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DIS Summary: A Beat, With Caveats

By Steve Birenberg

 About this article:
 To read Steve Birenberg's preview of the Disney conference call, click here. Disney reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter 2009 financial results. Benefiting from an extra week, the company reported adjusted EPS of 46 cents, easily beating consensus of 40 cents. Revenue also beat expectations handily, coming in at $9.69 billion against a consensus estimate of $9.26 billion. Although the company got little direct questioning on the call, I believe a material portion of the upside came from the extra week. My initial back-of-the-envelope calculations still show some upside, but not enough to justify the initial 3.8% pop in the stock. I'll be surprised if the stock is up that much when it opens on Friday. Highlights of the quarter include -3% ad sales at ESPN, weak theme park revenue and margins, and the expected poor performance of operating profits at the movie studio. On the upside, there was improvement at ABC...

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