March 5, 2001
MAINE STOCK TRENDS
Maine stocks defy falling market
Copyright © 2001 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
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Maine stocks follow the market down (February 26, 2001)
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While the NASDAQ and Standard & Poor's 500 stock indexes fell last week, Maine's publicly traded companies bucked the trend and rose overall.
Among the local companies bucking the national trend was UnumProvident (UNM-$27.35). The disability insurer's stock moved up 9.3 percent last week. The company raised several hundred million in cash last week by issuing $575 million of 10-year notes on Friday.
Banknorth Group (BKNG-$20.81)didn't do badly last week, either. Shares of the Portland-based bank holding company moved up 4.7 percent for the week. On Friday, the stock traded as high as $21.06, its highest price since December 11, 2000.
The NASDAQ released short interest figures last week. Short selling is the selling of a security that the seller does not own, or any sale that is completed by the delivery of a security borrowed by the seller. Short interest represents the amount of open short sales and is reported as of the 15th calendar day of each month.
Among local stocks, IDEXX Laboratories (IDXX-$24) saw its open interest (short sales) drop by about 600,000 shares from January's numbers. The number of trading days needed to cover its open interest fell from 16 to 10. The stock moved up about 3 percent last week.
IDEXX founder, chairman, and CEO, David Shaw, sold 30,000 shares last month. Shaw has been thinning his holdings by about 25,000 shares quarterly for some time now.
I-Many (IMNY-$14.25) saw its short interest move up for the most recent reporting period. Short interest at I-Many topped 1 million shares in February for the first time ever. The stock's trading volume also increased, though, which meant that the number of days needed to cover the 1.3 million shares of open interest actually fell from 3.45 to 1.32 days according to NASDAQ. For the week, I-Many's stock dropped 18 percent. Over the past two weeks, I-Many has lost more than a third of its total stock market value.
I-Many has been a publicly traded security for just a little more than six months. Since the stock's "lock up" period was lifted in early January though, a number of insiders have been selling stock. One of the biggest sellers has been Insight Capital Partners, which sold about 2.8 million shares over the course of about 4 trading days in February. During those 4 days, I-Many's stock price ranged between $18.63 and $22.75, which interestingly enough was the highest price the stock has seen since early/mid-November.
The American Skiing Company's (SKI-$1.17) stock fell again last week. It fell to an all-time low including a not so insignificant drop of 13.3 percent last week alone.
The company is scheduled to release it second quarter results this Wednesday, March 7. The consensus among analysts calls for a loss of $0.44 per share. Actually, there appears to be only a single estimate on the Street right now for America's leading owner of ski resorts.
A conference call occurs at 2 p.m. on the 7th. It will likely be the last with Les Otten as CEO. Otten and directors of American Skiing Company have engineered a merger with hotel management company MeriStar Resorts (MMH-$1.97). The merger is expected to become effect by the end of this month at which point Otten will continue as chairman, but give up decision-making control. It could be an interesting conference call given that American Skiing's stock price has fallen 57 percent since the merger was announced in December. Otten, his management team, and controlling investor, Oak Hill Capital Partners, may be asked to do some explaining. They stand to benefit considerably from the merger. But, they are about the only ones who do. With more than seventy percent of the shares in the hands of insiders, there appears little that can or will prevent the deal from going through.
Brad McCurtain is president of Maine Securities Corporation. Maine Securities Corporation is an investment firm specializing in Maine's securities. From time to time, the corporation, its employees, and its clients may buy, hold, and/or sell positions in companies mentioned herein. As a regulated securities broker/dealer, the company and its employees are required to abide by all securities regulations at all times when communicating with the public. Brad McCurtain may be reached at info@MaineSec.com. Web site: http://www.MaineSec.com