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Investor's Alert: Rentrak Corporation (NASDAQ:RENT), Chiquita Brands International Inc (NYSE:CQB), Genuine Parts Company (NYSE:GPC)

Investor's Alert: Rentrak Corporation (NASDAQ:RENT), Chiquita Brands International Inc (NYSE:CQB), Genuine Parts Company (NYSE:GPC)
Written by
Joel Najarian
Published on
October 20, 2014
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Rentrak Corporation (NASDAQ:RENT) said it has been granted a patent by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for the method and system behind measuring the status of set-top boxes. Rentrak Corporation (NASDAQ:RENT) said the system is an important component of its passive ratings service, which will soon measure 60 million return path TVs for live and DVR viewing and more than 114 million TVs for Video on Demand viewing. U.S. Patent 8,863,166 is for a system to identify when TV sets are off, but the set-top-box is on. Because it often happens that a set-top box is left on when the television is turned off.Chiquita Brands International Inc (NYSE:CQB) shareholder Wynnefield Capital, which owns about 3.5% of the company stock, said Monday it supports a purchase offer from Cutrale-Safra Group and rejects a merger with Fyffes. Chiquita's board on Friday unanimously reaffirmed its recommendation that shareholders vote to approve the merger with Fyffes, as revised on Sept. 25, at a special meeting of shareholders scheduled for Oct. 24.The acquisition by Cutrale-Safra would provide "clearly superior shareholder value to the Fyffes transaction," Wynnefield Capital said in a Monday statement, speculating that shares would fall by $2 to $2.50 if the merger with Fyffes were approved. Wynnefield said Chiquita's board of directors failed to carry out fiduciary duties by agreeing to the merger between the company and Fyffes, and they had guaranteed themselves four seats on a combined board, allowing continuance of a sizable compensation packages. Chiquita Brands International Inc (NYSE:CQB) shares closed at $13.36 on Friday. The stock has traded in a range from $9.24 to $14.43 a share in the past 52 weeks.Genuine Parts Company (NYSE:GPC) reported Q3 financial results, with both earnings and revenue slightly beating the consensus of analysts polled by Capital IQ. Q3 net income rose to $190.5 million, or $1.24 per diluted share, from $173.7 million, or $1.12 per diluted share, in the year-ago period. Analysts were expecting EPS of $1.23 per share. Sales totaled a record $4.0 billion, up 8% year-on-year and beating the consensus of $3.94 billion.Thomas Gallagher, Chairman and CEO of Genuine Parts Company (NYSE:GPC), commented, "We are pleased to report another quarter of record sales as well as a solid 10% comparative earnings increase. Our 8% total sales increase includes approximately 5.4% underlying sales growth and a 3.3% contribution from acquisitions offset by a currency headwind of approximately 0.5%. Our overall sales growth was also supported by increases in each of our four business segments, with sales for the Automotive Group up 4%, which essentially represents our core automotive growth for the quarter. Sales at Motion Industries, our Industrial Group, were up 10% including 8% underlying growth and 3% from acquisitions offset by a currency headwind of approximately 1%. Sales at EIS, our Electrical/Electronic Group, increased by 35% due to acquisitions. Sales for S. P. Richards, our Office Products Group, were up 15% and include 8% underlying growth and 7% from acquisitions."

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