Executives Are Selling at STEC. Should You?

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The market action on Monday just took some of the edge off STEC (Nasdaq: STEC).

The red-hot STEC stock (say that three times fast!) more than tripled since the first-quarter earnings report in May, and multiplied itself by seven in the last six months. Meanwhile, rivals like SMART Modular Technologies (Nasdaq: SMOD) and Western Digital (NYSE: WDC) have "only" quadrupled and tripled, respectively. So, a post-earnings drop of 6% this week can't have hurt current shareholders too much.

But is the business doing well enough to call it a buy-in opportunity for the rest of us?

Let's start with the price drop -- it had nothing to do with weak earnings, sluggish guidance, or any other item of actual business performance. No, shareholders reacted quite appropriately to an announcement made shortly before that report -- that the company's two top executives are selling 7.5 million of their personal shares as a secondary offering that puts no money into STEC's coffers. The announcement caused a downgrade of the company's stock and the resulting light 6% slap on the wrist.

The secondary offering comes courtesy of CEO and Chairman Manouch Moshayedi and (take a deep breath here) COO/CTO/secretary/director Mark Moshayedi, who are dumping at least 7.5 million shares worth about $250 million.

Since the offering is a sale of the executives’ current holdings, it shouldn’t dilute current shareholders. And these guys have certainly been running STEC nicely of late. Sales stopped at $86.4 million, a 54% year-over-year bounce and 36% sequential improvement. Most of the outrageous gains are coming from solid-state drive shipments into enterprise-class storage systems -- the flagship ZeusIOPS product line saw a 375% increase on last year's sales and more than double the volume of last quarter. It looks like that technology has hit the tipping point and is ready to take over the storage market. Major STEC customers include IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), who pack the drives into enterprise storage systems.

Those inspiring sales drove non-GAAP earnings to $0.42 per share, again more than quadruple the $0.09 per share seen in 2008. I can see why Mr. Market is cutting the Moshayedi brothers some slack.

But perhaps the backdraft should have been a little bit stronger. STEC is trading near all-time record levels, while direct competitors like SMART Modular and SanDisk (Nasdaq: SNDK) are nowhere near back to full health after the recent Flash memory price wars.

Compare today's situation with 2006, when the computer memory market last saw good times, and chip supplier Micron (NYSE: MU) is trading at half-price. STEC? A nine-bagger during that time, with most of the rise happening in the last year.

Micron sure looks much more palatable right now. Think we missed the boat on STEC? Let me know in the comments box below.

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Comments from our Foolish Readers

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  • Report this Comment On August 05, 2009, at 4:55 PM, mightymo2 wrote:

    NO, bluntly speaking. STEC is a strong buy.Of course, this is after the 7.5 shares selling have run it course.

    Please note that the brothers have been selling their STEC stock for several years now. They sold at 4 per share, 7 per share, 10 per share, etc etc, Get the picture..has nothing to do with the Company.

    Here's the deal.........

    It has been stated that it would be easier to purchase the company with less insider ownership.

    There was a speculative rumor about Intel buying out STEC instead of developing it's own. However, a more plausable case can be made for Seagate. Seagate filed a suit againt STEC in regard to the SSD product last year. It was widely viewed as a delaying tactic move. That ligitation has now been dismissed.

    Per Richard Shannon at Northland Secuirites "That makes Seagate’s suit look like a desperation move. “Seagate makes 80% of its money on the 5% of its sales that go to the enterprise market. That Seagate business is going to disappear.” Another analyst, Richard Kugele at Needham & Co and Shannon both think Seagate could just buy STEC. Both analysts expect someone to do so. STEC was founded by three brothers who own a controlling share of the stock. They’ve already had four offers (per these analysts).

    I think the selling of the 7.5 mil shares pertain to some type of an arragement made (for wahtever reasons I do not know) prior to a friendly buyout.

    After the offering sale, the brothers will have only 20% ownership of STEC

  • Report this Comment On August 05, 2009, at 5:26 PM, bizassistsa wrote:

    "But perhaps the backdraft should have been a little bit stronger. STEC is trading near all-time record levels, while direct competitors like SMART Modular and SanDisk (Nasdaq: SNDK) are nowhere near back to full health after the recent Flash memory price wars."

    I believe that you missed the boat on this statement. SMART and SNDK are not direct competitors, as they are in the "retail" segment, whereas STEC is the only game in town for the SSD enterprise segment. This near monopoly, coupled with the fact that the enterprise SSD segment is on fire, means that STEC is indeed an investment that should be very closely looked at and considered. Strong income statement+ stronger balance sheet+ near monopoly+ growing market = a buy or strong buy in my book. Just my opinion.

  • Report this Comment On August 06, 2009, at 5:19 PM, dcesano wrote:

    I may agree with the two opinions above. However, we shouldn't forget that:

    1. We are just getting out of a recession where people reacted quiet irrationaly and we could have some residues of this behaviour somewhere in the system.

    2. Nasdaq today went down because of kind of bad news on the unemployment side.

    3. Senior executives sold a big portuion of their shares that may push a few people think it s time to sell

    4. I am buying from Europe and the $ is dropping so even though the share is rising, I have been loosing share values for over a month

    2 + 3 + 4 + 1 may maean a sell for a few people. I predict a stagnant price or even a small contraction over the short term. Depending on your time horizon you may be thinking of relocating a portion of your STEC asset partially somewhere else...

  • Report this Comment On September 11, 2009, at 10:35 AM, rick24245 wrote:

    I THINK YOU MISS THE BOAT $42.00 I BET YOU IT WILL GO OVER $70!YOU WANT TOO BET

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