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More AbbVie Inanity On Seeking Alpha With A Dose Of Penny Stock Promotion

Set a million monkeys loose with Yahoo Finance and a word processor, and what do you get? The answer, it would appear, is Seeking Alpha, a content farm with no particular editorial standards.  We wrote last week about blatant, significant errors being covered up without acknowledgement.  This morning, we encountered another wastebasket-worthy piece on AbbVie(ABBV). Imagine writing about Coca Cola(KO) without discussing soda, or Microsoft(MSFT) without discussing Windows.  For AbbVie, Humira accounts for over 50% of revenues and over 70% of profits. For all intents and purposes, AbbVie is Humira, and Humira is AbbVie. How then, can we take seriously this morning’s piece by Seeking Alpha contributor Josh Hutheson?  The article never mentions Humira by name; it blithely states “although ABBV has some drugs coming off patent over the next couple of years” without mentioning the extreme dependence on Humira, which will be coming off patent in 2016.   Says Hutheson “AbbVie is a research-based pharmaceutical company with a broad and sustainable portfolio of market-leading proprietary pharmaceuticals and biologics sold worldwide.” Broad and sustainable? Hardly!  Hutheson is bullish on the pipeline, without acknowledging the high failure rate of drugs in even late stage clinical trials. Perhaps most disturbing, the article inexplicably [...]

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Microsoft And Barnes & Noble Complete Partnership In NOOK Media; No Decision Yet On Spinoff

As we discussed previously,  Microsoft(MSFT) had agreed to invest $300 million for a 17.6% stake in NOOK Media, which includes the digital and College assets of Barnes & Noble(BKS) including the NOOK device business.  Barnes & Noble continues to own the remainder of the business. In today’s release, the company was careful to note that [...]

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Microsoft Joins Barnes & Noble Nook Party

We’ve written here previously about the possibility of embattled bookseller Barnes & Noble(BKS) spinning off its

Image representing Barnes & Noble as depicted ...

Nook business.  We’ve written elsewhere about the turnaround at Microsoft(MSFT). Today, both stories collide in an explosive way.

The two companies will create a joint venture to which Barnes & Noble will contribute its Digital and College businesses, and to which Microsoft will contribute $300 million for a 17.6% stake, implying a $1.7 billion valuation. Considering that Barnes & Noble had a closing market cap on Friday for its entire business of under $800 million, this deal is a game changer for the company, which has nearly doubled in premarket trading.

It is unclear what Barnes & Noble will eventually do with its 82.4% stake in the joint venture, but a spin off remains a possibility. In the meantime, this certainly takes a great deal of pressure off the company, and lengthens the runway for the company’s still nascent digital efforts.

Disclosure: The author holds no position in any stock mentioned

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