BTC Impex, based in Kyiv, Ukraine, is run by Volodymyr Khmurych, a CFA Charterholder and member of the CFA Ukraine Society. Volodymyr takes a generalist approach with no focus on certain industries and sectors with specialization in value stocks. His strategy involves top-down analysis of industries followed by bottom up fundamental analysis of the individual companies, with the purpose of identifying fundamentally strong and weak companies and relatively under- and overvalued securities.
Volodymyr manages Covestor’s Long-Short Generalist portfolio, which seeks to profit from both the relative out-performance of long-holdings and the under-performance of the short holdings.
Currently, this portfolio is long Target Corp (NYSE: TGT) and short Village Super Market (Nasdaq: VLGEA) and JC Penny (NYSE: JCP).
On April 19, Volodymyr added Dish Network (NASDAQ: DISH) to the model. DISH is a pay-television provider, with approximately 14.133 million customers across the United States as of December 31, 2010.
DISH recently acquired Blockbuster, the ailing video rental chain, subsequently announcing they would close 1200 of Blockbuster’s 1700 locations:
Dish Network acquired Blockbuster at the beginning of the month, but at that time it wasn’t clear what they would do with Blockbuster’s chain of 1700 retail stores. This week, the company announced that they would take on the leases for 500 of those stores. The other 1200 will presumably close or be sold to the highest bidder.
Dish Network filed papers with the US Bankruptcy Court handling the Blockbuster purchase that notes they’ll take ownership of 500 of Blockbuster’s store leases, but declined to say explicitly what would happen to the others and which stores would remain open. They did say however that Dish Network would grant Blockbuster “cross-marketing and service extension opportunities,” which sounds like they plan to leverage Blockbuster’s streaming video on-demand services and its disc-by-mail business.
Most analysts predicted that the acquisition meant that Dish Network was planning to leverage Blockbuster’s most valuable assets: its deals with movie studios and television networks, and its streaming video service. They also predicted that Dish would cross-promote its satellite television services with Blocxkbuster’s disc-by-mail and streaming video services. Many also predicted that Dish would shed Blockbuster’s stores entirely, so retaining 500 of them is an interesting move.
DISH also recently lost a case against TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO):
TiVo Inc. stock was up 35 percent in afternoon trading Wednesday after a federal appeals court upheld a ruling that would force satellite broadcaster Dish Network to shut down millions of digital video recorders because they were found to have infringed upon TiVo Inc. patents.
The two sides have battled for more than six years over Dish’s alleged infringement of TiVo’s patents on its digital video recording technology.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, sitting en banc, upheld a district court finding of contempt and award of sanctions against Dish parent EchoStar Communications Corp. for failing to comply with an injunction.
Sources:
“Dish Network to close 1200 Blockbuster retail stores” Alan Henry, Geek.com. 4/19. http://www.geek.com/articles/news/dish-network-to-close-1200-blockbuster-retail-stores-20110419/
“TiVo Soars on Ruling in Dish Network Case” David Wilkerson. MarketWatch, 4/20. http://voices.allthingsd.com/20110420/tivo-soars-on-ruling-in-dish-network-case/
