AT&T has sold its 9.5% share in Hulu back to the streaming TV company, leaving Disney and Comcast as its owners.
Hulu said Monday that AT&T sold its stake for $1.43 billion, valuing the unprofitable Hulu at $15 billion.
The Walt Disney Co. wound up with a 60% share after its purchase of much of 21st Century Fox, which included Fox’s Hulu stake. NBCUniversal parent Comcast Corp. owns 30%. There is speculation that Comcast will sell too, leaving Disney the sole owner and perhaps making Hulu’s content much more Disney-centric.
Disney may bundle Hulu with its upcoming kids-focused streaming service, Disney Plus, and its sports service, ESPN Plus, executives said last week.
Hulu’s $6-a-month service lets users watch original series and network TV episodes after they air on TV. It has a newer live-TV service that costs $45 a month.
AT&T came by its Hulu stake after buying Time Warner, which invested $583 million in Hulu in 2016.
Pinnacle profits beat expectations
Pinnacle Financial Partners Inc., the parent company of Pinnacle Bank, boosted its first quarter profits 13 percent over a year ago to $94 million, or 1.24 per share, when adjusted for one-time gains and costs.
The results surpassed Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of five analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $1.21 per share.
M. Terry Turner, Pinnacle’s president and chief executive officer, said the profit earned in the first three months of 2019 “was another validation that our model works, as we continued to hire a meaningful number of revenue producers, continued to produce low double-digit loan growth and translated that into roughly 13 percent growth in fully diluted earning per share on a GAAP basis, or 10 percent growth, after considering the impact of merger-related charges and gains and losses from investment securities transactions.”
Pinnacle, which acquired the former CapitalMark Bank in Chattanooga, posted revenue of $308.9 million in the period. Its revenue net of interest expense was $238.3 million, which missed Street forecasts.
Pinnacle Financial shares have climbed 20 percent since the beginning of the year. In the final minutes of trading on Monday, shares hit $55.51, a decrease of 13 percent in the last 12 months.
Gas prices rise to 6-month high
The average price of regular fuel increased to $2.50 a gallon in Chattanooga, according to GasBuddy’s daily survey of 170 stations released Monday.
Local prices at the pump have increased 26.3 cents a gallon in the past year, but Chattanooga prices still average 33 cents a gallon less than the U.S. average price for regular of $2.83 a gallon, GasBuddy. com said.
“The national average gas price has now risen for the ninth straight week, adding 57 cents a gallon in that time and now costing Americans about $200 million more per day than it did to start the year,” said Dan McTeague, senior petroleum analyst with GasBuddy. “The effect of rising prices isn’t about to let up as a spate of refinery outages on the West Coast and in California has given way to a tightening of summer blended gasoline in advance of the summer driving season set to kick in in the weeks ahead.”
In California, gas prices average over $4 a gallon and McTeague predicts the price of regular gas could top $4.15 a gallon in coming weeks in California before there is any price relief. He projects the average national price of gas by be at $3 a gallon by the end of April.
Virginia approves major solar project
One of the biggest planned solar farms in the country has been approved by local officials in Virginia to move forward.
Officials in Spotsylvania County recently voted to approve permits for a proposed 500-megawatt project.
The company behind the project, sPower, said the project will be built in phases during the next two years. SPower says the project will create enough energy to power about 110,000 homes.
The project will be the biggest in Virginia and one of the biggest in the country. Local officials in Charles City County recently approved a permit for a 340-megawatt project.