Outspoken analyst Rich Greenfield of Lightshed Partners is urging investors to sell fuboTV, calling the company a "money-losing virtual MVPD."
In a blog posted Sunday, Greenfield noted that the vMVPD business has proved a difficult one, with little to no profitability regardless of scale, largely undifferentiated product offering and no leverage versus content owners.
“There is no special sauce [for] Fubo, which can turn the fundamentally flawed MVDP/vMVPD business into a good one, especially if it lacks scale and other products to bundle,” Greenfield said.
“The company has told a story which has been embraced by an army of retail investors. However, Fubo is not Netflix, Fubo is not Flutter/FanDuel, DraftKings nor even Penn/Barstool Sports, Fubo is not Roku and Fubo is not Trade Desk. Fubo is simply just another virtual multichannel video programming distributor (vMVPD) facing the same obstacles and financial challenges as every other vMVPD,” he said.
FuboTV said it had no comment on Greenfield's report.
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Greenfield noted that fuboTV share have run up since October, but he said institutional investors are uninterested in the stock.
He added that many media companies have taken stock in fuboTV as part of their carriage agreements with fuboTV and that those media companies are "highly likely" to start selling shortly after the expiration of the coming lock up on Dec. 30, 2020.
FuboTV reported a third quarter net loss of $274.1 million, or $6.20 a share, in November, compared to a $7.166 million loss, or 29 cents a share, a year ago. The losses include a $236.7 million non-cash impairment charge for the legacy FaceBank business. FaceBank acquired fuboTV in March.
Revenue rose 47% to $61.2 million in the third quarter as subscribers grew 58%.
Greenfield had initiated coverage of fuboTV on Dec. 23 with a sell rating and a target price of $8.
The shares traded Monday morning at $44.18, up 11% on the New York Stock Exchange. FuboTV shares closed Monday down 11.86% at $38.94.
Jon has been business editor of Broadcasting+Cable since 2010. He focuses on revenue-generating activities, including advertising and distribution, as well as executive intrigue and merger and acquisition activity. Just about any story is fair game, if a dollar sign can make its way into the article. Before B+C, Jon covered the industry for TVWeek, Cable World, Electronic Media, Advertising Age and The New York Post. A native New Yorker, Jon is hiding in plain sight in the suburbs of Chicago.
