Why Monster Worldwide Shares Popped

Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.

What: Shares of Monster Worldwide jumped more than 15% Thursday after the company not only beat third-quarter earnings estimates and provided strong forward guidance, but also announced it will sell a minority stake in JobKorea, and in a separate transaction expand its joint venture with Alma Media.

So what: Quarterly revenue came in at $197 million, which translated to income from continuing operations of .08 cents a share, income from discontinued operations of .03 cents a share, and therefore yielding basic earnings per share of $0.11 or $11.27 Million. What's more, Monster Worldwide said that it expects adjusted earnings from continuing operations between 9 cents and 13 cents per share for the fourth quarter. Wall Street had expected 9 cents per share from continuing operations in the fourth quarter. In the release Monster also stated that it is selling a 49.9% minority stake of JobKorea to Asian private equity firm H&Q Korea, for a total of $90 million. Also, in a separate transaction, it was announced that Monster Worldwide is also expanding its existing joint partnership with Alma Media. As part of the new venture, both companies will "contribute several additional entities and businesses into the existing joint venture." This, in turn, will form a significantly larger joint venture, where Monster will have a 15% equity stake, which it can potentially increase to 20% down the road.

Now what: The latter move significantly grows Monster's position in the Baltic and Eastern Europe, where it says its Alma partnership will afford it the number-one market share in the region.

It's also worth noting that Monster Worldwide is now profitable on a GAAP basis, reporting GAAP net income of $11.2 million during the quarter. That's a huge improvement over last year's $194 million GAAP net loss.With shares currently trading at a reasonable 13.8 times next year's estimated earnings, I think the stock could still prove a bargain for patient long-term shareholders down the road.

Editor's Note: The original version of this article misstated Monster's Non-GAAP EPS. This has been corrected, and the Fool regrets the error.

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The article Why Monster Worldwide Shares Popped originally appeared on Fool.com.

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