Bullish report on Elsevier, despite boycott threats. Now, enough of the hoopla, please, and let's get back to the only thing that really matters, concretely, for OA today:
Institutions and funders mandating green OA self-archiving! Stevan Harnad Begin forwarded message: > Forwarded with permission > To: <[email protected]>: > Date: Mon, 6 Feb 2012 19:47:24 -0500 > > Sami Kassab [email protected] > > Bonjour, Please find our report on Reed Elsevier released this > morning. We argue that: > > * Noise around boycott against Elsevier offers short term trading opportunity > > Reed Elsevier was the worst performing media stock last week. We > believe this is due to investor concerns on the back of T. Gowers' > petition to boycott publishing and refereeing in Elsevier's journals. > We believe the share price reaction was overdone and recommend buying > the shares. > > * Scientists are boycotting the boycott > > Similar petitions in favour of Open Access were organised in 2000 and > 2007, with no impact on Elsevier's fundamentals. Our tracking not only > shows that this latest petition lags behind the two preceding ones but > also suggests that its momentum is slowing. Fewer than 5,000 > scientists have signed up, whereas Elsevier works with more than 6m > scientists worldwide. The low take-up of this petition is a sign of > the scientific community's improving perception of Elsevier. > > * Open Access unlikely to hurt financials in the medium term and is priced in > > The proportion of Open Access is growing at less than 1% pa. > Elsevier's contract lengths are getting longer and the company's > growth efforts are focused on new products rather than pricing. Open > Access is unlikely to hurt Elsevier in the next five years and the > longer term risk is more than priced in, in our view > > * Results are due on 16 February > > We expect EPS11e of 47p, slightly ahead of the consensus 46p, and an > outlook supportive of the group's defensive growth profile and > improved fundamentals. The announcement of a new CFO and a possible > share buyback could be two additional positives. Reed Elsevier PLC > trades on EV/EBIT12e of 8.8x. It offers defensive growth at a > reasonable price. We remain buyers of the stock on the current share > price weakness. > > Many thanks for your interest in our research! > > Regards, > Sami Kassab/Exane Paribus _______________________________________________ GOAL mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
