What analysts are saying about Piper Jaffray, Best Buy

Updated: July 28, 2012 - 5:03 PM

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PIPER JAFFRAY LEAVING HONG KONG OFFICE

Piper Jaffray's Hong Kong office will be sold or closed by September. Piper CEO Andrew Duff made the announcement on Wednesday, the same day the company announced its second quarter results.

Once seen as a promising entry into growing China and Asian economies volatility and global economic crisis made Piper's Hong Kong office too expensive to maintain. The second-quarter results revealed that the company lost $9 million in China in 2011 and nearly $6.8 million in first half of this year.

"They are bleeding red," said Morningstar analyst Michael Wong. "They overbuilt, and the market just turned on them."

PROMINENT HEDGE FUND EXITS BEST BUY

Hedge fund manager David Einhorn, in a note to his Greenlight Capital investors, said that it has sold its 7.7 million shares in Best Buy Co. Inc. at a loss. Among the reason's Einhorn gave for exiting the Richfield-based consumer electronics retailer were Best Buy's investment in Carphone Warehouse, collapsing international profits and the departures of CEO Brian Dunn and chairman and founder Richard Schulze.

"As a result the company has an interim CEO and is trying to come up with a strategy," Einhorn said in his letter. "We worried that this could lead to additional business disruption so we exited with a loss."

Einhorn summarized his Best Buy investment as "particularly irksome."

"Maybe [Greenlight] didn't think the plan is going to be good enough," longtime Wall Street analyst Jeremy Brunelli told the Star Tribune. "Maybe [Greenlight] thought Best Buy could not get it done."

PATRICK KENNEDY

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