Did Quantum Sell Shares Too Cheaply?

Here is the problem. Quantum Fuel closed at $3.26 on Wednesday, and its 52-week range is $1.75 to $11.25. Quantum shares were actually under $2.50 as recently as the end of January, but the stock also closed at $3.80 this past Monday, after hitting a recent high of $4.05.

Did the company give shares away too cheap, or is this just the cost of doing business in such a volatile speculative sector? It turns out that pricing a secondary is just not that easy for a very volatile stock. After all, the new share buyers have to feel like they are getting enough of a discount to justify the risk.

Cowen and FBR Capital Markets acted as joint bookrunners for the offering. Quantum also granted the underwriters a 30-day greenshoe option to purchase up to an additional 600,000 shares of common stock to cover overallotments.

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It will be interesting to see how analysts at Cowen and FBR cover Quantum Fuel Systems in the coming days or weeks. Interestingly enough, FBR was already out with a call. Back in mid-October, Quantum was started by FBR with an Outperform rating and with a price target of $6.

We went back in time to see other calls from analysts, and it turns out that the only call we have found under analyst coverage was from a boutique named MLV & Co., which rated it as Buy with a $5.50 price target back in mid-October. Quantum Fuel Systems shares were trading around $4 then.

Quantum Fuel Systems calls itself a leader in natural gas storage systems, integration and vehicle systems technologies. Net proceeds from the sale are expected to be approximately $9.13 million, after backing out related expenses. The company said that it plans to use the funding for general corporate and working capital purposes.

Another consideration here is that it was just on Monday that Quantum issued strong sequential guidance for the fourth quarter of 2014 and strong directional guidance for 2015. Quantum said that fourth-quarter product sales were expected to roughly double from the third, with total revenues coming between $12 million and $13 million. The company had also said that its product backlog was anticipated to increase during the fourth quarter by approximately $3 million to $17.8 million, and that it sees strong overall revenue growth in 2015. This news drove shares on Monday to $3.80, after closing at $2.79 on Friday.

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Shares of Quantum Fuel Systems were down just about 5.6% at $3.08 in late morning trading on Thursday. Frankly, with a deal priced at $2.50 per share, shareholders are probably feeling lucky that the drop was not worse. Again, this pricing may simply be yet another example showing that companies this speculative and volatile just have to discount shares massively to raise to capital.