Month: January 2020

AT&T Should Sell WarnerMedia

AT&T Should Sell WarnerMedia

AT&T's acquisition of Time Warner seemed like a good idea at the time. That is no longer true. Tickers mentioned: AAPL, AMZN, CMCSA, DIS, GOOG, NFLX, T, VZ AT&T's $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner seemed like a good idea when it was first kicked around a few years ago. AT&T would differentiate its fiber … Continue reading AT&T Should Sell WarnerMedia

IBM Names A New CEO

IBM Names A New CEO

Tickers mentioned: AMZN, FDS, GOOG, IBM, INFO, MSCI, MSFT, ORCL, SSNC, VRSK Late to the Cloud and Little Appetite for Acquisitions IBM named Arvind Krishna to replace Ginni Rometty as CEO effective April 6th, 2020. Some 7-8 years ago IBM accelerated its transition to the cloud. This transition was accompanies by a change to pro … Continue reading IBM Names A New CEO

ServiceNow to Go Vertical

ServiceNow to Go Vertical

ServiceNow (ticker: NOW) plans to take a vertical-specific, go-to-market approach under new CEO Bill McDermott. Banking and Telecom will be the first verticals introduced under a partner-led model. We Applaud ServiceNow's Vertical Orientation As Technology companies scale it becomes increasingly important to incorporate industry vertical domain expertise into product and service offerings in order to … Continue reading ServiceNow to Go Vertical

SS&C vs. CRD

SS&C vs. CRD

A Google Trends Analysis - SS&C Technologies (ticker: SSNC) vs. Charles River Development (ticker: STT) We performed a “Google Trends” analysis comparing Google search terms “SS&C Technologies” and “Charles River Development”. To access our report CLICK HERE. We measured the period September 1st 2019 through January 22nd 2020. Our analysis included Google searches conducted across … Continue reading SS&C vs. CRD

What’s Up With Best Buy’s Culture?

What’s Up With Best Buy’s Culture?

When it comes to Corporate Governance, Best Buy (ticker: BBY), can't get out of it's own way. This weekend's news that Best Buy's Board of Directors is investigating allegations that CEO Corie Barry had an inappropriate romantic relationship with a former Best Buy executive is a bit of a head-scratcher. We have seen this Best … Continue reading What’s Up With Best Buy’s Culture?

Here’s How Roper Technologies (tkr: ROP) Can Raise Its Game

Here’s How Roper Technologies (tkr: ROP) Can Raise Its Game

Roper Technologies has generally executed well over the past number of years. We offer three recommendations to Roper for driving superior operational performance and shareholder returns. 1.) Focus the Enterprise Software M&A strategy: This is Priority One. To date Roper has taken a buckshot approach to M&A with acquisitions scattered across the Software landscape. This … Continue reading Here’s How Roper Technologies (tkr: ROP) Can Raise Its Game

Alternative Investment Data: CEO Narcissism & Company-Specific Risk

Alternative Investment Data: CEO Narcissism & Company-Specific Risk

We have previously written about CEO personality attributes as part of our Alternative Investment Data effort at CEORater. The most comprehensive CEO personality analytics piece we have published is our May 2018 "Big 5 Personality Analysis of Mid-Cap Software CEOs". In this article we cover company-specific risk created by CEO narcissism. "Narcissism" is not a … Continue reading Alternative Investment Data: CEO Narcissism & Company-Specific Risk

Defining A Winning Culture

Defining A Winning Culture

A Winning Culture Doesn't Happen by Accident "Culture" is a word of the moment that has been spoken ad nauseam, primarily by sports and business media. Sports journalists heavily used the word during the recent NFL coaching carousel. What these journalists failed to mention is that "culture" in the context of an organization is not … Continue reading Defining A Winning Culture

One M&A Prophecy Fulfilled. More to Come.

One M&A Prophecy Fulfilled. More to Come.

Debt remains cheap. Strategic acquirers and PE firms are flush with cash. It doesn't take a genius to arrive at the conclusion that Software & Services M&A activity will remain healthy in 2020 all else held equal. (tickers mentioned: ACN, AVGO). Today's news that Accenture (ticker: ACN) agreed to acquire Symantec's CyberSecurity Services business from … Continue reading One M&A Prophecy Fulfilled. More to Come.

CEORater 2019 Technology CEOs of the Year

CEORater 2019 Technology CEOs of the Year

There were too many quality CEOs to choose from when we went about selecting the "CEORater Technology CEO of the Year" for 2019. Rather than selecting a single "Technology CEO of the Year", we elected to select five top CEOs across five Technology categories: 1.) "PropTech", 2.) "FinTech: Payments", 3.) "Platform Companies", 4.) "FinTech: Capital … Continue reading CEORater 2019 Technology CEOs of the Year