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Non-Tech : Conseco Insurance (CNO) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Tunica Albuginea who wrote (2495)8/21/2000 6:06:50 PM
From: RockyBalboa  Respond to of 4155
 
If CNC goes bunk, in one or 2 months your portfolio is gone and you ll likely hope for acceptable bankruptcy proceedings...I hope for you that you are not margined to the hilt...you could join CNC otherwise.

McDonald and Burger King is hiring personnel....



To: Tunica Albuginea who wrote (2495)8/21/2000 6:31:50 PM
From: AK2004  Respond to of 4155
 
TA
thank you, below is from PaineWebber on Life Insurance. While it is not the perfect news one thing is extremely positive is that Conseco seems to be fairly open about their business and therefor no negative surprises should be expected. An considering the size of conseco the financial impact of the listed item should be at most limited
Regards
-Albert

10:15am EDT 21-Aug-00 PaineWebber (Lee, Robert A. 212-713-2426) AFL AGC AVZ AXF
Money and Mortality This Week

Life Insurance, Asset Management PaineWebber
...........................................

Conseco Q2 10-Q (CNC-$7.38)(3)

Since it has already been widely reported: 1) How much debt ($1.4 billion) the company has coming due over the next couple of months, 2) The fact that they are negotiating with their banks and Lehman Brothers to restructure their credit facilities, and 3) How much they (the company) thinks they can raise in asset sales over the next 15 months ($2 billion), among other things, we thought it would be interesting to pick out a couple of less well publicized items from the current 10-Q (although it has been pretty well picked over by the press).

* The company and several of its subsidiaries are defendants in a class action lawsuit representing 345 thousand claimants. The lawsuit relates to universal life policies sold in the 1980's and 1990's that experienced lower than expected crediting rates. While the existence of this lawsuit (sounds like a vanishing premium lawsuit to us), has been disclosed in prior SEC filings, what is new is that the company is now indicating that there are settlement negotiations taking place. To quote from the 10-Q; "We intend to continue defending this action vigorously unless the current settlement discussions and procedures produce a satisfactory outcome."

* Long-term care had a loss ratio of 94.15% in Q2. According to the 10-Q; "As a result of recent unfavorable claims experience in our long-term care insurance lines, we closely reviewed our reserving methodologies. Certain changes in estimates were made that adversely affected the loss ratio in the second quarter of 2000."

* As of June 30, 2000 the company held about $469 million of lower-rated securities from Conseco Finance securitizations. These are classified on the balance sheet as actively managed securities.
.......................................



To: Tunica Albuginea who wrote (2495)8/21/2000 7:08:41 PM
From: AK2004  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 4155
 
TA
I am sure that Dorfman's week old bit is an old news but just in case....
Regards
-Albert

Novell, Conseco Are Among the True Stock Bargains: John Dorfman 8/15/0 13:44 (New York)
...................
Stock Screens

I don't believe there are anywhere near 76 genuine bargains in this rug store, however. After I imposed a series of not-very-demanding statistical tests (price-earnings ratio less than 20, price-book ratio of 3 or less, price-sales ratio of 3 or less, and long-term debt less than stockholders' equity), fewer than a dozen candidates remained. I sifted them down to the following four:
........................
Conseco, based in Carmel, Indiana, may be the most speculative of the lot. Under Stephen C. Hilbert, who was CEO from 1988 until April, Conseco acquired a long string of insurance companies (many of them mediocre), using its high-flying stock as currency. It then centralized many of the companies' operations and cut costs to improve profits.

New CEO

Conseco's accounting was widely viewed as aggressive, and Hilbert's compensation (he received more than $13 million a year for three years running) as excessive. The company also took on a fair amount of debt, which recently amounted to 174 percent of stockholders' equity.
Now, thanks to one last acquisition that blew up in its face -- Green Tree Finance Corp., for which the company paid $6 billion -- Hilbert is out and a new management team is in. Gary Wendt, a respected finance man from General Electric Co., is the new chief executive. I think if anyone can turn Conseco around, Wendt is the guy.
I first wrote about Conseco in this column in November 1997, when the stock was at $46. ``Personally, I've never liked Conseco,'' I wrote at the time. ``It has always seemed to me that too much of its earnings have come from financial engineering, that the companies it keeps acquiring are often of dubious quality, and that chief executive Stephen Hilbert's pay is excessive.''
Today, you can pick up shares of Conseco for $7.50 apiece, down 84 percent from when I made those harsh remarks 33 months ago. But if I hated the stock at $46, I like it at prices under $8.
.................................



To: Tunica Albuginea who wrote (2495)8/21/2000 7:15:25 PM
From: AK2004  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 4155
 
TA
and not to forget the most recent ee for '001 of 1.36 which
would make pe for cnc at 7.5/1.36=5.5 which is not bad.
Regards
-Albert


FIRST CALL Earnings Estimates Summary for CNC
Conseco Inc.
Fiscal Year Ending Dec Last Updated: 17-Aug-00 02:53pm
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Year Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Fisc Yr Num Cal Yr Num
Ending Mar Jun Sep Dec Annual Brok Annual Brok
2001 0.28 0.29 0.29 0.30 1.34 7 1.34 7
2000 0.30A -0.09A 0.25 0.29 0.68 8 0.68 8
1999 0.92A 0.96A 0.73A 0.64A 3.23A 13 3.23A 12
1998 0.66A 0.76A 0.90A 0.89A 3.15A 14 3.15A 11
1997 0.59A 0.71A 0.72A 0.79A 2.74A 12 2.74A 11
1996 0.39A 0.44A 0.51A 0.54A 1.89A 5 1.89A 2
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Consensus Recommendation: 2.6 Secular Growth Rate: 15 %
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FIRST CALL Earnings Estimates for CNC
Fiscal Year Ending Dec 2001 Last Updated: 17-Aug-00
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Annual Last Confirmed/
Brokers Mar-01 Jun-01 Sep-01 Dec-01 Revised/Orig.
Conning & Co.: - - - - 1.00 17-Aug-00
Previous: - - - - 1.50 17-Aug-00
Lehman Brothers: 0.28 0.29 0.29 0.30 1.16 9-Aug-00
Previous: 0.67 0.70 0.74 0.77 2.89 8-May-00
McDonald Inc.: - - - - 1.00 31-Jul-00
Previous: - - - - 2.50 31-Jul-00
Merrill Lynch: - - - - 1.00 2-Aug-00
Previous: - - - - - 31-Jul-00
PaineWebber: - - - - 1.75 31-Jul-00
Previous: - - - - 2.10 1-May-00
Sal. Smith Barn: - - - - 1.00 17-Aug-00
Previous: - - - - 1.15 27-Jul-00

FIRST CALL Consensus Statistics

# Brokers 1 1 1 1 7
Current Mean: 0.28 0.29 0.29 0.30 1.34 17-Aug-00
Previous Mean: 0.67 0.70 0.74 0.77 1.42 17-Aug-00
Std. Deviation: - - - - 0.54
Report Date: 04/30w 07/27w