Microfinance IPO - Blended value = no value?

Recently stunned by $300+M IPO of a microfinance institution in India.

Mo Yunus says of the recent exits of MFI institutions (which has been happening in India and Mexico): "It’s not mission drift. It’s endangering the whole mission."

I too am wary of a confused organization that is trying to have a "double bottom line" impact but only pays employees and investors with one of those bottom lines. What if you got a promotion and you were rewarded in "more goodwill" with no pay raise? I think it would be weird.

It reminds me of communist slogans about equality when all the bureaucrats really meant was "equality of no opportunity for you, but lots of money for me". I am highly skeptical of "idealistic" companies.

The biggest risk here is taking public money to invest, with quite possibly lax financial controls (at least relative to pure banking institutions), moreover having these for-profit institutions push loans on poor people quite like what happened with subprime lending in the US.

This RPCV is not a buyer.

This week in Disney

Disney buys Playdom for $763M.

Disney sells Miramax for $660M.

So Playdom is worth more than Miramax (makers of Shakespeare in Love, Pulp Fiction, etc)?

Maybe its the old foggey in me but is the possible virtual goods are worth more than good movies? Sigh. Am I not acknowledging today's entertainment reality, or does this smell like kneejerk acquisition/overvaluation of new media?

Microsoft Looking Cheap

Yahoo Finance tells me MSFT is trading at a Forward PE of 11. To put this into context, consumer goods companies sell at multiples of 11-15, and they have operating margins in the 18ish range, if they're really, really good.

Many of my loyal readers will know that I am a big Apple fan and I remain an Apple fan despite the Antenna issue - only Apple could make a technical malfunction seem so endearing. But Microsoft is looking cheap, like a value stock that generates lots of cash. Did Apple earnings surprise this week? No, because as we had noted before, prior quarter earnings did not reflect the sale of a single iPad.

I'm surprised MSFT gets such a beat down given how generous the valuations are for Food Companies. Anyways, with their dividend yield at 2.1%, probably better to put $$ in MSFT than a savings account. As much as we dislike Windows, its not going away any time soon.

Hugs from Mo' Money.