(MENAFN- ValueWalk)
On Monday post market, bioprocessing reagent provider Alpha Teknova (NASDAQ:TKNO ) filed a form 4 with the SEC regarding the purchase of shares by CEO and President, Stephen Gunstream. The purchase was first spotted on Fintel's latest CEO purchases tracker screen earlier on Tuesday.
In the filing, Gunstream disclosed a purchase of 18,000 shares on average at $5.13 per share, worth approximately $92,340. This has been the first purchase made by Gunstream on the market since the company listed in June 2021.
Get Our Activist Investing Case Study!
Get the entire 10-part series on our in-depth study on activist investing in PDF. Save it to your desktop, read it on your tablet, or print it out to read anywhere! Sign up below!
Q2 2022 hedge fund letters, conferences and more
Find A Qualified Financial Advisor
Finding a qualified financial advisor doesn't have to be hard. SmartAsset's free tool matches you with up to 3 fiduciary financial advisors in your area in 5 minutes . Each advisor has been vetted by SmartAsset and is held to a fiduciary standard to act in your best interests. If you're ready to be matched with local advisors that can help you achieve your financial goals, get started now .
Insider Purchasing At Alpha Teknova
Could Gunstream be seeing value in the company with shares down almost 80% since listing?
In addition to Gunstream's purchase, the firm's CFO Matthew Lowell acquired an initial tranche of 10,000 shares at $9.45 in late May.
The two insiders purchasing TKNO stock have contributed to a bullish Fintel insider accumulation score of 86.01. This score ranks Teknova in the top ~3% of 14,495 companies included in the screen that have higher levels of insiders purchasing stock in the last 90 days.
For comparison, TKNO has a bearish institutional ownership accumulation score of 25.23 , placing the company in the bottom 15% of 36,551 screened companies. This is due to the total level of shares held by institutions that has been declining since reaching a peak in February 2022. In total TKNO has 168 institutional owners that hold a total of 8,019,344 shares. Some of these institutions include Wellington Management Group, Nicholas Investment Partners and Millennium Management.
Last week the company released second quarter results that marginally beat analyst forecasts at both the sales and profit levels. TKNO recorded $11.7 million in total revenue, growing 20% year-on-year and coming in ahead of the ~11 million consensus forecast. The firm posted earnings per share -22 cents, lowering the loss from -52 cents in the prior year period and coming in marginally ahead of the -25 cent forecast from analysts in the market.
The company noted that they remain on track to expand capacity at existing facilities and to complete the construction of a new manufacturing facility with $64.7 million in cash to fund the growth strategy.
The disappointment in the result came in the form of reduced full year revenue guidance where TKNO expects to generate $38-42 million in sales over 2022, down from prior guidance of $45-48 million. Management also noted that they do not expect to generate any material revenue from Sample Transport in 2022.
Analyst Jacob Johnson from Stephens noted that the reduced guidance was the result of delayed large orders from a group of CGT customers which seems to be a short term issue as a result of the current macroeconomic and slowdown in biotech funding. Johnson remains bullish on the longer term outlook for the company and thinks the balance sheet can get the company to cash flow break even. The firm remained 'overweight' rated on the stock but reduced their price target to $15 from $22 following the result.
From another angle, Matt Larew from William Blair thought it was hard to reconcile the guidance downgrade given the strong results from peers in the bioprocessing space and TKNO's strong Q2 results. Larew also pointed out that the stock is trading at 2.2x their forecast 2023 revenue target which is a discount to the peer group. The firm continued to be 'outperform' rated post update.
TKNO has a 'buy' rating from the 3 institutions covering the stock and an average target price of $14.
Article by Ben Ward, Fintel
MENAFN17082022005205011743ID1104709425
Legal Disclaimer:
MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.