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Secondary Offering Floodgates Open (BGS, CMFO, COIN, LOPE, LGCY, OPEN, PRKR, KGS, UDR, IACI)

247wallst — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:30:55 +0000

What happens when market rallies go on and on? Outside of the basics, you just about always get a flurry of corporations and public entities selling shares as secondary offerings flood the market. Between yesterday and today we have seen a deluge of secondary offerings either priced or filed from the likes of B&G Foods, Inc. (NYSE: BGS) China Marine Food Group Limited (AMEX: CMFO), Converted Organics Inc. (NASDAQ: COIN), Grand Canyon Education, Inc. (NASDAQ: LOPE), Legacy Reserves LP (NASDAQ: LGCY), OpenTable, Inc. (NASDAQ: OPEN), ParkerVision, Inc. (NASDAQ: PRKR), Quicksilver Gas Services LP (NYSE: KGS), and UDR, Inc. (NYSE: UDR).

As long as you keep seeing the DJIA, S&P, and NASDAQ hitting new intermediate highs and the market does not roll over, you can expect the floodgates for companies raising capital to continue. Full details on each offering or filing are below.

B&G Foods, Inc. (NYSE: BGS) priced its public offering of 10,000,000 shares of common stock at $8.00 per share in a sale through Credit Suisse, Barclays Capital, and BofA Merrill Lynch. The $80 million in gross proceeds comes to $75.6 million after all fees are deducted, or $86.9 million if the overallotment option is exercised in full. After a 4% drop to $8.12 today, we have the market cap listed as $291 million.

China Marine Food Group Limited (AMEX: CMFO) has filed to sell up to $40,000,000.00 of any combination of Common Stock, Preferred Stock, Depository Shares, Warrants, Rights and Units. The company noted that it will retain a broad discretion over the use of the net proceeds under the “for general corporate purposes.” Without the consideration of new shares, we show the market cap of this one as $116.5 million. At $5.06, it is also at the upper end of its $1.10 to $5.83 range over the last year.

Converted Organics Inc. (NASDAQ: COIN) is selling units with stock and warrants, with public warrants under the “COINZ” ticker. The sale of up to $44,476,350.00 in stock and warrants is taking place through Chardan Capital Markets, LLC.

Grand Canyon Education, Inc. (NASDAQ: LOPE) priced 6,000,000 shares at $16.50 through Credit Suisse and BofA Merrill Lynch. Of the sale, only 1,000,000 shares were sold by the company as 5,000,000 shares were unloaded by backer Endeavour Capital. As the discount was effectively none, shares are up almost 4% at $17.15.

Legacy Reserves LP (NASDAQ: LGCY) sold 3.3 million units at $15.85 per unit through Raymond James and RBC Capital Markets. The oil and gas partnership plans to use the funds to reduce outstanding borrowings under its revolving credit facility. The near-$50 million compares to market cap of $509 million after a 2.8% drop to $16.40 today.

OpenTable, Inc. (NASDAQ: OPEN) filed to sell 3,790,033 Shares through BofA Merrill Lynch and others. If the overallotment is exercised, this would come to 4,358,537 shares or a value of $116,076,558 based upon the filing figures. Be advised, none of the funds from this go back to the company as every one of these shares are being sold by insiders and venture backers. IAC/InterActive Corp. (NASDAQ: IACI) is selling some 750,000 as one of the backers here.

ParkerVision, Inc. (NASDAQ: PRKR) has filed to sell up to $50 million in securities in any combination of Common stock, Preferred stock, Warrants and Debt. This company has a market cap of $127 million before the effects of any such changes, if any, from this filing.

QUICKSILVER GAS SERVICES LP (NYSE: KGS) has filed to sell any combination of Common Units, Debt Securities, Warrants, Purchase Contracts, and Units for an amount of up to $150 million.

