News & Media

B. Riley & Co., LLC, (B. Riley) www.brileyco.com, a leading independent investment bank which provides a full array of corporate finance, research, sales and trading services announced that it acted as sole book-running manager in a $100,000,000 underwritten public offering for Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc. (NASDAQ: KTOS).

The public follow-on offering consisted of 20,000,000 shares of common stock priced at $5.00 per share. The transaction closed May 14, 2012.

Bryant Riley led the B. Riley banking team for this transaction.

Continue Reading >

B. Riley & Co., LLC, (B. Riley) www.brileyco.com , a leading independent investment bank which provides a full array of corporate finance, research, sales and trading services, announced that, in addition to 200 presenting public companies, its 13th Annual Investor Conference will include two expert led informational sessions. The invitation-only conference is scheduled for May 21-23, 2012 at the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel.

“Each year, the panel topics are chosen based on current market news and trends, and for their relevance to both our institutional investor clients and public company management teams,” said Ian Corydon, Director of Research.

Continue Reading >

“I think there probably are other banks that would be interested in looking at First California,” Gladue said, noting the attractive markets where that the bank operates. He pointed to companies like Irvine, Calif.-based Opus Bank; Los Angeles-based City National Corp.; and Los Angeles-based Grandpoint Capital Inc. as potential bidders.

Continue Reading >

“Clearly with Green Mountain’s stock sell-off last week, Stiller had margin calls against his position,” B Riley & Co analyst Conrad Lyon said.

“And to satisfy those calls he has been selling his holdings in not only Green Mountain, but in Krispy Kreme (as well).”

Continue Reading >

Eric Wold, analyst with B. Riley & Co. in Los Angeles, said Redbox would rather receive the discs directly from the studios as opposed to through a retail workaround program. He said the proposed 56-day delay was too long for Redbox even with the improved wholesale disc costs. The analyst said Redbox’s most recent financial results underscore the reality that it can operate profitably with a workaround. The fact Redbox is willing to talk to Warner should be considered more than a goodwill gesture, according to Wold, who always believed Warner would be the real loser if Redbox decided to go with a workaround program as it would lose a major distribution channel for their direct-to-video productions as well as any movies that did not fare so well theatrically.

Continue Reading >

Sameet Sinha, an analyst at B. Riley & Company, expects Groupon’s take rate to decline as merchants push for more favorable terms.

Google Inc (GOOG) and Amazon.com Inc (AMZN), which have rival daily deal businesses, are likely offering a bigger cut to merchants and may be paying them more quickly, the analyst added.

Over time, if Groupon is forced to offer better terms, its accrued merchant payables may decline, cutting what has been an important source of cash that the company has used to fund rapid expansion, Sinha and other analysts said.

Continue Reading >

Yahoo’s CEO resume circus keeps getting more ridiculous. But the real joke is the company’s beleaguered board of directors, say analysts.

The Web portal announced on Tuesday (May 8) that it has formed a special committee to review CEO Scott Thompson’s hiring in light of the raging controversy surrounding a false degree listed on his resume. Comprising the committee are newly minted board members Alfred Amoroso, John Hayes and Thomas McInerney. And according to AllthingsD.com, Patti Hart, the Yahoo director who vetted Thompson during his hiring process, is apparently leaving the company.

Continue Reading >

Groupon knows “that there’s a limit to the daily deals business,” Sameet Sinha, an analyst at B. Riley & Company, tells Reuters. “If they want to keep growing, they need to provide a lot more tools for merchants to show them the efficacy of these deals.“

Continue Reading >

Web.com Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:WWWW) announced the launch of a secondary public offering of 8 million shares of its common stock. All of the shares in the offering are being sold by existing shareholders of Web.com. No shares are being sold by the company in this offering, and Web.com will not receive any proceeds from the sale of common stock by the selling shareholders. In addition, the selling shareholders will grant the underwriters of the offering an option to purchase up to an additional 1.2 million shares from the selling shareholders.

J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. and Citigroup Global Markets Inc. are the joint book-running managers of the offering. SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc., FBR Capital Markets & Co., Piper Jaffray & Co., Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Roth Capital Partners, LLC, B Riley & Co., LLC, and Craig-Hallum Capital Group are acting as co-managers of this offering.

Continue Reading >

B. Riley & Co.’s Sameet Sinha today raised his rating on the shares of Groupon (GRPN) to Neutral from Sell after the shares last week fell below his prior $13 price target, even though he cut that target today to just $10.60.

“GRPN has been in the eye of the storm since before the IPO. Even after the IPO, the company has had a rough ride beset with controversy culminating in the revision to 4Q11 results,” writes Sinha, referring to the company’s April 2nd announcement it would revise its reported revenue and profit for Q4 to account for what it found to be “insufficient controls over financial reporting.

