Tag Archives: stocks
Stratasys and HP Part Ways on 3D Printer Manufacturing
Stratasys and HP have discontiued a manufacturing and distribution agreement for 3D printers. This either means that HP is preparing its own line of 3D printers, or is opting out of the 3D printing market entirely. Stratasys does not see this as a hit to their financial projections, but the market reacted by initially lowering their share price.
From the Stratasys press release:
Stratasys, Inc., a leading manufacturer of 3D printers and production systems for prototyping and manufacturing applications, today announced that Stratasys and HP have agreed to discontinue their manufacturing and distribution agreement for 3D printers, effective at the end of 2012. Stratasys does not expect the termination of its agreement with HP to have a material impact on its financial results for the current year and intends to work closely with HP to ensure a smooth transition for customers.
“Stratasys has enjoyed a productive relationship with HP, and moving forward, we will continue working towards our goal of achieving broader 3D printer usage worldwide,” said Scott Crump, chief executive officer and chairman of Stratasys. “As the market for 3D printing technology grows, Stratasys is focused on further developing our independent channel distribution initiatives to expand our distribution reach even further. Our recently-announced merger with Objet will help grow customer awareness of the many opportunities to deploy 3D printing and rapid prototyping techniques and will allow us to implement an even broader distribution channel with a more extensive geographic reach.”
Under the terms of the definitive agreement signed in January 2010, Stratasys developed and manufactured for HP an exclusive line of 3D printers based on Stratasys’ patented Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM(R)) technology. Later that year, HP began a phased rollout of the 3D printers in the mechanical design (MCAD) market in select European countries.
HP CEO Meg Whitman photo by TechShowNetwork used under Creative Commons license.
Top 3D Printing Headlines Last Week: Guns, Germs, and ABS Plastic
A roundup of the top news On 3D Printing brought you from July 23 to July 29.
Monday, July 23
Friday, July 27
- Afinia Targets Consumer Market with New 3D Printer Priced at $1499
- Organovo 3D Printing: Bold Mission But Needs Cash, May Offer Secondary
Saturday, July 28
Organovo 3D Printing: Bold Mission But Needs Cash, May Offer Secondary
Investor information site Seeking Alpha thinks Organovo Holdings (PINK: ONVO) is worth a deeper look. We have profiled this company and the field of bioprinting before. It’s one of the most amazing 3D printing applications.
Organovo Holdings (ONVO) is a revolutionary company that uses 3D printing technology to build organic tissues one cell at a time. The potential applications for this technology are simply astounding with the possibility of replacement organ and tissue manufacturing that would revolutionize medicine and the healthcare industry. With an innovative management team and a potentially lucrative patent portfolio, it would seem that the sky is the limit for ONVO.
Organovo’s mission is potentially revolutionary, but the question is whether the company can survive long enough to see it through. It currently trades on the pink sheets. Below is their stock chart.
The company
is loaded up with debt,bleeding cash and generates little to no revenue. While the technology is amazing and the potential is huge, right now the company is generous in its filings when it says it will be able to pay the bills for the next 12 months.
So what are the options? Most likely, the company will need to take additional funding, in the form of a dilutive secondary offering. While it would reduce the equity of the founders, a secondary could given them enough cash to complete R&D and start to generate revenue. We will see if the board of directors is willing to make this deal.
(Update: a commenter pointed out that the company has no debt. We checked in Yahoo! Finance and corrected the quote from Seeking Alpha above.)
Read the full analysis at Seeking Alpha.
Top 3D Printing Headlines Last Week: Stocks, Cloud, Virality, Children’s Books, Olympics
A roundup of the top news On 3D Printing brought you from July 9 to July 15.
Monday, July 9
Tuesday, July 10
- Designed to Win: 3D Printing Could Help Athletes Break World Records
- Moddler is Making the Market in High-End 3D Printing [Video]
Wednesday, July 11
Thursday, July 12
Friday, July 13
3D Printing Presents Long-Term Threat to Otherwise Healthy Toy Stocks
Back in April, we discussed how 3D printing could disrupt the toy industry, and in May featured a story about a father printing the Rosetta stone for kids toys.
The analysts at Seeking Alpha have put together an interesting perspective of how an otherwise appealing dividend growth stock might be a failed investment because of the emergence of 3D printing. The stock is Hasbro (NASDAQ: HAS), the owner of brands such as Tonka, G.I. Joe, Transformers, and My Little Pony.
As an investor who is interested in dividends, I look at these metrics to begin my analysis.
- Dividend: $1.44
- Yield: 4.1%
- 5 yr. DGR: 17.2%
- Payout Ratio: 44%
- Debt Coverage Ratio: 6.1
This is just a quick peek at a few data points, but upon deeper analysis, the company looks relatively healthy with plenty of room to increase its dividend in the near term. Additionally, the recent success of the Avengers movie is expected to translate into revenue for Hasbro. What has me worried is the future of the company five to ten years out. Why? 3-D printing.
The analyst goes on to say that once 3D printing becomes ubiquitous, it will become a threat to traditional toy makers, and we won’t be able to get the genie back in the bottle. He cites some examples of 3D printed substitutes and complements.
- The following is a video of a student at a community college who created a STAR WARS TIE Fighter. There are 2 important additional points to note: Hasbro owns the rights to sell STAR WARS toys, etc. I don’t believe that this is an exact/scanned replica because it is not as detailed as the real one would be.
- Soon, owners of Microsoft’s (MSFT) XBOX Kinect will be able to use it to scan objects and create 3-D models. This will make it very easy to create the schematic (instructions) that the printer needs.
- Also, the Pirate Bay (an illegal file-sharing website that has successfully fought against being shut down) recently created a section for sharing the 3-D schematics. There are already a number of possible cases of patent infringement. The Huffington Post notes one case where someone has shared a file that is probably a copy of a “Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine Dreadnought.”
In my eyes, this is just the first evidence of what will be gaining speed throughout the next couple of years.
Read the full article at Seeking Alpha.
Read more coverage about 3D printing and toys.
Hasbro booth photo by Gage Skidmore used under Creative Commons license.
