Solving Your Personal Debt Crisis

[WizardRSS: unable to retrieve full-text content]

Have you financially over-extended yourself to the point where you can no longer keep up with your debt? Perhaps you have lost your well-paying job and are now trying to live on unemployment benefits. You have been running yourself ragged trying to locate another job, but the opportunities are few.

Powered By WizardRSS.com | Full Text RSS Feed | Amazon Plugin | Settlement Statement | WordPress Tutorials

Source: http://ezinearticles.com/6427420

debt harassment debt help services debt help uk debt iva

While Washington Fiddled The Economy Burned

While media focus has been almost entirely on the short-term debt ceiling foolishness in Washington, not much attention has been paid to the more serious worsening of the six-month recessionary trend in the economy. Yet that information and how you handle it will almost surely have more influence on your well-being going forward than Washington?s short-term political game-playing.

Source: http://blogs.forbes.com/greatspeculations/2011/07/29/while-washington-fiddled-the-economy-burned/

stop debt collectors student loan debt relief texas debt collection act uk government debt

Maintaining A Quality Financial Standing After Bankruptcy And Reclaiming Self-Esteem

[WizardRSS: unable to retrieve full-text content]

Some people, in recent years, have yielded to upsetting life circumstances such as losing their job or extended periods of unemployment. These scenarios may have made an unfavorable blow upon their credit rating. Your credit rating is a judgment placed upon you as an outward financial manifestation of your lifestyle. In terms of your bank or investment accounts this gives an impression of your credit strength, and how likely you will be to repay your debts. One way to address the dilemma of unfavorable credit scores and gain compensation from such fiscal struggles is to file for bankruptcy.

Powered By WizardRSS.com | Full Text RSS Feed | Amazon Plugin | Settlement Statement | WordPress Tutorials

Source: http://ezinearticles.com/6098950

debt fix debt free america debt freedom canada debt harassment

Growth Slump Inspires Treasury Rally Despite Debt Panic

You could say that the U.S. economy took a unilateral step towards a credit downgrade on Friday after first-half growth simply evaporated in the government?s GDP report. Government bond yields slumped as a result conveniently overlooking the rather difficult weekend ahead likely to be plagued by political negotiations.

Source: http://blogs.forbes.com/greatspeculations/2011/07/29/growth-slump-inspires-treasury-rally-despite-debt-panic/

consumer debt advocate consumer debt collection consumer debt relief consumer debt settlement

Add It All Up: IBM Is Cheap

Don't let it get away!

Keep track of the stocks that matter to you.

Help yourself with the Fool's FREE and easy new watchlist service today.

Pssst ? hey, buddy, want to buy a software company at a hardware multiple? Have I got a deal for you! It's the genuine article. Famous worldwide. You've no doubt heard of it: IBM (NYSE: IBM  ) .

Yes, I'm talking about the leading mainframe-computer company. It's still going strong in mainframes, with revenue in that segment up 69% year over year and 24 new mainframe customers in the second quarter on the heels of a product refresh. Yet mainframes account for well under 10% of Big Blue's revenue.

By revenue IBM's biggest business is services. Combined, its Global Technology Services and Global Business Services units account for 55% of revenue. Software makes up 24% while Systems & Technology (servers, storage, retail solutions, and semiconductors) accounts for 18%.

Source: Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's.

The softer side of IBM
So doesn't that make IBM a services company? With services accounting for more than half of revenue, many financial data providers classify it as a services company. And Wall Street analysts with services-sector expertise started to cover it in the last decade, a change from its traditional coverage by hardware analysts. But investors value companies more on profits than on revenue, and IBM's largest source of profits -- both gross profit and pre-tax profit -- is its software business.

Source: Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's.

Profits from IBM's two services businesses added together -- 38.8% of gross profit and 39.2% of pre-tax profit -- are still less than IBM's software profits.

Source: Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's.

What's more, software profit margins far exceed the margins in all of IBM's other lines of business with the exception of the financing unit, which facilitates sales of IBM's other offerings. And software is a scale business. As revenues grow, margins increase. With software revenue at IBM growing faster than overall revenue, the software businesses' share of overall profits is likely to increase.

Parting it out
There's a well-established way to value companies that span multiple sectors. It's called "sum-of-the-parts." This approach breaks the company down by revenue mix, determines an apropos valuation ratio for each sector, and then sums the parts.

Let's do a sum-of-the-parts valuation on IBM, starting with its hardware business. Looking at the stocks traditionally used as comparables, IBM trades at a modest discount to Apple, which has much higher -- albeit unsustainable over the long term -- earnings growth, lacks a dividend, and is focused on consumers instead of enterprises. Apple has also had a boom-and-bust history over the decades, and its success is closely tied to CEO Steve Jobs, who is on medical leave. That makes it much riskier than IBM over the long haul.

Source: Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's.

