Time Warner : Case Study Financial Analysis

Finance comptabilitéTime Warner is the third biggest entertainment and mass media company worldwide, developing its activities in TV channels and the movie industry. It’s a very interesting company for shareholders since its financial situation remains stable, with a growing dividend payout over the past few years. Shareholders trust is one of the most important factors in a company, and Time Warner is able to maintain this trust by having a revenue that is growing every year, as well as adapting its services to the new digital era (setting a legal streaming platform for example). Time Warner is a nice example of company that does the best for its shareholders and shows a real adaptability regarding the market changes. No doubt that Time Warner is one of the most profitable companies of its market: AT-T’s telecom giant was ready to buy Time Warner for about USD 80 billions, but antitrust laws forbid this fusion, because it would lead the group to an almost monopolistic situation. Yet Time Warner have to be very watchful on some indicators. First of all, total equity is growing faster than earning equity; that situation leads to a decrease of the ROE from 2015 to 2016. Indebtedness ratio have been superior to 1 during the 3 last periods, loans are not financeable with Timer Warner’s equity. This is the cause of various investments made in order to adapt to the new market demand. Fortunately, this situation was necessary for the continuity of the activity and hadn't any bad effects on the earnings of the shareholders. An increase of Net earnings group shares is even noticeable pushing the EPS ratio to a growth of about 0.5 points from 2014 to 2016. Considering the financial health of the company, it is advised to invest in it

CD4-induced down-regulation of T cell adhesion to B cells is associated with localization of phosphatidyl inositol 3-kinase and LFA-1 in distinct membrane domains

We have previously shown that binding of anti-CD4 antibody inhibit LFA-1-dependent adhesion between CD4+ Tcells and B cells in a p56lck and a PI3-kinase-dependent manner. In this work, we investigated with two different T cell lines (Jurkat and A201) whether CD4 binding could alter interactions of the proteins putatively involved in this adhesion regulatory pathway. Anti-CD4 binding was shown to induce a transient association between PI3-kinase and LFA-1, which took place in different regions of the plasma membrane. It was detected in detergent soluble membrane but also in detergent insoluble membrane consisting in raft microdomains, composed of GM1 and/or GM3 gangliosides. These results show that anti-CD4 Ab could modify the interaction between LFA-1 and signaling molecules, such as PI3-kinase and induce, in part, their recruitment in raft domains. By using specific inhibitors, raft integrity and CD4 association with GM3 were found necessary for observing the CD4-dependent inhibition of LFA-1-mediated adhesion. These results strongly suggest that these molecular rearrangements in the membrane are necessary to induce down-regulation of LFA-1-mediated adhesion. © 2004 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA

Partial structural characterization and antioxidant activity of a phenolic–xylan from Castanea sativa hardwood

International audience4-O-Methylglucuronoxylans (MGX) were isolated from chestnut wood sawdust using two different procedures: chlorite delignification followed by the classical alkaline extraction step, and an unusual green chemistry process of delignification using phthalocyanine/H2O2 followed by a simple extraction with hot water. Antioxidant properties of both MGX were evaluated against the stable radical 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) by electronic spin resonance (ESR). IC50 of water-extracted MGX was found to be less than 225 μg mL−1, in contrast with alkali-extracted MGX for which no radical scavenging was observed. Characterization of extracts by colorimetric assay, GC, LC–MS and NMR spectroscopy provided some clues to understanding structure–function relationships of MGX in connection with their antioxidant activity

Differential mucin expression in colon carcinoma HT-29 clones with variable resistance to 5-fluorouracil and methotrexate

A current challenge is to define the biological characteristics of colon tumor cells resistant to chemotherapy. Distinct sub-populations of mucus-secreting cells were previously obtained from the colon cancer cell line HT-29 after long-term treatment with the anti-cancer drugs, 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) and methotrexate (MTX). Since mucins are increasingly implicated as playing a role in carcinogenesis, we studied the pattern of mucin expression in two HT-29 clones of mucus-secreting and two clones of enterocyte-like phenotype which differ in their capacity to resist to 5-FU and/or MTX. The expression of both transmembrane (MUC1, MUC3, MUC4) and secreted gel-forming (MUC2, MUC5AC, MUC5B, MUC6) mucins in clones was studied by northern and/or western blotting. The four HT-29 clones showed three cellular phenotypes: (1) The mucus-secreting clone HT29-5F12 consists of unpolarized cells with mucus secretions that have anti-colonic mucin immunoreactivity, and mainly expresses MUC2 and is resistant to 5-FU and sensitive to MTX; (2) The mucus-secreting clone HT29-5M21 forms a monolayer of polarized cells with strong anti-gastric mucin immunoreactivity and mainly expresses MUC5AC and MUC513 and is resistant to MTX and sensitive to 5-FU; (3) The two enterocyte-like clones, HT29-5F7 and HT29-5M12 are resistant to both MTX and 5-FU and express mainly MUC1 and MUM, respectively. These clones which originate from a same colorectal tumour and display different patterns of mucin expression as well as differing resistance to MTX and 5-FU will make useful in vitro models for studying the potential role of mucins or other biological markers in drug resistance pathways. (C) 2004 Elsevier SAS. All rights reserved