Continue Reading >

Steve Madden might just be the King Midas of retail. Even last month’s bankruptcy filing of Betsey Johnson, whose trademark Steve Madden Ltd. acquired two years ago, is working to the shoe seller’s advantage.

Continue Reading >

Steve Madden might just be the King Midas of retail. Even last month’s bankruptcy filing of Betsey Johnson, whose trademark Steve Madden Ltd. acquired two years ago, is working to the shoe seller’s advantage.  “They’ve really put themselves in a position to grow and to benefit from the acquisitions they’ve made,” said Jeff Van Sinderen, a retail analyst at B. Riley & Co.

Continue Reading >

While the market for surf and skate retail is crowded, retail analyst Jeff Van Sinderen said Tilly’s offers this market something unique. “Tilly’s has a real girls’ business,” said Van Sinderen, an analyst with B.Riley& Co. “It’s truly dual-gender.” For Tilly’s rivals Pacific Sunwear and Zumiez, young men’s fashions make up the majority of their merchandise mix.

Continue Reading >

MMRGlobal, Inc. announced that it has retained B. Riley & Co., LLC (“B. Riley”) www.brileyco.com, a leading independent investment bank, to serve as financial advisors to the Company in connection with a sale and/or merger involving the Company’s Personal Health Record (“PHR”) and other Health IT products and services and related assets including patents and intellectual property.  Additionally, B. Riley will explore opportunities for the sale of the Company’s biotech-related assets which include patents, patient samples, anti-CD20 antibodies and other IP.  B. Riley & Co., headquartered in Los Angeles with offices in San Francisco, New York and Newport Beach, provides a full array of corporate finance, research, sales and trading services.

Continue Reading >

B. Riley & Co. analyst Eric Wold said the $76.4 million in operating income — compared to $23.7 million a year ago — speaks to how well Redbox’s workaround program is working. He said he wouldn’t be surprised if Warner came back to the negotiating table.

“With the workaround, Redbox is able to buy the titles it wants in the quantities it wants without having to stock the underperforming direct-to-video titles that Warner needs to monetize,” he said. “And getting the DVDs into the kiosks within 7 days helps to drive increased rental turns compared to the prior 28 day availability, which helps to further monetize the higher acquisition costs.

“All in all, Redbox management has learned significantly from the initial workaround attempts two years ago and is proving they can be successful, and I think they will continue to learn and improve.”

Continue Reading >

Sagan, 53, has been with Akamai for almost 14 years, helping the company become less dependent on its content- delivery network business, which was becoming commoditized. He acquired companies to add services and products that would differentiate Akamai from competitors, said Sameet Sinha, an analyst at B. Riley & Co. in San Francisco.

“They’re positioning themselves as a cloud-computing applications-services provider, while their competitors just sell core CDN,” Sinha said. “Paul has been around a long time in a tough industry.”

Continue Reading >

B. Riley & Co., LLC, (B. Riley) www.brileyco.com, a leading independent investment bank which provides a full array of corporate finance, research, sales and trading services announced that it acted as sole book-running manager in an $11,000,000 underwritten public offering for Cinedigm Digital Cinema Corp.(NASDAQ: CIDM). 

The follow-on offering consisted of 7,857,143 shares of common stock priced at $1.40 per share, and included a fully exercised overallotment option of 714,286 shares.

Bryant Riley, Ryan Bernath and Salomon Kamalodine led the B. Riley banking team for this transaction.  In connection with the offering, Merriman Capital acted as co-manager.

Continue Reading >

Eckert said that the company’s first-quarter common-stock dividend of 43 cents per share — 4 cents per share more than his estimate — suggests that first-quarter earnings also came in ahead of his estimates. He conceded that some of the suggested upside was from asset sales but believes prepayments were slower than expected.

The analyst remains concerned about prepayment speeds in the near term, but he said that given record low levels of mortgage coupons and delays in implementing HARP 2.0, he believes the increases in longer-term rates that he is forecasting for the second half of 2012 and in 2013 will provide more margin relief than modeled previously.

Continue Reading >

B. Riley & Co. served as co-manager in $118,800,000 million public offering for Firsthand Technology Value Fund Inc. (NASDAQ: SVVC) representing 4,400,000 shares of common stock at $27.00 per share. Additionally, SVVC has granted the underwriters, led by Ladenburg Thalmann & Co. and National Securities Corporation, an option for 30 days to purchase up to an additional 660,000 shares of common stock.

Continue Reading >

B. Riley analyst Sameet Sinha said proxy fights­—when investors try to use their clout to get public companies to take specific actions—are “inevitable” for Web 1.0 firms like AOL and Yahoo that have valuable assets but slow-moving management.

Continue Reading >