This stock seems to be taking off. Although it doesn't pay a dividend it has a great "moat". It is a world leader in several areas such as photoelectronics and wafer manufacture. Links to several helpful reviews have been posted on the LSE discussion board under IQE.
I am long in this share.
Recent post page 4 LSE discussion board for IQE
"Investor interest is growing - the CFO has recently been presenting in the USA and says that many analysts have been very interested in hearing what IQE have to say. Interestingly the American analysts appear to understand the proposition better than their UK andEuropean counterparts, but also in the UK there has been a recent clamour to meet and discuss the company. I have long held the notion that the recent SP growth has been driven in large part by US investors, that would appear to be a situation that's growing, certainly IQE is going from a proposition that was uninteresting to a situation where IQE are literally inundated with interest from the analyst and investment communities :-)
I asked about utilisation rates which were quoted as being 50% last year and also the ability to respond to surges in demand. As expected no direct answer was given to utilisation other than its obvious the rate has gone up significantly :-) , Interestingly in response to Hammerd's question it only takes 9 months from reactor install to it being fully productive.last years CAPEX increase was to supply to the demand they knew was coming folks, I expect that R+D and CAPEX will have to increase to supply the demand- which is great. There are no plans for acquisitions, but of course no- one should ever say never, just in case an opportunity arises, but none is imminent.
Lots can be gleaned from body language, All The board were present, it's blindingly obvious unless they are the best actors in the world ( and why would they) that things are going extremely well.
The point was made that the political shenanigans and Brexit have no impact on investment in the CS cluster . Simon Gibson made the point that the influential MIT publicly state that the Compound Semiconductor industry led by IQE is WORLD CLASS compare to its completion :-)
Links from LSE pages…
"(general remark, IQE is clearly the next ARM, so no worries in this particular case.)"
I'm sorry, but IQE is most definitely not the next ARM. ARM was a capital-light licensor of its proprietry technology, that was sufficiently well embedded in the market to give massive barriers to entry to competition. IQE as far as I can tell is a capital intensive fabricator of cutting-edge stuff who may or may not have enough of an edge to prevent them becoming a fabricator of commodity stuff, with a lot of competitors also spending money to try and catch up or get their own edge.
Clearly they are in the happy position of the stuff they make being hot stuff and in demand at the moment, but I'd say their economics are a lot closer to those of a miner who's commodity happens to be in a bull phase, spending lots on a hole in the ground at the same time as their competitors hoping to reap the benefit before the competition inevitably squeezes the margins, than they are to a licensor such as ARM.
