finesand
6 years ago
no amended complain filed, dismissal next
SeaOfSand https://finesand.wordpress.com/2019/06/01/cheetah-mobile-cmcm-performance-update-1/comment-page-1/#comment-430
Yes, https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/26324343/Marcu_v_Cheetah_Mobile_Inc_et_al
last update was yesterday one minute before midnight!
Meaning, plaintiff didn’t file the amendment and hence this lawsuit will be dismissed now.
So like the short attack and dismissed lawsuit before, the accusations are all a pile of BS.
...
.. and the plaintiff is done, didn’t file an amendment as checked today.
Notable: Last amendment was filed in between Feb 12 – March 28, exactly when the last recovery ended and the last dive started March 5th.
CMCM’s lawyers, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom Llp (nyc) are also performing the financial audit to ensure company will finally get out of these accusations with flying colors – they found nothing!
Judge Furman will very highly likely dismiss this case now.
P/E is now scratching 3, truly amazing.
Surprised by this price myself. Hmmm.
finesand
6 years ago
Updated DD by SeaOfSand, motivated simply by the very 'cheapness' of P/E < 4 now
https://finesand.wordpress.com/2019/06/01/cheetah-mobile-cmcm-performance-update-1/
- or -
https://seekingalpha.com/instablog/48819309-seaofsand/5310773-cheetah-mobile-cmcm-update-1
Bottom line, we have an annual revenue increase of just 0.1% and net income drop of around 14% annually already being compensated by a more than 55% MCAP drop, valuated at P/E < 4 today.
We understand the company’s seasonal income fluctuations and cause of the current ‘income dip’, which shall only be of temporary nature as the shift in business direction will allow even more growth than the to be replaced ad-ware cash flow. Company’s ability to compensate transitional income via financing activities is also very much undervalued.
Income would need to drop 62% further down from currently now ~$170M to $64.5M to make the $4.50/ADS price at P/E 10 somewhat reasonable, even though such a drop in net income would be outworld’ish.
More realistic would be allowing a cautious P/E ~10 while company is transitioning. Let’s say current $170M annual income drops another 14% more in 2019, leaving this year with only ~$146M and EPS of $1.08/ADS having 135M ADS left (see below). Hence $10 – $11 per ADS should be today’s recover goal at P/E 10 already accounting for another last drop in income.
whytestocks
6 years ago
News: $CMCM LEAD PLAINTIFF DEADLINE ALERT: Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP Encourages Investors Who Suffered Losses Exceeding $50,000 in Cheetah Mobile Inc. to Contact the Firm
NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / January 17, 2019 / Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP, a leading national securities law firm, reminds investors in Cheetah Mobile, Inc. (''Cheetah'' or the ''Company'') (NYSE:CMCM) of the January 29, 2019 deadline to seek the role of lead plaintiff in a federal securities ...
In case you are interested https://marketwirenews.com/news-releases/lead-plaintiff-deadline-alert-faruqi-faruqi-llp-encourages-investors-who-suffered-losses-exceeding-50-000-in-cheetah-mobile-inc-to-contact-the-firm-7036010.html
finesand
6 years ago
Short Attack; Excellent Financials & Performance; Buyback
Best summary, I just added the last little piece of the puzzle,
the share structure in combination with the $92M buyback!
Short attack: https://finesand.wordpress.com/2018/11/30/cheetah-mobile-cmcm-an-outrageous-unfounded-accusation-short-attack/
- Already refuted with details given: 3rd Party SDKs, not intend
- Google even blogged about it: 3rd Party SDKs, no intend
- Hence CMCM's refutation is supported, forget the class-action suit attempts
Financial etc: https://finesand.wordpress.com/2018/12/05/cheetah-mobile-cmcm-a-financially-solid-high-growth-company/
- $600M in cash on hand
- 2018 PE roughly a 20-30% 2018 EPS increase to $1.66 -$1.80
- adware phasing out slowly, AI driven stuff coming in
- revenue already more balanced by countries and utils/games
And now the magic cooky, which I didn't totally get first: The impact of the share repurchase program they started for $100M earlier. After the short attack they had $92M left.
And they stated: Every day
Best you read it all in my blog, but below I copy the share structure pic and quote the most important conclusion.
Non-Tradable Class-B shares are fully owned by the parent companies and represent full control of CMCM. Class-A shares are tradable. One ADS represent 10 ordinary shares. Class-A and Class-B shares together represent the total OS, since they have equal value. Major parent companies owning from total OS are
Kingsoft 47.33%
Tencent 16.52%
Insiders and parent companies together hold 81.75% of total OS and 33.29% of Class-A shares. 13-F filings represent 19.72% of Class-A shares. In total 53% of Class-A shares are currently owned in above period, leaving 47% or 18M free float to trade.
