Greenbackd

Axcelis Technologies Inc (NASDAQ:ACLS) has had an amazing run over the last few weeks, up more than 50% since the end of September to hit a 52-week high yesterday. We’ve decided to close our position because it’s trading at a substantial premium to our estimate of its liquidation value and we don’t think the underlying business is all that great (not that we have any particular insight into these things). At its $1.63 close yesterday, our position in ACLS is up 171.7% on an absolute basis. The S&P500 closed at 906.65 on the day we opened the position, and closed yesterday at 1,073.18, an 18.4% gain, which means we’ve outperformed the S&P500 over the same period by 153.3%.

Post mortem

We started following ACLS on January 8 this year (see our post archive here) because it was trading at a discount to our estimate of its liquidation value with an activist investor, Sterling Capital Management, holding 10.7% of its outstanding stock. The picture for ACLS looked fairly grim at that stage. We noted that it had been “making substantial operating losses that have widened over the last five quarters” that had prompted “Sterling Capital Management to detail to ACLS management an aggressive restructuring strategy to salvage for stockholders what value remains.” Shortly after we opened the position ACLS failed to make a payment required under its 4.25% Convertible Senior Subordinated Notes, which meant that the company was required to repay the outstanding principal amount of the notes plus a maturity premium and accrued interest (a total payment of approximately $85 million) on January 15. On February 26, in a remarkable deal given the extremely difficult conditions, ACLS managed to sell to Sumitomo Heavy Industries, Ltd. (SHI) of its 50% interest in SEN Corporation, its joint venture with SHI, for proceeds of $122.3 million. ACLS received around $35.9M in cash after applying $86.4M of the proceeds to meet its obligations to the Convertible Senior Subordinated Noteholders. The company hit its low of $0.17 on Feburary 25, at which point our position was down over 70%. From its February 25 nadir, ACLS is up approximately 860% to close yesterday at $1.63, which gives the company a market capitalization of $170M.

We last estimated ACLS’s liquidation value at around  $113.6M or $1.10. Its net current asset value at the last reporting date was a little higher at around $180M or $1.77 per share. We still think that cash burn is a significant issue for ACLS, and we suspect that both the liquidation and net current asset values will be lower at the upcoming reporting date. At the rate of cash burn prevailing at the last reporting date, we estimated the company had around six months before its liquidation value was around $0.60, and around a year before it was worthless. We think that’s an improbable – but not impossible – outcome.

ACLS’s recent run-up may be attributable to attention it has now started receiving from the mainstream media and larger investment banks. Citi thinks ACLS could be worth $3, noting that “while we are far from bullish on business prospects and we acknowledge that there’s risk to ACLS’ ability to raise much-needed cash in the next several months, we think the company will be able to raise sufficient capital w/o going to the public markets.” The Wall Street Journal also ran an article yesterday in which it quoted an analyst as saying “the stock is undervalued, since there were concerns about whether the company would survive. It was one of the hardest hit in the downturn … partly because it had market-share losses amid a cyclical semiconductor decline before the financial crisis even hit. … Now it looks like the company will probably make it, so there’s a correction in valuation.” That may be so, but we’ve got no particular insight into the business or the industry, and so we’re closing the position.

[Disclosure:  We don’t have a holding in ACLS. This is neither a recommendation to buy or sell any securities. All information provided believed to be reliable and presented for information purposes only. Do your own research before investing in any security.]