Controversy Toward American Oriental Bioengineering (AOB)
American Oriental Bioengineering Inc. (NYSE: AOB) is being highlighted by a service which the company probably wished did not cover it. If you recall a websire called Asensio.com, and active site that highlights short selling opportunities or red flags in companies, Shenzen, China-based American Oriental Bioengineering is the new target of such activity.
If you look at the “Recent Reports” section at Asensio.com, there are two highted articles both dated as of today. One article is “AOB Chairman’s Questionable Second Passport and Potential Undisclosed Conflicts of Interest” and another article is “AOB’s Disclosures Concerning Director Cosimo Patti Appear Incomplete.”
You will need to go through these individually before making your own call. The notion that one short seller or one independent service highlights a company is something that should be checked and measured by each investor.
Shares were down early in the pre-market session, but the stock was actually back to positive right after the open. At 9:39 AM Est we have shares up 0.3% at $5.39. The 52-week trading range is $3.29 to $7.66 and the average volume is over 1.4 million shares.
American Oriental Bioengineering, Inc. is a Chinese pharmaceutical company “dedicated to improving health through the development, manufacture and commercialization of a broad range” of prescription and over the counter products. The market cap of this one is $421 million.
JON C. OGG
September 22, 2009
Five Fast-Growing Biotechs To Watch Right Now (ALNY, FOLD, HALO, AOB, STEM)
Alnylam (Nasdaq: ALNY) leads a short list of some of the fastest-growing biotech stocks where analyst estimate revisions continue to rise.
BioHealth Investor began by analyzing 171 stocks in the biotech sector based on revenue growth over the trailing four quarters, identifying 30 stocks in the sector with better than 50 percent revenue growth over the past 12 months.
We then screened those 30 stocks to look for those very few names that have seen both strong growth in at least the past two years and positive analyst estimate revisions in recent months, in an effort to find stocks with strong trends that still have potentially improving operations going forward.
The work resulted in growth biotech stocks to watch: Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Nasdaq: ALNY), Amicus Therapeutics Inc. (Nasdaq: FOLD), Halozyme Therapeutics Inc. (Nasdaq: HALO), American Oriental Bioengineering Inc. (NYSE: AOB), and Stemcells Inc. (Nasdaq: STEM).
1) Alnylam:
With a new class of potential biotech medicines, aggressive goals for development and partnerships, cash on the books and a large addressable market, Alnylam tops our short list of biotechs with strong growth and increasing analyst estimates.
Picking Apart the American Oriental Bioengineering Buyback (AOB)
Stock buybacks help shares sometimes, but in biotech stocks it is frequently a different story. Below is some on the fly analysis and data from ChinaBioToday.com on American Oriental Bioengineering (NYSE: AOB):
American Oriental Bioengineering (NYSE: AOB) has authorized a program to repurchase up to $75 million worth of its own shares. These purchases could be open market buys, negotiated transactions with investors or speeded-up stock repurchases. The company will time the transactions with a view toward the price of American Oriental’s stock.
At the end of the first quarter of 2008, American Oriental had $159 million in cash and working capital of $196.5 million. AOB has 78 million shares outstanding, giving it a market capitalization of $943 million.
In July 2007, American Oriental floated an 8.5 million share secondary offering at a price of $8.60, which garnered net proceeds of $64 million. Originally, the company filed a prospectus to sell 13 million shares (both included some stock from selling shareholders including CEO Tony Liu). An article in Barron’s took a negative view of the offering, discussing a relationship between the company and an unsavory stock promoter and also a few overblown claims for some of the company’s products. Although the case was built on innuendo, the attack took about 12% out of the price of AOB’s stock, sending it to a level of $8.60, and the size of the offering was cut almost in half. Tony Liu offered only 500,000 shares instead of his originally intended 2 million shares.
Now, the company comes back with a desire to buy as much as $75 million of stock when its shares are trading for $12.10. This price is a 20 cent increase following the repurchase announcement.
American Oriental made its debut as a public company through a reverse merger. It migrated to the American Exchange in June 2005 and then moved to the New York exchange in December 2006.
Continue reading the full story and analysis for American Oriental’s buyback at ChinaBioToday.com.
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