IBM's premium to Hewlett-Packard and Dell is more than justified, given that HP is in the early stage of attempting to turn around and that the sustainability of Dell's recent earnings improvement and attempts to transform itself is unclear. IBM also offers the most attractive dividend yield in this group. Based on that, let's call 15 a fair P/E ratio for a healthy hardware company with an above-average dividend to be applied to IBM in our sum-of-the-parts analysis.

Comparing IBM with its closest services competitors, the stock trades at a justifiable premium to challenged Computer Sciences Corporation (NYSE: CSC  ) but a substantial discount to a more appropriate comparable, Accenture (NYSE: ACN  ) . It trades at an even larger discount to offshore pure-play IT services providers, even though IBM has been taking advantage of low-cost offshore talent for more than five years. Let's call 19 a fair P/E ratio for a healthy global IT services company.

Source: Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's.

Turning to software, IBM is trading at a substantial premium to Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT  ) , which is under pressure because of slow growth in the PC market -- where IBM does not participate. But IBM is trading at a substantial discount to enterprise-focused software competitors Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL  ) , SAP, and Check Point Software Technologies (Nasdaq: CHKP  ) . Let's call 24 a fair P/E ratio for a healthy enterprise-software company.

Source: Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's.

Adding it up
Applying sector-appropriate P/E ratios to the revenue mix of IBM's core lines of business results in a sum-of-the-parts P/E ratio of 18 for IBM. Multiplying that by IBM's EPS of $12.32 over the last year results in a fair value for IBM stock of $222. That's an impressive 22% increase from its recent price of $182. 

IBM Line of Business

Share of IBM's Core Business Revenue

Sector

Sector P/E Ratio

Revenue Mix multiplied by Sector P/E Ratio

Global Services Total 57% IT Services 15 9
Software 25% Software 19 5
Systems & Technology 18% Hardware 24 4
         
Sum-of-the-Parts P/E Ratio       18

Source: The Motley Fool.

Foolish takeaway
Investors are starting to appreciate IBM, but its broad-based business makes it hard to fully understand and appropriately value. A sum-of-the-parts valuation suggests the stock has upside of about 24% to be fairly valued.

What do you think: Is IBM worth $222 instead of $182? To help you stay abreast of developments that affect stock prices, The Motley Fool recently introduced a free My Watchlist feature. You can get up-to-date news and analysis by adding these companies to your Watchlist now:

Powered By WizardRSS.com | Full Text RSS Feed | Amazon Plugin | Settlement Statement | WordPress Tutorials

Source: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2011/07/28/add-it-all-up-ibm-is-cheap.aspx

debt settlement usa debt shield debt stoppers debt to income ratio calculator

Checking If a Consolidation Loan Is Worthwhile

[WizardRSS: unable to retrieve full-text content]

There are many scenarios to consider when consolidating several loans. This article covers the main ones, and how to decide if its worth going ahead.

Powered By WizardRSS.com | Full Text RSS Feed | Amazon Plugin | Settlement Statement | WordPress Tutorials

Source: http://ezinearticles.com/6448606

international debt collection langhorne debt solutions medical bankruptcy mercers debt

Central Falls Has One More Weekend To Avoid Municipal Bankruptcy


central falls rhode island

The tiny, cash-strapped town of Central Falls, Rhode Island, is expected to know Monday whether it is officially bankrupt.

Robert Flanders, the town's state appointed receiver, will work through the weekend to decide whether he will file for bankruptcy on behalf of Central Falls, a senior advisor to Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chaffee told the AP today.

Flanders is still in last-minute negotiations with the city's union retirees, who have been asked to accept voluntary cuts to their pensions and benefits. Flanders has said bankruptcy is likely if the retirees don't accept about $2.5 million in concessions.

The deadline for union to decide was yesterday, but 57 of the 141 retirees have asked for more time to consult with lawyers and accountants, according to the Providence Journal. Thirty-seven retirees rejected the proposal and 35 others did not respond. Of the 12 who voted to accept it, nine would not have had their benefits reduced under the plan.

Central Falls faces a $4.9 million budget shortfall. The real financial problem, however, is the city's $80 million public pension debt and it's public safety worker pension fund is on track to run out by October.

A Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy filing would give Central Falls the opportunity to change it's union agreements. But it may also scare investors away from Rhode Island's other municipalities, many of which are already on the brink of insolvency.

For more on municipal bankruptcy, check out our interview with Chapter 9 attorney Jim Johnston, who represented Orange County during its 1994 filing, the largest municipal bankruptcy to date.

DON'T MISS: 14 Cities That Are Being Eaten Alive By Public-Sector Workers

Please follow Politics on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/~3/m-i_dmLVbaM/central-falls-municipal-bankruptcy-decision-monday-2011-7

debt clearance debt collection agencies uk debt collection attorney debt collection guidelines