Gateway Inc. (GTW-NYSE) is just missing the entire point of being an operating company. The company posted another loss last night with a net loss of $8.6 million, or -$0.02 EPS on revenues of $1.021 Billion. First quarter operating income equaled a loss of $6.7 million. What were Wall Street estimates? It doesn’t matter. About the only good news is that the loss is narrower than the same quarter last year, but its PC unit sales were also down 9% year over year to 1,251,300.
Gross margin was also lower at 4.9% down from 7.3% year over year. If you must know the estimates, it looks like First Call had targets of $0.01 EPS on revenues of $983.6 million.
This company has been bolstered in the past by takeover speculation, but cautious investors should probably focus on figuring out why someone would come to bail the PC maker out. The company’s market cap is only $769 million, but there are so many buried shareholders that they would probably demand a far higher price if a buyer really emerged. The relevance of this company is still a pressing issue, and that looks more and more the case each quarter.
Investors are probably thinking that Gateway has changed its name to "Get-away"
Jon C. Ogg
May 9, 2007
Jon Ogg can be reached at [email protected]; he does not own securities in any of the companies he covers.
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