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    Lions Gate shares rise on upbeat Summit financials

    LOS ANGELES (AP) — Shares of Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. rose Friday despite a weak quarterly earnings report, as analysts looked forward to the benefit of its recent acquisition of "Twilight" maker Summit Entertainment and to the upcoming release of the first movie in Lions Gate's "The Hunger Games" series in March.

    THE SPARK: Lions Gate said Thursday that it shrank its fiscal third-quarter loss to a penny per share from 4 cents per share a year earlier, but its revenue sank 24 percent to $323 million because the studio had no wide-release movies in the market.

    Both figures fell well shorts of analysts' average forecast, according to FactSet.

    In securities filings, Lions Gate also said that if it had owned Summit a year ago, its combined results in the last nine months of 2010 would have shown $202 million in earnings before interest and taxes, instead of the $5 million it reported.

    A Lions Gate spokesman declined to comment Friday.

    THE BIG PICTURE: Lions Gate bought Summit for $412.5 million in cash and stock last month in a transaction that brings teen franchises "Twilight" and "The Hunger Games" under one roof. Cross-promoting the films among similar audiences is seen as benefiting both. As well, some $500 million in debt at Summit is backed by revenue flows that are expected from the last two movies in the "Twilight" series.

    THE ANALYSIS: Stifel Nicolaus analyst Benjamin Mogil said the new disclosure about the Summit deal "continues to reaffirm our view that the deal is a positive one for the company." He maintained a "Buy" rating with a $12.50 target price on the shares.

    SHARE ACTION: Shares rose 80 cents, or 7.3 percent, to $11.81 by mid-afternoon Friday, despite an overall drop in the stock market. They'd earlier touched $12.24.

    Compared with Jan. 13, the day the deal was announced, Lions Gate shares have risen nearly 40 percent.

     

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