Bill Ackman’s big Netflix bet: Can hypergrowth tech also be a value stock?

Bill Ackman’s big Netflix bet: Can hypergrowth tech also be a value stock?

For a company that had seen shares rise 600-fold in less than 20 years, has always had its share of doubters. After its Jan. 20 report that it had slightly , those doubters pushed shares to last fall, betting that the time has finally come when the video-streaming giant runs out of hypergrowth. Now a puts the question in stark relief: Should Netflix be a value stock now, with the company adapting to slowing growth by spending less and watching profit margins? And if it is, can it be a good one? "If you think there are only 300 million potential streaming subscribers in the world, you should cut spending, raise prices and capitalize on the network you have," LightShed Partners media analyst Rich Greenfield said. "But there are huge pockets of growth out there over the next five years." Almost no one on Wall Street has been a bigger bull, for longer, on Netflix than Mark Mahaney. The Evercore ISI Internet analyst had a buy on the company for more than a decade, usually predicting big gains no matter how expensive the stock seemed to others. But Mahaney cut his recommendation after fourth quarter earnings, which coupled a slight