Reuters story:
GSI Lumonics stock touches new high on hot prospects
(All figures in U.S. dollars unless noted) By Susan Taylor
OTTAWA, Feb 28 (Reuters) - Shares in Canada's GSI Lumonics Inc. <LSI.TO><GSLI.O> blazed to new highs on Monday as markets rewarded the laser equipment manufacturer's move to begin supplying fiber-optic components and its recent strong financial results.
Stock in the firm peaked at C$40.00 on the Toronto Stock Exchange before slipping to C$37.45, a gain of C$5.00.
That is up 52.5 percent from the close of C$24.65 on Thursday before the firm announced a fourth-quarter profit of 12 cents per share on sales of $88.7 million. That bettered the 7 cent per share profit consensus posted by First Call/Thomson Financial.
On Nasdaq the issue roared to 28-15/16 before retreating to 25-15/16, a gain of 3-14/16.
"They're enjoying the cyclical recovery in markets that they serve and they have a new exciting business unit that seems to draw on their core expertise -- that's manufacturing fiber-optic components and selling them... to other
manufacturers," said Joe Arsenio, analyst at Hambrecht & Quist in San Francisco.
GSI, the product of a March 1999 merger between Ottawa-based Lumonics Inc. and Watertown, Mass.-based General Scanning Inc., is enjoying growth in demand from the resurrecting semiconductor and electronics markets it serves.
Markets are also applauding GSI sales of waveguide technology, which channels and focuses energy on one wavelength, Arsenio said.
"That caused the stock to go ballistic," he said. "(It's) a red-hot sector and that's really the reason this stock has
gotten so strong so quickly."
He said the company told analysts that the technology, which represented $3 million in sales for 1999, could grow to $10 million in sales this year.
"We expect sales from our telecom optics business to more than double this year with the possibility it could represent 3 percent of sales in 2000," said Chief Executive Charles Winston in a statement.
Arsenio, who has a "buy" rating on GSI Lumonics, increased his stock target to $28 from $12 and boosted his 2000 profit estimate to 59 cents per share cents from 50 cents after the results.
GSI also announced on Friday a $1.5 million order from a major semiconductor maker.
($1=$1.45 Canadian) |
