Thursday, August 04, 2005

Sara Lee

I haven't had time to look through Sara Lee mainly because I'm still getting used to my schedule.
Sleeping in for the past three months, and then starting this job.
My schedule goes like this: I wake up at 3:45am (!) and leave the house before 5, I drive to the BART station and take the 5:21 ride and arrive at work around 5:45. I work till 3 and after transportation time I get back to my house before 4pm. I then try to do a little CFA reading (almost done with the reading), eat something, then basically I'm drained. Seriously, I'm getting sleepy by 7. I try to fall asleep around 9:30, but I've been having problems sleeping this week and I keep waking up multiple times throughout the night. As you can see, I don't have too much free time and I'm usually sleepy during this free time. A few more weeks and I think I'll get used to it.

Anyways, back to SLE. They reported a fourth-quarter loss, but said some good things in their report. They are reorganizing the company and spinning off certain units (it's clothing and coffee units). Sales were pretty bad, but I think it might be better if they become a leaner company.
They will be focusing on the units they started with and those with higher margins (like household products). They are going to bring down their debt levels and issued a $2 billion stock repurchase plan. I think a combination of these factors sent the price up, even though other parts of the report were disappointing like their sales figures. It ended the day up 2.56% and trended higher throughout the day.
I hesistated and could have bought at the $19 level, but there are risks and I need to look further into the company.

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