The share price of the terrestrial fish farming company Atlantic Sapphire It fell by at least 33 percent on Friday last week After the company reported oxygen problems in the United States. Thus, about a third of the company’s market value has been shaved.
What the company suffered, in addition to disappointing results, was the provision of adequate access to oxygen. The Corona pandemic has caused a high demand for liquid oxygen in the United States. Atlantic Sapphire is building a giant wild salmon farming facility in the United States and is dependent on oxygen at the facility to ensure the salmon’s survival.
The company announced last Thursday last week that it is trying to reduce oxygen consumption, and that, among other things, has led to the slaughter of about 100,000 fish that were in perfect growth – and a disruption in feeding.
deflation continues
It wasn’t a quiet weekend at Atlantic Sapphire.
Over the weekend, the company got additional deliveries of oxygen. This is done through a partnership with Miami-Dade County (MDC) where the company collects liquid oxygen of so-called non-medical quality, which is produced at MDC’s wastewater treatment plant.
The company wrote that it also expects more deliveries from a third supplier this week. Moreover, the company describes the water quality as excellent. Over the weekend, Atlantic Sapphire resumed feeding.
The share price fell at the opening of the stock exchange and was at most about eight percent, but fell back after a few minutes of trading. Now the downturn continues in Atlantic Sapphire, falling to just over one percent on the stock exchange.
shaving from brokerage
Monday morning flows with stock analysis in Atlantic Sapphire as the target price has been cut sharply. Nordea Markets, Pareto Securities and Kepler Cheuvreux are downgrading the stock to a hold.
Nordea Markets values the company at NOK 50 per share, compared to NOK 125 per share, according to news agency TDN Direkt.
Meglerhuset wrote that the company’s first half-year report was disappointing. The sale was in line with expectations, meaning a price tag of around NOK 100 per kilogram was achieved from the Miami facility, but costs were much higher than expected.
Moreover, the harvest forecast for the next 12 months is disappointing, and production of the first phase of development at full capacity will not be delayed until 2022, the analysis wrote.
The news agency also notes that Pareto in its analysis indicates that the volume forecast for the next few quarters is on the weak side. The brokerage lowers the estimates significantly in the short term.
“We are also lowering long-term estimates, and expect volume escalation to be slower as profit margins decline,” wrote Pareto, who is lowering the target price to NOK 50 per share from 115, according to TDN Direkt.
Kepler Cheuvreux is also lowering the target price to NOK 60 from NOK 107. Meglerhuset writes that Atlantic Sapphire has suffered over the years from several different problems, most recently due to high costs and lack of oxygen.
“The problem at this point is that stable production, with good scale development and stable costs, is difficult to achieve in the medium term,” Kepler wrote, according to TDN Direkt.
Arctic Securities also lowered the buy recommendation of the recommendation contract and lowered price targets from 120 kroner to 60 kroner, according to Bloomberg News. Most recently, in April, Arctic’s target was 175 NOK per share.
On Friday, SEB and DNB Markets lowered their target price to NOK 44 per share and NOK 77 per share from NOK 72 per share and NOK 120 per share, respectively. SEB has a sell recommendation and DNB Markets has a buy recommendation.
profile holders
Among the company’s largest shareholders are prominent investor Runar Vatne and his company Vatne Equity. On Friday, DN wrote that Vatnes has a paper loss of nearly 320 million crowns so far this year. Vatne owns just over five percent of the aquaculture company.
The owner of Norway’s largest grocery chain, Johansson, is also an investor in the fish farming company and has had significant paper losses so far this year. Watney block heir Lars Nielsen and ship owner and investor Arne Blistad have also invested in Atlantic Sapphire.
Businessmen bought stock
Atlantic Sapphire presented results for the first half of Thursday night. It showed a pre-tax profit minus $51.5 million. An upfront pre-tax profit of NOK 25 million was expected, according to Infront estimates from four analysts.
Revenue ended at $10.9 million in the first half, slightly higher than expected and up from $2.5 million in the same period last year.
The next day, when the stock price collapsed, it was reported that founders Johan E. Andreessen and Bjorn Wiegard Loewek, Director of Development and Infrastructure Sven Taclo and Board Member Andrei Scarpo had bought shares in the company.(Terms)Copyright Dagens Næringsliv AS and/or our suppliers. We would like you to share our cases using a link that leads directly to our pages. All or part of the Content may not be copied or otherwise used with written permission or as permitted by law. For additional terms look here.
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