Andy-
I think that the following titles will not ship in 1998:
BASS PSX
Speed Tribes (both PC and PSX)
Dead Unity (PC and PSX)
Perhaps the PSX versions of Rally and Penny Racers
On a fully taxed, basis (35% tax rate, presumably), THQ reported .17 in Q397 and .67 in Q4. So if one considers 15% year over year growth in fully taxed EPS, THQ could report .19 in Q3 and .78 in Q4. And it would still count as growth, although not in my book. Add .19 and .78 to Q1's .82 and Q2's .33 (both fully taxed) and you have 2.12 for 1998. I think this is even higher than GKM's estimate. 15% growth in 1999 yields $2.44. If THQ were growing like this, it wouldn't deserve the multiple it has now. But I don't understand where GKM comes up with these figures. It's obvious that most analysts compare notes, and they stay in a fairly close range, so that none of them is really off (like I was with $.48). I think it's obviously a political game, but it should prove to most people that they don't have much value as analysts, since their predictive value is nil.
If you want to use fully taxed numbers (a fairly useless measure, since it doesn't approximate actual cash flow, which is what's important), I see Q3 EPS of .40 and Q4 EPS of 1.03. That's full year reported EPS of 2.70 and fully taxed EPS of 2.58.
THQ's growth during the past few years has been impressive, but if it had been fully taxed figures the whole way, and reported as net income, rather than EPS (with the expanding shares out), the growth is unbelievable:
1995 $00.405 million
1996 $01.241 million....206% increase
1997 $07.344 million....492% increase
1998E $20.255 million....176% increase
Probably 40% increase for 1999, too.
Yeah, $2.44 in 1999. We'll see.
Todd |
