SAC Capital Advisors'
Steven Cohen
purchases back his shareholding of online reservation website,
OpenTable Inc. (
OPEN
), after selling all of his shares of the stock in the second
quarter. His most recent stock acquisition, reported on Oct. 23
on
GuruFocus Real Time Picks
places him at 5 percent ownership with 1,155,392 shares.
Cohen's holding history with OpenTable dates back since the third
quarter of 2010, when he purchased 8,078 shares of the company at
an average price of $52.49.
Cohen then added 313,915 shares in the final quarter of 2010.
When OpenTable stock rose a little more than double its value in
the first half of 2011, Cohen had decided to drop about 312,000
shares by the end of the year's third quarter.
After OpenTable's price recuperated back down more than $20,
Cohen hopped back on the saddle and purchased about 78,000 shares
in the final quarter of 2011, and almost 70,000 more in the first
quarter of 2012, before selling all of his remaining 158,000
shares in the second quarter of 2012.
With its stock remaining pretty positive for the day, about $0.10
up with the trading price of $46.21, OpenTable maintains a market
cap of $985.3 million, a P/E (ttm) ratio of 46.9, a P/S ratio of
7.1 and a P/B ratio of 7.4.
Headquartered in San Francisco, OpenTable has more than 25,000
restaurant customers that use its online reservation services to
seat customers since its inception in 1998. Its services are
available in the U.S., Canada, Germany, Japan, Mexico and the UK;
OpenTable also operates toptable, which is the UK's leading
restaurant booking site.
Although it is the only publicly traded online reservation
service on the stock market, several lower-priced competitors
fully accept the challenges that come with sharing the same
market, taking the rivalry against OpenTable head on.
Sites like Harbortouch, Livebookings, Eveve,
RestaurantReservations and UReserv all graze a similar, if not
identical, concept as OpenTable, some pursuing markets where
OpenTable has not yet established a strong presence.
Eveve Restaurant booking systems, whose client base consists of
all independent restaurants, has recently announced Denver and
Minneapolis as part of its expansion since entering the U.S.
market about a year ago. Described as "monopoly markets" in a
September Eveve press release, Eveve referenced OpenTable and its
single presence in the restaurant reservation market in the two
cities.
As with other OpenTable competitors, Eveve has heightened the
competition by promoting its affordable prices.
"In Minneapolis, Eveve has proven it can provide an
industry-standard reservation system and comparable online
reservation volumes, as the previous supplier [OpenTable], at a
cost which is tytpically 70 to 90 percent less," said Timothy
Ryan, Eveve's North American operations president.
London-based Livebookings, operator of Bookatable.com, has
agreements with far fewer restaurants compared to OpenTable, but
from far more countries, providing real-time reservations for
more than 9,000 restaurants in 23 countries, with its services
most prevalent in Europe.
Plamen Yankov, restaurant manager of London dining spot, DSTRKT,
mentioned in a Livebookings press release that its reservations
have increased as much as 60 percent since transferring from
OpenTable to Livebookings.
"We have found that since we have signed up to Livebookings, we
are attracting more customers that we previously didn't have
before," Yankov said. "With exclusive marketings via Bookatable,
we have attracted more customers with a higher spend per head and
who visit on a more regular basis."
OpenTable is scheduled to announce its third quarter 2012
financial report on Nov. 1. in a conference call at 2 p.m. PST.
In August, it announced a $50 million share repurchase of its
outstanding shares of common stock, funded through cash and
short-term investments.
OpenTable experienced a 15 percent increase in consolidated net
revenues in this year's second quarter at $39.6 million, compared
to the same time last year. Revenues for North America alone
totaled $34.5 million, an 18 percent increase compared to the
same quarter last year.
For the rest of the year, OpenTable expects its consolidated
revenue to range from $33.9 million to $34.6 million.
Since the start of October, Cohen has purchased shares of Plains
Exploration and Production Company (
PXP
) and Superior Energy Services (
SPN
), in addition to OpenTable.
Also gaining back his shareholding of Plains Exploration and
Production Company (
PXP
) after completely selling all of his shares in the second
quarter, his new shareholding of the stock is 6.5 million. Having
owned Superior Energy since the second quarter of 2007, Cohen has
recently added more than 6.8 million shares to his stake with
Superior, boosting his current holding to almost 8 million
shares. He is 5 percent owner to both Plains Exploration and
Superior Energy.
As the founder of Connecticut-based SAC Capital Advisors, Cohen
owns more than 1,800 stocks in his hedge fund, with an equity
value of $12 billion.
The food and beverage industry makes up Cohen's top bought
industry, as of the second quarter of this year.
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