When they announced the Quikster/Netflix split, it was confusing, because it made no sense to jump to the next curve in another brand. This split ended up being Netflix's Tiger Wood Esclade crash; its unraveling a bucket of problems with the company. The reason why they wanted to split is because the DVD business is a losing business - it was losing all along, and while their leverage caused the stock to soar, they were drawing from their cash position (negative cash flow!). The DVD business would then be contained, much like an Enron or Citi, and the company could use the excuse that the DVD business is drying up and streaming is the next curve. Illegal? No. Unethical? Perhaps. They rose their price, something that doesn't sit well with a discount-mantra money saving brand. Furthermore, given the fair market value is now hardly above $50, they are coming to almost no cash. What I'm wondering is why that now, why didn't they split the business and keep things on the same website, so they wouldn't of had the customer problems that they did.
wonder how Whitney Tilson feels now. he was short for a long time until they squeezed him out at a big loss. he was right all along. just early.
I'm surprised Tilson didn't learn from the Internet Bubble in the roaring '90s. I remember trying to short the kooky bubble stocks in '98 & '99 only to keep getting stopped out at huge losses. I remember I got killed trying to short the B2B stocks like Commerce One -- I think I lost like $20K on CMRC. I should have waited for the stocks to break their uptrend and then short them. But I guess Tilson believes in the religion of fundamental analysis and he got taken out.