...
Below mentioned share repurchase program will reduce the Class-A free float dramatically, roughly by 13M ADS @ $7 avg for $92M. This would reduce the Class-A free float from 39M to 26M ADS, a reduction of over 33%. The Class-A free float would be reduced to below 8M ADS.
..
Thanks to the short attack, $92M could buy roughly 13M ADS @ $7 average in the trading range $5.50 – $8.50. This reduces the Class-A about 33% down to only 26M ADS, leaving the free-float below 8M ADS! Roughly 4.4M ADS short-interest were reported last session.
finesand
6 years ago
Annual Short Attack / New AI Driven Biz
Oct 2017 Short Attack
2017-10-26 Prescience Point https://www.presciencepoint.com/research/research-archives/cheetah_mobile-cmcm/
2017-10-27 CMCM's fast refutation http://ir.cmcm.com/2017-10-27-Cheetah-Mobile-Responds-to-Recent-Allegations
+++
Nov 2018 Short Attack
CMCM ex-partner Kochava 'discloses' some phenomenons, where he prematurely points his fingers to CMCM and one other company for good measure, see
2018-11-26 https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/android-apps-cheetah-mobile-kika-kochava-ad-fraud
In the business of disclosing security vulnerabilities etc, the finder USUALLY contacts the involved companies w/o raising the flag in public. Finder may receive a finders fee.
The behavior Kochava exposes with the public disclosure, breaches the unwritten rules in this field. So called 'Zero day' disclosures are rare and using the yellow press even more so :)
Who knows how they get compensated for it. They surely got their dime here IMHO. Simply unethical in this business.
CMCM made three PR regarding the orchestrated and algo lead short attack
1) 2018-11-27 https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cheetah-mobile-responds-to-recent-article-regarding-app-installation-attribution-300755861.html
2) 2018-11-27 https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cheetah-mobile-further-responds-to-recent-articles-regarding-app-installation-attribution-300756450.html
3) 2018-11-28 https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cheetah-mobile-responds-to-kochavas-misleading-statements-300757227.html
And guess who has outed themselves?
Prescience Point showed up on 2018-11-28
1) https://twitter.com/PresciencePoint/status/1067854554262310912
2) https://twitter.com/PresciencePoint/status/1067854901290639361
3) https://twitter.com/PresciencePoint/status/1067859803953922049
On 11/27 the SP wasn't even able to get above the 5min 8ema on around 10M traded shares, about 143M OS (reduced since 3Q18).
On 11/28 they seemingly enabled their algo around 10am after the gap-up.
The company lost more than 1/3 of their MCAP on 11/27 and only little has been recovered.
On 11/28 C was $6.64, a 17% loss compared to $8 previous support.
But I assume they started way earlier around $10, so factual loss on 11/28 is still 33.6% and on 11/27 was even around 50%!
Good algos were employed here, that's for sure :)
Ambulance chaser joined the coordinated attack as usual
1) 2018-11-28 https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181128005744/en/
2) 2018-11-28 https://www.benzinga.com/pressreleases/18/11/r12767961/cheetah-mobile-investor-alert-faruqi-faruqi-llp-encourages-investors-w
Compared to 2017-10-26, this may take a while longer...
+++
CMCM's new AI driven Business
2017-05-26 https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cheetah-mobile-invests-in-robotics-business-300464519.html
2017-06-26 https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/orionstar-wins-challenge-to-recognize-one-million-celebrity-faces-with-artificial-intelligence-300494265.html
In May '17 CMCM invested into OrionStar https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=432245050
Please note from CMCM's 2017-10-27 short refutation
Allegations Regarding OrionStar Investment:
The allegations claim that the OrionStar investment is a vehicle for the misappropriation of shareholder capital. Because the transaction is considered a related-party transaction, the Company has followed strict procedures to ensure the fairness of the investment. Each of the Company and Kingsoft Corporation, the parent company of Cheetah Mobile, engaged an independent appraiser to evaluate the transaction and the audit committee of the Company has approved the transaction as well. Several external investors also invested in OrionStar at the same valuation.
CMCM started to plan their adware mobile-phone helper-all exit strategy in early 2017, knowing that this revenue source will no t match their growth trajectory and is declining.
CMCM entered the AI driven application market w/ and w/o hardware involved.
