Category: Stock Market News

Itron Inc. said Monday it agreed to buy internet-of-things company Silver Spring Networks Inc. in a deal valued at $830 million. Under terms of the agreement, Silver Spring shareholders will received $16.25 in cash for each share they own, which represents a 25% premium to Friday’s closing price of $13. Itron expects the deal to produce synergies of $50 million a year, add to gross margin in the first year after the deal closes and add to adjusted earnings per share in the second year. Itron plans to pay for the deal, which is expected to close in late 2017 or early 2018, with cash and $750 million in new debt. Silver Spring’s stock, which was halted for news, has run up 23.5% over the past three months, while Itron shares have gained 5.0% and the S&P 500 has tacked on 2.8%.

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Shares Ultra Petroleum Corp. rallied 2.3% in light premarket trade Monday, after the oil and gas company’s largest shareholder Fir Tree Partners announced plans to urge management to pursue strategic alternatives to boost the shares. Fir Tree controls 18.5% of Ultra Petroleum’s shares outstanding, and has economic interest in 22.1% of the shares. “UPL is the most attractive natural gas company in the U.S. and trades at a substantial and unwarranted discount to its pure play comps,” said Fir Tree Managing Director Evan Lederman. “Its deep, low-cost inventory, significant resource growth potential and absence of throughput issues that plague its Northeast peers is fully unrecognized in its current share price.” Ultra Petroleum’s stock has lost 23% over the past three months through Friday, while the SPDR Energy Select Sector ETF has slipped 0.7% and the S&P 500 has gained 2.8%.

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Rolling Stone, the iconic music magazine, is being put up for sale, according to a New York Times report Sunday. Founder Jann Wenner is ready to give up control of the independent magazine, the Times reported, putting Wenner Media, which owns a majority stake in Rolling Stone, on the market. The move comes in response to financial difficulties, largely related to the decline in print advertising in recent years. Last year, Wenner Media sold a 48% stake to Singapore’s BandLab Technologies Ltd. Wenner has hired bankers to explore a sale, the Times reported, but no potential buyers have emerged yet. Wenner started the magazine in 1967 in San Francisco with music critic Ralph Gleason, and it made its mark in the 1970s with rollicking articles by the likes of Hunter S. Thompson, P.J. O’Rourke and Cameron Crowe. “I’ve enjoyed it for a long time,” Wenner told the Times, but selling is “just the smart thing to do.”

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In a deal that would merge two major U.S. defense contractors, Northrop Grumman Corp. is said to be near a deal to buy Orbital ATK Inc. , according to a Wall Street Journal report Sunday. The deal would reportedly be valued at about $7.5 billion. Virginia-based Orbital ATK is an aerospace and defense company that manufactures everything from ammunition to rockets to satellites. Northrop Grumman, also based in Virginia, is the fifth-largest defense contractor in the world, and makes the B-2 Spirit bomber, F/A-18 Hornet and military drones, among other products. Orbital ATK shares jumped 1.5% immediately after the report Sunday, while Northrop Grumman rose about 0.5%.

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North Korean state media confirmed Friday that it had launched missiles early Friday morning local time. A missile flew over Japan before landing in the Pacific Ocean, the second time in less than a month that a missile fired from North Korea had passed over Japan. According to translations of the report, North Korea leader Kim Jong Un expressed satisfaction with the launch and promised to develop a nuclear arsenal, saying the country is close to that goal. “Our final goal is to establish the equilibrium of real force with the U.S. and make the U.S. rulers dare not talk about military option,” Kim said, according to reports.

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U.S. stocks closed higher on Friday, with technology, financials, and telecommunication shares leading the way higher. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 64.86 points, or 0.3%, to 22,268.34. The S&P 500 index gained 4.61 points to 2,500.23, up 0.2%. The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 19.38 points, or 0.3%, to 6,448.47. The S&P 500 and the Dow finished at records, while the Nasdaq Composite missed its all-time high, last achieved Sept. 13, by about 12 points. For the week, the Dow rose 2.2%, the S&P advanced 1.6%, and the Nasdaq climbed 1.4%. Semiconductors were among the strongest of the day, with the sector up 1.8%. Among the notable movers, Nvidia Corp. rose 6.3% while Advanced Micro Devices was up 2.1%.

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Cloudera Inc. said late Friday it plans a follow-on offering of its shares, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The open-source software company started trading publicly in late April. Cloudera said it does not yet know how many shares will be available in the offering, but said a portion will be sold by existing shareholders and a portion will be sold by the company. Proceeds received by Cloudera will be used to pay taxes on stock awards, the company said. Shares of Cloudera declined 0.7% to $18.25 after hours.

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CarGurus Inc. hopes to raise up to $100 million in an initial public offering, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing late Friday. The search company uses algorithms and data analytics to find its users deals on new and used cars. The company reported full-year revenue of $198.1 million and a per-share loss of 58 cents a share in 2016. Goldman Sachs, Allen & Co. and RBC Capital Markets are listed among the underwriters. The company plans to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “CARG.”

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Shares of Neos Therapeutics Inc. fell more than 5% late Friday after the pharmaceutical company said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved one of its extended-release drugs for Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder in an oral-suspension form. “This FDA approval unlocks yet another treatment option for ADHD patients and their caregivers who are seeking a liquid extended-release amphetamine product and provides a different dosage form of our already-approved Adzenys XR-ODT,” Neos Therapeutics Chief Vipin K. Garg said in a statement. The FDA has aproved three ADHD drugs by Neos in two years, which “speaks to the strength of our technology platform,” he said. The new formulation is expected to be commercially launched in early 2018, the company said. The shares ended the regular trading day up 2.2%.

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S&P Global Ratings hiked Portugal’s credit rating one notch to BBB-, returning it to “investment-grade” status. Large institutional investors like pension funds may be required to abstain from buying bonds ranked below investment-grade. The ratings company boosted the country’s growth forecast to an annual 2% between 2017 and 2020. The rating change also reflects “solid progress [Portugal] has made in reducing its budget deficit.”

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