Külföldi torrent oldalak Netflix, Inc. (nflx): David Einhorn Makes A Sell Case For The Red-hot Streaming Giant

Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) shares are up 135% this year, thanks to a growing number of subscribers and the company’s international expansion efforts. The online streaming giant has seen runaway success on the back of popular shows such as “Orange is the New Black” and “House of Cards.” Netflix aims to expand to 200 countries by next year, in a bid to capitalize on non-US growth opportunities.

However, famed hedge fund manager, David Einhorn, has advised selling the stock. In a Greenlight Capital quarterly letter to investors that was also provided to Bidness Etc, Mr. Einhorn said investors are valuing the company on how much it spends to increase subscriber growth, rather than on traditional earnings metrics. He noted that Netflix’s subscriber count has come in better-than-expected but outlined a number of points investors could be overlooking.

In his bear thesis, Mr. Einhorn said Netflix strategy is to cut down profit in order to increase the number of subscribers over the next few years. He emphasized that this gives rise to the question of how much profit can be gained by bringing in additional subscribers. Comparing the user acquisition cost with the value of the user shows lower profits will be achieved, which puts the company’s strategy into question, he said.

Netflix’s present growth is partly attributed to its successful original content strategy. On this, Mr. Einhorn said that content is expensive and its cost is projected to increase to $5 billion in 2016. Furthermore, he pointed out that the company does not provide estimates of the cost of the content it produces.

Another point raised by Mr. Einhorn was that, there are no ratings that could determine the consumption of Netflix content. Moreover, he said that most of the content excitement is driven by analysts who have links in investment banking.

While Netflix’s self-produced content has so far been successful, it is not necessary that it will always make it, according to Mr. Einhorn. This is part of the reason why content producers sell at only 10-15x EBITDA, he said. He further stated that self-produced content is costly, and mentioned “Marco Polo” that cost more than $100 million.

Elaborating on Netflix’s prior two quarterly earnings, Mr. Einhorn commented that Netflix has failed to meet consensus expectations in the previous two quarters, and that the Street estimates have gone down as a result. He said that 2016 consensus EPS estimates are nearly 50% lower than analysts’ forecast 90 days ago.

Finally, Mr. Einhorn said that Netflix’s valuation is rich as the stock is currently trading at around 150x reduced 2016 estimates. This comes at a time when the company is increasing its expenditure to expand subscriber base.

In addition to Mr. Einhorn’s concerns, Bidness Etc sees increasing problems with Netflix’s cross-border expansion into countries such as China, India, and Russia. These countries are considered piracy hotspots and such activities could cause a loss of revenue for the company. Furthermore, Netflix’s plans for China could be hit with intensifying competition, since the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE:BABA) has revealed intentions of launching a Netflix-like service in the country.