PAWTUCKET – Local toymaker Hasbro Inc. has received a glowing write-up in this week’s edition of Barron’s Magazine.
“Hasbro could well have more upside, as it morphs from a U.S.-focused toymaker into a global outfit that reaches consumers via stores, TV, the Web, movies, electronic games and even iPhones,” Barron’s reporter Lawrence C. Strauss writes in the influential investment journal’s current edition.
Hasbro shares, already near a 52-week high, could rise another 18 percent over the next year thanks to its “Transformers” and “Iron Man” franchises and growth in international sales, analyst Byron Penstock of RS Investments, which owns the stock, told the magazine.
“People don’t appreciate the business-model transformation that’s going on” at Hasbro, Penstock told Barron’s, pointing to the company’s highly successful partnerships with Hollywood studios and its upcoming cable TV channel, The Hub, a joint venture with Discovery Communications. It has also been expanding globally in countries such as Brazil.
“This isn’t your father’s Hasbro,” Strauss writes.
Hasbro has a “very manageable” debt level, $636 million in cash and its shares “looks reasonably priced,” according to Barron’s. The company’s shares closed at $37.90 on Friday on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock rose 0.5 percent to $38.06 at 11:01 a.m. Monday.
Barron’s Magazine is published by Dow Jones & Co., a division of News Corp.
Additional information is available at hasbro.com.
