Clean Harbors Up 80%; Hired For Anthrax Tests Nationwide
October 22, 2001
Dow Jones Newswires
By Lingling Wei
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
NEW YORK -- The stock of Clean Harbors Inc. (CLHB) more than doubled to $4.90 Monday as investors hoped the environmental-services company would profit from the growing demand for anthrax tests in offices.
"The stock has been undervalued for a long time," said Bill Geary, executive vice president of the Braintree, Mass company, and "finally investors have noticed the valuable technologies we have."
The 100% soar in stock price was sparked by a report by The Wall Street Journal Monday. It cites Clean Harbors, along with Versar Inc. (VSR) in Springfield, Virginia, among the many environmental consultants benefiting from the demand - at a time when the anthrax scare is spreading and police departments have already been overloaded with the investigations.
Geary said Clean Harbors sampled suspicious materials at 50 businesses in the last week alone. The company, specializes in cleaning up chemical waste, collects the samples and then provide them to law enforcement agencies or health departments for further analyses.
"The cost (for sampling) varies instance to instance, depending on how many people we put into and what kind of material we use," Geary said.
In the last two weeks, Clean Harbors has also started offering "stand-by services" for its 50 major customers, which features timely cleanup of any suspicious materials, Geary said. He characterized these customers as "Fortune 500 companies" and large-volume mail handlers.
The company is slated to release its third-quarter earnings Tuesday. It earned 18 cents a share, on $62.3 million in revenue, in the second quarter.
Geary said it's still premature to assess the effect on the company's future earnings from the new demand for anthrax tests.
In recent trading, Clean Harbors was up $1.38 to $3.68, on volume of 1.8 million shares. Average daily volume is 23,800 shares. Earlier the stock traded as high as $4.90, a 52-week high that tops the previous mark of $2.88 reached last October.
The stock traded as low as $1.50 in December.
Versar, another specialist in handling hazardous materials, expects businesses' growing demand for the anthrax tests to have "a significantly positive impact" on its fiscal second-quarter results, said spokesman James Dobbs.
"The phone keeps ringing," Dobbs said. Versar plans to report in mid-November its fiscal first-quarter results ended in September. The company generated about $66 million in revenue in fiscal 2000.
Among the 20 facilities the company tested for anthrax spores in the last week were AOL Time Warner Inc.'s (AOL) Cable News Network and Walt Disney Co.'s (DIS) ABC Network. Dobbs said the average cost for testing is between $18,000 to $20,000, depending on the size of the office.
In recent trading, Versar stock shot up 14.3%, or 55 cents, to $4.40, on volume of 218,500. Average daily volume is 64,100. The stock hit a 52-week high of $5.10 on Tuesday. It traded as low as $1.50 last October.
-By Lingling Wei, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-2089; lingling.wei@dowjones.com |
