I think Babe's response is also worth posting
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Subj: Re: American ECOLOGY Corporation
Date: Sun, 9 Mar 1997 10:18:16 EST
From: Babe 1984
Message-ID: <19970309151800.KAA19646@ladder01.news.aol.com>
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Read through the graveyards. Saw a couple of messages mentioning nuclear waste sites and toxic waste management. Posters were usually smacked up side the head with "Learn the basics about the company" or some such friendly remark.
Maybe inaccurate information on Hoovers has something to do with the idea that American Eco deals in such nasty stuff.
Go to Hoovers. Search on American Eco. "American Ecology Corp" pops up. Close enough, right, so select it. Not close at all. >>
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Art Philly, thankyou VERY much for pointing this out. American Ecology Corp is indeed, definitely, a different company, symbol..ECOL. For as long as I have been an avid follower of Eco (ECGOF), which has been a considerable time, I am embarrassed to say I never realized that there was another company with a name so close. I have even heard people refer to American Eco as American Ecology and never thought much about it and just considered it an
extension of the name on their part...assuming that Eco stood for Ecology and never bothered to question it or try to correct it.
American Ecology (ECOL) IS a penny stock just under $2 and indeed deals in nuclear waste disposal and has had negative earnings through 95' and the first qtr of 96'. They just reported positive earings in their last two quarters. Per Market Guide....
ECOL REVENUES and earnings..(Thousands of U.S. Dollars)
QUARTERS 1993 1994 1995 1996
MAR 13,821 14,334 19,750 12,150
JUN 14,427 18,597 16,382 14,038
SEP 14,084 14,146 14,881 13,315
DEC 17,980 24,814 16,882
TOTAL 60,312 71,891 67,895
EARNINGS PER SHARE
MAR 0.200 0.010 -0.240 -0.390
JUN 0.050 0.190 -4.150 0.030
SEP 0.100 0.140 -0.290 0.040
DEC 0.250 0.160 -1.580
TOTAL 0.600 0.500 -6.260
BUSINESS SUMMARY
ECOL and its subsidiaries provide processing,
packaging, transportation, remediation and disposal services
for generators of hazardous waste and low level radioactive
waste. For the 9 months ended 9/30/96, revenues fell 23% to
$39.5M. Net loss applic. to Common Stock fell 93% to $2.6M.
Results reflect the elimination of transportation services
and reduced disposal receipts. Lower loss reflects the
absence of a $27.2M impairment loss on long-lived assets.
A problem that I have been trying to help correct from the beginning with Eco is the amount of
incorrect or disinformation of data on the company that is still circulating out there. Some of you may
remember that for a long time IBD had % owned by management at 1%. After some effort this was
corrected to 33%.
Market Guide still has the amount of shares outstanding and the float wrong for Eco. The following is per Market Guide as of today....
SHARE RELATED INFORMATION SHORT INTEREST INFORMATION
Market Cap. ($) 74.194 Mil Current Month 0.491 Mil
Shares Out. 8.859 Mil Previous Month 0.528 Mil
Float 5.900 Mil Short Interest Ratio 3.4 Day
Thus, when people see earnings through 96' of .20, ..21, .20, .20, they conclude that earnings
were flat. As we have discussed many times on this board, this is incorrect. The shares outstanding
and the float are incorrect in Market Guide and haven't reflected the growth through acquisiton that
has taken place. While numerically, their earnings may appear to be flat through 96', their capitalization has increased due to the acquistions and their net earnings have been sequentially higher each quarter. The flat appearance is due to the steady increase in the amount of outstanding shares through the year. Half their growth is internal and half through the acretive acquistions. 25% from each. Even though these earnings are % wise, 100%
increased over earnings shown from 95', they still have that flatish appearance through the year to the uninformed eye who isn't aware of the growth plan that Eco is undergoing. Even after the last quarter report of .20 which beat the years estimate of .80 by a penny....IBD even lowered Eco's EPS ranking to 70 from 74. I believe this too is incorrect and is probably due to the above mentioned failure to understand the flatish appearance of
earnings through 96'.
When I first started researching Eco over a year ago, they really had no IR dept at all. They had
a secretary dealing with most of the inquiries and she mostly just dispensed investor packs. I have
to admit that one of Eco's greatest faults in the past has been it's been much, much, much better at running it's company and making money than it was dealing with the street as a public company... PR, IR..etc, and getting the proper information out to investors and the street. For as much crap as Todd Hickman recieves here on this board for his job, it is miles better than the zero information that came forth before he arrived. It was literally
a vacuum of info. This latest confusion with Hoovers is
just another example of the amount of work that is necessary in this area.
I'll tell you what. I'd like to find 3 or 4 more companies with this same problem. This is a problem
that I can live with, as time will correct this and the street will eventually become informed and aware
of the truth and the stock will follow accordingly. This is a hell of a lot better situation to deal with
than you will find in an awful lot of companies out there that have great PR and hype and no earnings
and growth behind all of the promises to back it up. Give me a company with great growth and
earnings and a past of weak PR any day over all the hyped up companies out there as it's just a
matter of time before the real info gets out.
I wonder how the street will react if Eco posts an EPS growth jump to the .24 or .25 cents per
share area for the first quarter of 97'. Kinda breaks that flatish appearance, huh..... I feel it's just a
matter of time before enough evidence pops up to convince the street that Eco is for real and their
growth plan is working and acretive. I think that earnings through 97' will have a much more sequentially higher look to them each quarter and will catch the eye of the street. If they post in
the mid twenty cent area this quarter and this does not even include any earnings from the CHEM
acquisition...watch for some recognition as the second quarter will include a prorated addition of a
couple months of CHEM's second quarter earnings which normally would've ended in June but now will be ending in May since Eco's fiscal year ends one month earlier than CHEM's did.
Babe |
