Meredith Strategic Initiatives Bode Well: Should You Hold?

Meredith Corporation’s (NYSE:MDP) strategic initiatives particularly in digital space, brand licensing activities, great group of television stations and solid earnings surprise history are the pillars that emphasize its position. Notably, these factors have driven the company’s shares up by 9.3% in the past one month, outperforming the Zacks categorized Publishing-Periodical industry’s gain of 8.1%. Let’s delve deeper.

In order to expand its media portfolio, the company has been making strategic investments as well as acquisitions and partnership deals. Some of the important acquisitions include Shape magazine and the digital assets of Shape, Natural Health, and Fit Pregnancy brands from American Media Inc. The company integrated Shape with its Fitness magazines. Further, it revamped few magazines in portfolio including Family Circle, MORE, Wood Eat This, Not That! and Parents Latina. It also acquired Selectable Media, an ad technology firm and Qponix, a leading shopper marketing data platform technology.

To strengthen position, Meredith has launched additional newscasts in the Atlanta, Phoenix, Portland, Nashville, Greenville and Flint/Saginaw markets. The company also renewed licensing program with Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) , which allows it to showcase 3,000 SKUs of Better Homes & Gardens branded products at 5,000 outlets and on Walmart.com. The company’s other new brand licensing programs, includes an EatingWell line of frozen foods; SHAPE fitness apparel; and Allrecipes cooking utensils.

The Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company also enhanced its Better Homes and Gardens real estate program with Realogy Corporation. Meredith also launched a new national broadcast television series based on the Allrecipes brand. The company also launched “The Magnolia Journal”, a new quarterly lifestyle magazine. Moreover, the company is aggressively expanding brands through online platforms, televisions, videos, mobile applications as well as broadening its range of food and lifestyle content.

However, with advancing technology, the print media is on a decline. Shift to online is likely to put enormous pressure on Meredith’s magazine portfolio. Though the company is expanding its digital presence, it will take time to complete the metamorphosis.

Stocks to Consider

Better-ranked stocks worth considering include The New York Times Company (NYSE:NYT) and Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) . Both the stocks carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

New York Times has surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate in the trailing four quarters, with an average earnings beat of 31.4%.

Netflix has surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate in the trailing four quarters, with an average earnings beat of 117.7%.

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