We would love to hear your thoughts about our site and services, please take our survey here.
'IQE has cut its FY19 revenue and profit guidance in response to reduced demand from wireless customers and an internal issue affecting a major photonics (not VCSEL – vertical cavity surface emitting laser) customer. Following a 25% share price fall, the shares are trading within the range created by photonics peers on most metrics.'
Not sure what this major issue is! 2019E of 147.2M revenue. That is about 7m below 2017. PBT of 5.4m. They suggest 179m revenue for 2020. With 24m PBT.
They don't give a price but it would suggest 50-55p is market value here.
https://www.edisongroup.com/company/iqe/429/
So the 5% margin is based on 152.5m revenue. If they only hit 140m then they could well be looking at breaking even? H1 2018 revenue was 73.4m. So they will be between 5.4-8.4m below this for H1 2019. They stated profits of 4.2m after tax. Were 2 months or so away from their H1 results for 2019. Meaning H2 would need circa 85m revenue to reach 165m. In real terms these after 2 years the sales would not have increased by inflation.
IC were saying sell at 79p in March. Now at 54p they still say sell.
I wonder how much inventory IQE have left now?
It's possible the shorters may not close here if they think it has further to fall. Interestingly when IQE was falling in Jan 2018 they traded 127m shares in a day. So 54m is not huge. With at least 13% of stock on loan that could mean 109.2m shares for shorters to buy back. Wait for RNS from funds here. To date none of the major funds here have sold out.
Monday could be interesting. Really can't say if this will fall or rise.
Just read it now. Seems they too are worried about the cash situation. Which also explains the AGM option to raise 300m shares at the AGM. They are burning cash on a falling share price. New shares at 50p would raise a just over a third of what they would of at 140p.
It would seem the 2 areas where they make the most money photonics up 30%, Wireless down 25%. So any real growth is cancelled out by shrinking wireless sales.
Still no guarantee they will even reach 140m sales. Ist half 68-69m? They have a habit of missing targets. Their 2018 full year figures got downgraded 1-2 times before the actual results.
All this hype of a takeover for 100-180p is rubbish. Even 100p seems far stretched here. 60p maybe. Perhaps even less if they start to build up debt. Global demand for mobiles is not going to recover over night,
Short term this could be very painful. No update on Eddison page yet for full yeaar figures. They had previously suggeseted 90p. Previously they stated a low of 50-60p if they met lower end of targets. Rule no 1 on this share is never buy at the peaks. You nearly always get burned. This could actually fall much lower. H1 results will be painful reading.
In terms of info I found there was a report out a few days ago I posted which said the Huawei impact would be much bigger for then than expected. I certainly did not expect the RNS this week. I guess IQE had to wait till it's customers announced smaller orders before it could say anything?
If you google 'global slump in demand for mobiles' there are no shortage of articles since Jan this year. Including one suggesting an 11% drop for Apple from China. Others suggesting Samsung and HTC are struggling. There seems to be a general fall in demand for mobiles. The hit on Huawei looks to be the final straw which caused the camel's back to break. The hints were there in 2018 Q4 with tha Apple RNS which badly affected 2018 results.
A lot of the rises in this SP have been down to hype, shorters and expectations that simply never came. Always jam tomorrow. I can't remember the last positive RNS from IQE. Lots of talk about 5G but it looks like that won't save 2019.
I would say Trump and market conditions have led to this issue. It could take 12-24+ months for any real recovery here. 2018 was meant to be a bad year. It appears 2019 will mean revenue will actually be lower. Maybe even lower than 2017. With profits lower than 2018? Where did all this talk of 40% revenue growth year on year? Hence the gradual trace back to 50p.
My big worry is what happens to this new facility? Do they plough on and invest millions adding more tools? It seems like they have capped capital expenditure for now. Which means this facility will be running at 10%? Room for 100 tools? 4 tools in production? 10 ready for use.
That and the hit on the bottom line from all these reduced orders is going to put pressure on their bank balance.
See what next week brings.If the shorters don't close here you have to ask why? When hounds sniff blood they don't give up that quickly. Watch Coltrane!
Short page has updated with no changes to IQE. Likely Monday/Tuesday if anyone did close.
https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/222567/iqe-plunges-as-it-slashes-revenue-and-margin-guidance-222567.html
Peel Hunt reduced target to 108p based on IQE meeting it's highest target. Margins down to 5.1%? The fool suggested profits of circa £10M. (2018 figures were not great either so to do worse is bad!!) Really not a good time to be building a huge new facility with global markets in decline. With their costs pretty much fixed I can see IQE having to borrow money this financial year. Assuming they even meet these targets. IQE still paying no dividend.
I don't see Trump reversing his decision. Too many firms have already cut ties with China. They won't keep changing policy based on which way Trump chooses to brush his hair.
