CNBC‘s “Half Time” segment featured an interview this afternoon with Porter Bibb, an investment banker, former publisher of Rolling Stone, and now a managing partner with Mediatech Capital Partners, in which Bibb came to the defense of Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Apple (AAPL), which had both received negative commentary earlier in the day from Goldman Sachs hardware analyst Bill Shope.
“We’re going to see a nice lift, tech is where it’s all going to happen,” said Bibb, asked about the general prospect for a comeback by tech stocks.
Reflecting on rumors about Facebook‘s (FB) upcoming media event this Thursday, Bibb remarked, “they will have a phone on Thursday, it’ll be a special Android operating system that’s going to be superb.”
He continued, “The problem that Facebook is facing now that nobody’s talking about right now is Kik, the U.K. company that’s got 400 million teenage users on mobile, and it’s taking away from Facebook’s user base.”
Regarding HP, which Shope cut to a Sell rating, Bibb waxed enthusiastic about the role of the company in “big data,” the mining of patterns of customer and other information being accumulated in databases.
“HP is misunderstood,” said Bibb.
“I’m looking at the big data side of HP, where they have the enterprise franchise, and the technology.”
“They’ve got the IP, and the artificial intelligence, and they’re going to be a power going forward.”
As for Apple, Bibb poo-pooed worries about recent negative commentary on the company in China, calling CEO Tim Cook‘s formal apology yesterday the right thing to do, and shrewd.
“They will get over the hurdle in China. They got their knuckles rapped last week over the one-year warranty, versus the State-controlled two year warranties. Tim Cook made a very unusual apology.”
When asked by Scott Wapner and the other hosts whether Cook could ever come out of the shadows of late founder and CEO Steve Jobs, Bibb responded, “He’s going to do a lot in his favor when he announces that he’s going to increase the dividend, which he will do.”
Added Bibb, “He’s going to have a whole array of new products, and by the way, the Apple TV that we’ve all been waiting for and holding our breath for, for ten years, it’s going to happen in the third quarter.” Bibb didn’t say what gave him confidence around an Apple TV set, and no further discussion took place on the matter.
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