1Q18 CC:
Cheetah GreetBot, which is a full-sized reception robot developed by Beijing OrionStar. Cheetah GreetBot can recognize visitors when they arrive, communicate with them, help them find their contacts and accompanying them to meeting rooms
With Beijing OrionStar's end-to-end knowledge of robot production, they can tailor maker -- tailor make Cheetah GreetBot for customers such as companies, banks and hospitals at a compelling price.
Beijing OrionStar had made significant progress on Cheetah GreetBot production testing since its launch. If they execute according to plans, we expect to start delivering Cheetah GreetBot to customer in Q4 2018.
Q&A My first question about the margin trend for Q2 and 2018 due to our investment in the robotics business. And my second question is about our competitive strengths and our differentiations in the robotics business versus our peers.
A: First of all, for the OrionStar, Beijing OrionStar, this is a -- we are not controlling the company right now. We only have a warrant to acquire controlling position. So at this moment, it was (inaudible) possible right now (inaudible) alternative measurements, so we have not recognized the cost and expenses of Beijing OrionStar yet. So just on our book is our costs. The expense and costs will not impact the bottom line of Cheetah Mobile. In term of the margin, we expect that the gross margin will probably be slightly lower because the top line was reduced.
Timeline as planned was to start selling new products in 4Q18,
but company is now ahead of their plan:
Translator launched July 2018 https://pandaily.com/cheetah-mobile-launches-the-most-affordable-ai-translator-at-40/
GreetBot launched in August 2018 https://venturebeat.com/2018/08/29/cheetah-mobile-and-orionstar-release-greetbot-ai-receptionist-robots/
On 11/22/18 post 3Q18 CFO gave a nice interview https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2018-11-21/china-s-cheetah-mobile-aims-to-become-ai-driven-company-cfo-says-video
CFO mentioned TikTok investment will gain around $86M https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.photogrid.tiptap&hl=en_US
Bytedance is the Tik Tok creator https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/18/tech/bytedance-china-tiktok/index.html
and on 11/26 Bytedance generated $43M sold + $43M holding for CMCM https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1597835/000119312518333486/d652620d6k.htm
one of CMCM's big wins of investments https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bytedance-and-nba-announce-global-partnership-to-deliver-customized-mobile-friendly-content-powered-by-artificial-intelligence-300755383.html
hope they buy the remaining portion of OrionStar, for which they do have an option.
Bottom line, company is moving away from the adware biz as planned long time ago anyways and their AI driven apps + tools are well received and already selling.
Such a transition is never easy, but seemingly CMCM managed it best so far - not being damaged by quarterly negatives. The shift and R&D being paid by the exiting adware revenues.
finesand
6 years ago
Short Thesis Part-1: Sheng Fu, CMCM CEO also owns OrionStar
and has sold 30% to CMCM. Accusation is that CMCM planned to launch into robotics anyways and CEO simply created OrionStar to sell a stake to CMCM -> misappropriation.
May need to dig into this detail, maybe more to come :)
About OrionStar
OrionStar is an artificial intelligence company incorporated in China and controlled by Mr. Sheng Fu, the chief executive officer and director of Cheetah Mobile. The company was established in September 2016 by a group of technology industry leaders and product specialists from Silicon Valley, Japan, Taiwan, Beijing and Shenzhen. In May 2017, Beijing Kingsoft Internet Security Software Co., Ltd. ("Beijing Security"), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cheetah Mobile, entered into a capital injection agreement with OrionStar. Pursuant to the agreement, Beijing Security agreed to subscribe to newly issued equity interest in OrionStar.
OrionStar is committed to using AI technology to develop the next generation of ground-breaking technology products and free people from the burden of overly complicated tasks, make homes more intelligent and create a better world through technology.
In less than one year, OrionStar has successfully released its own voice recognition and image recognition systems.
In June 2017, OrionStar partnered with popular audio streaming platform Ximalaya.com in China to release Xiao Ya, a voice-operated speaker powered by OrionStar's self-developed remote voice interactive system, and the first product to connect to OrionStar's AI ecosystem.
finesand
6 years ago
on 2016-05-23 Google coop started for these ads https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cheetah-mobile-and-google-share-admob-native-ad-success-with-video-case-study-300273292.html
To be honest, I hate all of these apps and don't use it - mobile phones as anonymous as possible. However, CMCM is like all of these other companies here, including Google and FB and who not.
The biz case is to use your data.
The user is the 'good' to trade, nothing to see here.
And if you believe that Google was not aware of anything in this matter, you may dream on :)
Bottom line, as laid out in replied post: CMCM is moving into a solid biz case for more growth away from these questionable adware components as planned in 2017. GL
finesand
6 years ago
AdWare Fraud Accusation Short Attack
Christmas came early? Probably!