'“With the global handset growth now at risk, and the infrastructure growth hampered by supply chain complications, we move our FY19 revenue forecast to £146.7mln (vs £172.2m previously and IQE’s new guide of £140-160mln) and adj operating margin forecast to 5.1% (vs 10.0% previously),” said analysts in a research note.
“This moves our FY18-21E cc revenue CAGR from 17% to 13%, resulting in a FY19E adjusted EPS cut of 53%.”
They added: “The EPS cut moves our price target to 108p, which is based on the top end of the longer-term sector average P/E.”'
IQE work in the supply chain. They supply to many in China. The issue is many firms are now moving production out of China. Including Apple. Not forgeting the Macom news too. Not sure if IQE was linked to them. I think generally there is a decrease in demand for mobiles. Carphone Warehouse stated less people were upgrading phones now. Hence why they are losing money and closing stores.
The signs were certainly there the last few days. I thought the bad news would arrive next week at AGM. If they start to issue new shares at these prices it won't be great news for investors here.
On Nexexchange there were 4.4m shares traded. 51m on LSE. Wow! Might have to wait till 5.45 for the short positions for today.
The day wouldn't be complete without an article from.
https://www.fool.co.uk/investing/2019/06/21/is-the-iqe-share-price-an-unmissable-buy-after-30-crash/
Blackrock increased to 0.6% on Thursday. So shorts 8.67%. (Up 0.08%). Waiting for todays short news. It may be Monday or Tuesday before we know.
You have to question Oppenheimers approach here. Same for T Rowe Price. They are losing shedloads here.
Many firms do this. Put clauses in AGM to allow them to raise monies from the market if needed. No firm evidence to suggest they will do this. 295m million shares is quite a dilution if it happened.
We do know that their cashpiles is gradually running dry. Albeit a small amount of debt here is hardly an issue.
Hopefully not all those 295m shares are for the directors. They have room for 90 more tools in this complex. It's unclear how much each of these tools cost.
Huawei impact looking worse than thought.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-huawei-tech-usa-revenue/huawei-says-us-ban-hurting-more-than-expected-to-wipe-30-billion-off-revenue-idUSKCN1TI0KL
Should get an AGM statement next week.
OppenheimerFunds 140,132,767 - 17.90 (Up from 124,659,406)
T Rowe Price 107,315,984 -13.71 (Up from 9.22%?)
Hargreaves Lansdown Asset Mgt 52,780,746 6.74 (Down from 53,820,842)
Schroder Investment Mgt - 34,861,629 - 4.45 (Up from 33,341562)
Interactive Investor 31,356,047 - 4.01 (Up from 31,293,638.)
Barclays Wealth 29,553,715 - 3.78 (Down from 31,780,629)
Dr Andrew W Nelson 28,459,218 - 3.64
Overall small up and down shifts pending on the shareholder. This was as 30/04/2019.
So a month and a week old.
All these things could take months to happen. At present the biggest risk is perhaps market sentiment. Like all shares there comes a point where funds will see some value here. Lots of jam tomorrow here if one of the venture takes off. Theese will have to out weigh any failed ventures. Last result was a mixed bag of results.
In current share climate there are very few shares here which are really racing off into the night sky. Purple Bricks has firmly come come crashing down to earth. IQE too. Ocado too has top slices 15-20%. Safe shares like Lloyds are back blow 60p now.
These are very uncertain times.Very few IPO share offerings on the open market at present. Most have dried up. See what next few months brings. This SP has already taken a 33%+ drop from 122p. Albeit 20% if you assume £1.
Neil Woodford is a major headache for IP group. He holds over 210m shares here. I suspect he is invested in other companies the IP Group is invested in. Which in itself could be a double whammy here. Especially if he starts selling shares in them. (Assuming he can as many are private companies.)
Question is what will he do next? I doubt he will try to dump all his holdings as his investors would take big losses. Many other funds looking at his holdings may well decide to sell if they hold shares where he does. That or try to buy his holdings cheaply?
IP Group has several other major shareholders. Be interesting to see if any of them decide to sell up here or maybe buy up some of his shares?.
Reality is IP Group still hasn't found that amazing company that will make them millions. SP has drifted from 200p to 78p over last year or so. Not good. Noted an RNS last month where they ditched a holding in a firm. Likely made a loss.
I think if Neil Woodford has sense he will pause. Let the markets settle. Any rash move to sell could only increase his losses. Judging from latest update on his website I think he still holds a long term view here. Albeit he seems to accept his approach in current market was not good. A no deal Brexit for him or IP Group could be a very bad thing.
Must be a lot of nervous investors here.
https://www.iqep.com/media/2019/05/experts-develop-nanolasers-on-silicon/
This was on IQE Media page on 30th.
Looks like T Rowe Price took back some of their loaned shares. Also increased by 0.34%. Which would explain many of the large trades here. Likely them.
Share dipping as people sell after their buys? No real new short news.