Since coming public in early August, Manchester United (NYSE:MANU) hasn’t been able to score with investors. The company, which operates a legendary English soccer team, has seen its stock price go from $15.27 to $13.
Unfortunately, MANU’s latest earnings report provided little to get excited about. Revenues increased by 3.4% to 121.3 million, and net income came to $32.6 million, or 20 cents per share. The figures were in line with the Street consensus.
Yet the report still had some good news. Consider that MANU signed 10 new sponsorship deals with companies like General Motors (NYSE:GM), Fuji TV and Toshiba Medical Systems. MANU also cut its debt load by 17% to $572 million.
But perhaps the most encouraging news is that the team is off to a strong season. So far, it’s in first place in the Premier League. It looks like the team has gotten a boost from the addition of players like Shinji Kagawa and Robin Van Persie.
Tom Taulli runs the InvestorPlace blog IPOPlaybook, a site dedicated to the hottest news and rumors about initial public offerings. He is also the author of “How to Create the Next Facebook.“ Follow him on Twitter at @ttaulli. As of this writing, he did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
A long-time follower of the IPO scene, back in 1999 Tom started one of the first sites in the space called WebIPO. It was a place where investors got research as well as access to deals for the dot-com boom. Tom also wrote the top-selling book, Investing in IPOs. In it, he covers all the aspects of analyzing an IPO, such as reading the prospectus, detecting the risk factors and understanding some of the arcane regulations. But don’t worry — if that process is too intimidating for you, thankfully Tom will do the legwork for you right here in the IPO Playbook blog.
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