Forgive me typos and grammar, I just copy paste some prelim text of our notes here, barely structuring it yet.
First of all this wasn't the first short attack on the company.
Now the CMCM ex-partner Kochava 'discloses' some phenomenons, where he prematurely points his fingers to CMCM and one other company for good measure, see
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/android-apps-cheetah-mobile-kika-kochava-ad-fraud
In the business of disclosing security vulnerabilities etc, the finder USUALLY contacts the involved companies w/o raising the flag in public. Finder may receive a finders fee.
The behavior Kochava exposes with the public disclosure, breaches the unwritten rules in this field. So called 'Zero day' disclosures are rare and using the yellow press even more so :)
Who knows how they get compensated for it. They surely got their dime here IMHO. Simply unethical in this business.
CMCM made a 2nd PR regarding the orchestrated and algo lead short attack today https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cheetah-mobile-further-responds-to-recent-articles-regarding-app-installation-attribution-300756450.html
Know that the SP wasn't even able to get above the 5min 8ema on around 10M traded shares, about 143M OS (reduced since 3Q18).
The company lost more than 1/3 of their MCAP!
Good algos were employed here, that's for sure :)
+++
Now let's talk about the future of CMCM.
May 26, 2017, 08:30 ET https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cheetah-mobile-invests-in-robotics-business-300464519.html
Jul 26, 2017, 08:00 ET https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/orionstar-wins-challenge-to-recognize-one-million-celebrity-faces-with-artificial-intelligence-300494265.html
In May '17 CMCM invested into OrionStar https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=432245050
CMCM started to plan their adware mobile-phone helper-all exit strategy in early 2017, knowing that this revenue source will no t match their growth trajectory and is declining.
CMCM entered the AI driven application market w/ and w/o hardware involved.
1Q18 CC:
Cheetah GreetBot, which is a full-sized reception robot developed by Beijing OrionStar. Cheetah GreetBot can recognize visitors when they arrive, communicate with them, help them find their contacts and accompanying them to meeting rooms
With Beijing OrionStar's end-to-end knowledge of robot production, they can tailor maker -- tailor make Cheetah GreetBot for customers such as companies, banks and hospitals at a compelling price.
Beijing OrionStar had made significant progress on Cheetah GreetBot production testing since its launch. If they execute according to plans, we expect to start delivering Cheetah GreetBot to customer in Q4 2018.
Q&A My first question about the margin trend for Q2 and 2018 due to our investment in the robotics business. And my second question is about our competitive strengths and our differentiations in the robotics business versus our peers.
A: First of all, for the OrionStar, Beijing OrionStar, this is a -- we are not controlling the company right now. We only have a warrant to acquire controlling position. So at this moment, it was (inaudible) possible right now (inaudible) alternative measurements, so we have not recognized the cost and expenses of Beijing OrionStar yet. So just on our book is our costs. The expense and costs will not impact the bottom line of Cheetah Mobile. In term of the margin, we expect that the gross margin will probably be slightly lower because the top line was reduced.
Timeline as planned was to start selling new products in 4Q18,
but company is now ahead of their plan:
Translator launched July 2018 https://pandaily.com/cheetah-mobile-launches-the-most-affordable-ai-translator-at-40/
GreetBot launched in August 2018 https://venturebeat.com/2018/08/29/cheetah-mobile-and-orionstar-release-greetbot-ai-receptionist-robots/
On 11/22/18 post 3Q18 CFO gave a nice interview https://finance.yahoo.com/video/chinas-cheetah-mobile-aims-become-232458309.html
he mentioned TikTok investment will gain around $86M https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.photogrid.tiptap&hl=en_US
Bytedance is the Tik Tok creator https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/18/tech/bytedance-china-tiktok/index.html
and on 11/26 Bytedance generated $43M sold + $43M holding for CMCM https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1597835/000119312518333486/d652620d6k.htm
one of CMCM's big wins of investments https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bytedance-and-nba-announce-global-partnership-to-deliver-customized-mobile-friendly-content-powered-by-artificial-intelligence-300755383.html
hope they buy the remaining portion of OrionStar, for which they do have an option.
Bottom line, company is moving away from the adware biz as planned long time ago anyways and their AI driven apps + tools are well received and already selling.
Such a transition is never easy, but seemingly CMCM managed it best so far - not being damaged by quarterly negatives. The shift and R&D being paid by the exiting adware revenues.
In this sense: Christmas came early!
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