Rob, I'll probably jump back into Capstone (CPST) again some time this week.
>NEW YORK, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Shares of microturbine systems maker Capstone Turbine Inc. (NASDAQ:CPST) dropped more than 10 percent on Thursday following the expiration of a lock-up period for shares owned by early investors in the company.
Chatsworth, Calif.-based Capstone, whose shareholders include New Zealand oil and gas company FCL Energy (NYSE:FEG), saw its shares drop after analysts said a lock-up of between 55 million 59 million shares expired after the close of trading on Wednesday.
A spokesman for Capstone, which has around 75 million shares outstanding, confirmed that the period had ended but declined to confirm the number of shares affected.
Most shares sold as a result of the expiration likely belonged to venture capital firms and other pre-initial public offer investors, said Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Gary Holdsworth.
FCL Energy, which owns around 7 million Capstone shares and participated in a November Capstone secondary offering, might be one of those companies, he said.
"This was quite expected by the market," Goldman Sachs Vice President Mas Siddiqui said. Investors' current appetite for companies that provide alternative energy products and services due to the California energy crisis prevented steeper Capstone losses, he said.
"They think that there are positives from California that are going to offset this," Siddiqui said.
No fundamental weakness was evident within the company, Holdsworth said.
Capstone shares closed down $3-1/4 at $28-5/8 on the Nasdaq stock market, in the lower part of the stock's 52-week trading range from $17-3/4 to $98-1/2. |