UDR, Inc. (NYSE: UDR) has entered into an at-the-money sales agreement with Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley as sales agents and/or principals to sell up to 15,000,000 shares of common stock at prevailing market prices at the time of sale.

This is also just a snapshot of the immediate deals that were filed in the last 48 hours or which priced. There are many other deals in the hopper for this week and next.

JON C. OGG
SEPTEMBER 15, 2009

Posted in Internet, Oil & Gas, Private Equity, Secondary Offering Tagged: BGS, CMFO, COIN, IACI, KGS, LGCY, LOPE, OPEN, PRKR, UDR

Goldman Sachs Hits Oil Sector (BHI, EP, XOM, KMP, MMP, EPB, MRO, MUR, KGS, SLB)

247wallst — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 06:00:02 +0000

In a perhaps late research call in the oilpatch, Goldman Sachs has downgraded the exploration & production sector to Neutral from attractive and downgraded the oil services sector to Neutral from Attractive. Interestingly enough. in all of the downgrades for these sub-sectors there are actually some upgrades in the group. Below are some of these top calls in the sector from Goldman Sachs:

Baker Hughes (BHI) Raised To Buy From Neutral
El Paso (EP) Raised To Buy From Neutral
Exxon Mobil (XOM) Raised To Buy From Neutral
Kinder Morgan Energy (KMP) Raised To Buy From Neutral
Magellan Midstream (MMP) Raised To Buy From Neutral

Here are the downgrades in the sectors:

El Paso Pipeline (EPB) Cut To Neutral From Buy
Marathon Oil (MRO) Cut To Neutral From Buy
Murphy Oil (MUR) Cut To Neutral From Buy
Quicksilver Gas Services (KGS) Cut To Neutral from Buy
Schlumberger (SLB) Cut To Neutral From Buy

Jon C. Ogg
October 13, 2008

Posted in Analyst Calls, Oil & Gas Tagged: BHI, EP, EPB, KGS, KMP, MMP, MRO, MUR, SLB, XOM

Goldman Sachs Major Oil Changes (APA, FST, KWK, KGS, EP, XOM, FTO, HES, MUR, OXY, CVX)

247wallst — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 08:05:04 +0000

Goldman Sachs this morning made some significant "Super-Spike" era calls where it said oil could reach $135 per barrel and noted up to $4.50 per gallon of gasoline at the pump for you and me, although its actual base targets are not at that level. It has hiked integrated oil earnings estimates and maintaining "Attractive Ratings" on the sector to include exploration and production. 2008 and 2009 estimates have been raised for oil services and deepwater drillers, and made the following price base price assumptions for oil per barrel and natural gas ($/MMBtu):

2008 $80.00/$8.50
2009 $90.00/$10.00
2010 $80.00/$8.50
2011 $75.00/$7.50

Oil Services estimates raised 6% in 2008 and 16% 2009. Estimates unchanged for offshore drillers due to high contract coverage in deepwater markets and increasing uncontracted supply in the shallow water market. Increased price targets by 7% on average for oil service stocks and by 5% on average for deepwater levered drillers.

Even after Apache Corp. (NYSE:APA) was raised to Buy last week, Goldman Sachs is adding it to the CONVICTION BUY LIST, replaces Forest Oil Corp. (NYSE:FST) on the list.

Quicksilver Resources (NYSE:KWK) continued as Buy/Attractive as performed well since announcing asset sales last week.

QuickSilver Gas Services L.P. (KGS) started as Buy with a $27 target over 12 months.

Other estimates increased (partial list): El Paso (EP), Exxon Mobil (XOM), Frontier Oil (FTO), Hess (HES), Marathon Oil (MRO), Murphy Oil (MUR), Newfield Exploration (NFX), Occidental Petroleum (OXY), Petro-Canada (PCZ), Suncor Energy (SU), Sunoco (SUN), Canadian Natural Resources (CNQ), Chevron (CVX), Apache (APA).

Jon C. Ogg
September 17, 2007