with a Buy at H.C. Wainwright), RYAAY +4% (upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan; also reported Mar traffic stats), SPLK +3.8% (upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at Piper Jaffray ), PAY +2.5% (upgraded to Buy from Hold at Stifel), DWRE +2.2% (added to Conviction Buy List at Goldman), CCL +1.1% (upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo ), TOT +1.1% ( upgraded to Outperform from Sector Perform at RBC Capital Mkts), JPM +0.8% (upgraded to Outperform from Mkt Perform at Bernstein), RL +0.7% (upgraded to Buy from Outperform at Credit Agricole)

WSJ : Starbucks’s Tax Practices Draw European Scrutiny

Starbucks’s Tax Practices Draw European Scrutiny
Coffee chain paid less than 1% in corporate tax last year in the Netherlands, where its regional head office was based

BRUSSELS—Starbucks Corp. is going through the grinder in Europe.

The world’s biggest coffee chain has raised suspicions among regulators and local governments by reporting losses in its biggest European markets for years despite recording hundreds of millions of dollars in annual sales.

Last year, as European Union regulators opened a formal investigation, a profit materialized: €407 million ($446.6 million), reported by the company’s European head office in Amsterdam. The coffee chain has since moved its headquarters to London.

The reason for the windfall: 502 million Swiss francs ($527.8 million) in dividends, transferred from the company’s coffee-buying unit in Switzerland, which has fewer than 40 employees, according to corporate filings.

The huge profit is likely to stoke concerns around Starbucks’s tax practices in Europe, which are under scrutiny for the second time in just over two years. EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager, who is running the bloc’s investigation of Starbucks’s tax affairs, has pledged to announce results by June, which could include sizable back-tax demands.

Starbucks has long insisted that its complex European structure—which until recently centered in the Netherlands rather than the U.K., by far its biggest market in the region—wasn’t designed to avoid tax. The structure, it said, was built around its Amsterdam-based coffee-roasting house and reflected that city’s rich history with coffee.

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Even so, the tax advantages are clear: The Amsterdam unit paid just €2.6 million in corporate tax on last year’s €407 million pretax profit in the Netherlands—or well under 1%—as part of a deal with the Dutch government that has drawn the attention of EU regulators.

All the coffee Starbucks uses world-wide is bought by the company’s Swiss unit, even though the coffee never actually transits through Switzerland. It is then sold to Starbucks operations around the world at a 20% markup, the company’s former chief financial officer, Troy Alstead, told British lawmakers in 2012, after Starbucks found itself at the center of a controversy over its tax bills.

That means the Swiss unit loads costs onto the coffee bought by Starbucks stores around the world and depresses their profits. British lawmakers have expressed skepticism that the 20% markup was “reasonable.”

Starbucks said that “profits generated by [its] companies are periodically paid as dividends,” and that it follows international guidelines in charging fees between business units in different countries.

On the same day the Swiss dividends arrived in Amsterdam last October, Starbucks transferred the bulk of them to a new U.K. holding company—one of three British entities it has created since June—corporate filings show. It subsequently dissolved another London-based shell company, Alki LP, which had become a focus of EU regulators’ inquiries because it received tens of millions of dollars annually in royalty payments from Amsterdam.


Starbucks is one of four multinational companies operating in Europe—along with Apple Inc.,Amazon.com Inc. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV—whose tax affairs are being investigated by regulators in Brussels.

Above all, Starbucks stands out for its response: Rather than citing a duty to investors to minimize tax, as other companies like Google Inc. have done, Starbucks has repeatedly pleaded innocent.

“We do nothing—nothing—to avoid taxes,” Mr. Alstead told British lawmakers in 2012.

Now, that narrative is being challenged.

In a preliminary decision in November, EU regulators argued that Starbucks’s structure in the Netherlands had no economic rationale. Their probe could result in a back-tax bill running into tens of millions of dollars. Dutch regulators have said they believe Starbucks’s structure in the country is appropriate.

Tax avoidance isn’t illegal. Other companies like Google and Facebook Inc. minimize their taxes by moving foreign profits through countries such as Ireland, the Netherlands and Bermuda.

Starbucks said it complies “with all relevant tax rules, laws, and…guidelines” and pays “a global effective tax rate of 34 per cent.” The coffee chain gets about three-quarters of its revenue in the U.S., where the top marginal corporate tax rate is 35%, adding to state and local corporate taxes.

But the EU has found a new way to clamp down on corporate tax avoidance using a law that prohibits sweetheart deals that allowed some companies to pay less tax than others. This led it to also investigate the tax affairs of Apple, Amazon and Fiat. All three companies have denied receiving special treatment, and the national governments involved have denied giving it. The EU has said it plans to publish results of its probes by June.

At the center of the probe is a web of partnerships operated by Starbucks in the Netherlands and the U.K. Two of the partnerships—Rain City and Emerald City, nicknames for its Seattle hometown—are based in the Netherlands but aren’t subject to Dutch corporate tax, according to the EU’s report and corporate filings.

