WBD

Research
1

It seems the data on WBD has not been updated but is legacy DISCA data. Any word from Factset when they will bring it up to date?

2

What data is out of date? It all looks up-to-date to me, but maybe I’m missing something.

3

P123 shows a market cap of approx $11B (consistent with what Discovery alone would have been), whereas post-merger it’s now $59B. They also added over $40B in debt (as a result of the merger alone), whereas the total debt listed here on P123 is just $15B (again, exactly what it was pre-merger). And all of the ratios (P/E, P/B, P/S, etc) are consistent with legacy Discovery, reflecting essentially no change post-merger.

4

Because we (and FactSet) rely on quarterly reports for all such numbers, and there haven’t been any post-merger, we can’t “update” WBD’s market cap, debt, book value, sales, or earnings. Even the NASDAQ reports WBD’s P/E as 13. Generally, one has to wait for a financial statement to get post-merger data.

5

Ok understood, thanks.

6

Is there any way to flag such companies that recently merged and the financials are out of wack?

7

Yes. PastCorpAct(#MANDA). See https://www.portfolio123.com/doc/doc_detail.jsp?factor=PastCorpAct&popUpFullDesc=1

8

Thanks Yuval!