Emerald City owns a Hong Kong-based vehicle that controls Starbucks’s operations in Beijing and northern China and the company’s 50% stake in its Indian joint venture. It also owned a third, now-dissolved European partnership, Alki, which was based in London.

EU regulators have homed in on Alki, which held all of Starbucks’s intellectual-property rights for Europe, the Middle East and Africa—and received tens of millions of dollars in annual royalty payments from Amsterdam. Hefty royalty payments to units in lower-tax jurisdictions are another tool that multinationals can use to avoid tax.

In a preliminary decision in November, the European Commission questioned royalty payments made by Starbucks’s manufacturing unit to Alki, which didn’t pay Dutch corporate tax. It is unclear whether the holding company, which was based in the U.K. before it was dissolved, paid U.K. taxes.

Starbucks declined to comment on Alki’s tax treatment. In its report, the commission said royalty payments to Alki from Amsterdam were considered a direct payment to Starbucks’s U.S. operations from a Dutch tax perspective. The commission also said the royalty didn’t “reflect the value of the intellectual property” because it “fluctuates from year to year and is not in line with sales.”

The Dutch government said it was “convinced” that its tax deal with Starbucks didn’t constitute illegal state aid.

Alki was dissolved last December, shortly after its ownership was transferred to a new U.K. company, Starbucks EMEA Holdings Ltd., according to corporate filings. Starbucks announced last year it would move its regional headquarters to the U.K. from the Netherlands. “This structure [Alki] no longer exists,” it said in a statement.

Alki had no employees, a person familiar with the matter said. Its address in London was the U.K. headquarters of Baker & McKenzie, a law firm that advises Starbucks on tax matters. Starbucks and Baker & McKenzie declined to comment on the matter.

The EU investigation comes after a tax furor in Britain led to store boycotts and a 2012 parliamentary hearing. The company’s U.K. annual sales fell following the furor, its first decline since it set up shop in the country in 1998.

At the time, Starbucks had paid £8.6 million ($12.8 million) of British corporate tax over 15 years despite sales exceeding £3.5 billion in Britain. It has since voluntarily paid an additional £20 million by forgoing certain deductions.

At the hearing, Mr. Alstead, who previously served as a director of the U.K. business, blamed the company’s persistent losses in Britain on “strategic mistakes,” including expensive property leases. “We are not at all pleased about our financial performance here,” he said.

British lawmakers weren’t convinced. “If you have made losses in the U.K. over 15 years, which is what you are filing, why on earth are you doing business here?” said Margaret Hodge, who chaired the hearing. “It just doesn’t ring true.”

According to corporate filings, Starbucks’s British business started making large royalty and license-fee payments to Amsterdam in 2003, five years after it opened in the U.K. Mr. Alstead last month took unpaid leave after 23 years with the company “to spend more time with his family,” Starbucks said. It said his decision to take time off was a personal one, unrelated to the corporate structure.

British lawmakers are no longer investigating Starbucks.In Britain, Starbucks recently reported its first annual pretax profit: £1 million on sales of £409 million in the year to September. But after years of deep losses, the company has accumulated £35 million of deferred tax assets that can be used to offset future tax bills. That indicates it won’t have to pay any U.K. corporate tax for some time.

Starbucks said that the U.K. business “is now profitable and as our turnaround continues, our tax payments will increase in line with our profits.”

WSJ : Permira, CPPIB Poised to Take Informatica Private in $5 Billion Deal


Permira, CPPIB Poised to Take Informatica Private in $5 Billion Deal
Deal would be largest U.S. leverage buyout so far this year

Informatica Corp. is nearing a deal to be taken private by Permira Advisers LLC and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, according to people familiar with the matter, in what would be the largest U.S. leveraged buyout so far this year.

Permira and CPPIB would pay around $48 to $50 a share for the Redwood City, Calif., data-software company in a deal that could be announced as soon as Tuesday, the people said.

A buyout at that price would value Informatica at more than $5 billion. The company’s shares closed Monday at $45.83.

Informatica helps companies organize and analyze broad swaths of information, tapping the growing demand for help with managing what is known as big data. The company reported revenue of around $1 billion in 2014, up about 11%.

The Wall Street Journal reported in January that the company was working with investment bankers and had made contact with potential buyers.

Also in January, Elliott Management Corp. revealed that it owned about 8% of Informatica. The hedge fund said it sees the company as “significantly undervalued” and that it had initiated talks with Informatica’s management and board of directors regarding “steps to maximize shareholder value.” Elliott said in February that it has lifted its stake to 9.4%.

Software companies have been targeted in a string of private-equity buyouts in recent months. In December, Thoma Bravo LLC completed its acquisition of Compuware Corp. for about $2.5 billion and separately teamed up with an arm of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan to buy Riverbed Technology Inc. for about $3.6 billion. Compuware and Riverbed were both put in play following separate takeover bids for each company by Elliott.

Smaller players are finding themselves in the cross hairs too. Last month, Insight Venture Partners completed its $273 million acquisition of cloud-based software maker E2open Inc., and Vector Capital completed its $268 million acquisition of Saba Software Inc.