Author Archives: Scalper1

FireEye CEO Steps Down As Outlook Lags; Kevin Mandia Takes Over

FireEye ( FEYE ) CEO David DeWalt is stepping down, replaced by Mandiant founder Kevin Mandia, the cybersecurity firm announced late Thursday as it reported Q1 sales that missed Wall Street views and gave consensus-lagging Q2 guidance. Mandiant President Travis Reese will take up that mantle at FireEye, and FireEye CFO Mike Berry was named chief operating officer in addition to his current role. DeWalt will become executive chairman of the FireEye board. “With these leadership announcements, FireEye has moved to solidify our position in the market today and more importantly, prepare us for growth opportunities going forward,” DeWalt said in a statement. FireEye acquired incident-response company Mandiant in 2014, and its founder was groomed inside FireEye. Mandia has served as FireEye senior vice president and COO, and was named to the board in 2015. In after-hours trading, after FireEye posted earnings and announced the CEO change, FireEye stock was down 8%. Shares fell 1.3% in the regular session. Shares are down 23% this year, following the recent acquisitions of iSight Partners and Invotas. For Q1, FireEye reported $168 million in sales, up 34% year over year, and a 47-cent per-share loss minus items, shrinking by a penny vs. last year’s losses. Analysts had modeled a 50-cent per-share loss, so the bottom line beat, but they expected sales of $171.8 million. Billings ex items of $186 million topped the high end of FireEye’s three-months-ago guidance for $163 million to $183 million. Current-quarter guidance for $178 million to $185 million in sales and a 38-cent to 40-cent per-share loss ex items missed the consensus of 35 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters for $192.8 million and 36 cents losses. Sales would rise 23% at the midpoint. For Q2, FireEye expects $200 million to $215 million billings minus items, up 16% year over year.

Medivation Misses Q1 Estimates As Sanofi Turns Up The Buyout Heat

Drugmaker Medivation ( MDVN ) missed Wall Street’s Q1 estimates and affirmed guidance late Thursday, as it fended off the increasingly hostile attentions of big pharma Sanofi ( SNY ). Medivation’s revenue rose 41% over the year-earlier quarter to $182.5 million, missing analysts’ consensus by $14 million, according to Thomson Reuters. Net income climbed 35% to 11 cents a share, badly missing consensus of 23 cents. Medivation nonetheless affirmed its full-year guidance, calling for $900 million to $970 million in revenue and $1.30 to $1.40 in EPS. Last year, it made $1.01 a share on $943 million in revenue. The company’s revenue comes from royalties on its prostate-cancer drug Xtandi from Japan’s Astellas, which markets the treatment. Medivation said that Xtandi brought in a total of $547 million in the quarter and should sell $1.425 billion to $1.525 billion in the full year. “Consistent with the first quarter of 2015, our first-quarter 2016 non-GAAP net income was impacted by several seasonal items, including the lower royalty rate on ex-U.S. Xtandi sales, the higher gross-to-net (i.e. rebating) accrual by Astellas on U.S. net sales, inventory drawdowns and the previously mentioned SG&A (sales, general & administrative) expenses related to our Astellas collaboration,” Medivation said in its earnings release. Medivation stock was down a fraction in after-hours trading, following its earnings release. Shares had risen a fraction in Thursday’s regular session to 59.22. Earlier Thursday, Medivation rejected a renewed $9.3 billion buyout offer from Sanofi, which Sanofi first made last week, and which Medivation rejected as undervalued. Sanofi CEO Olivier Brandicourt said in a letter to Medivation’s directors that “there is overwhelming support by your shareholders for a transaction.” He said he preferred to engage with Medivation’s management rather than go hostile, but “if you are not prepared to engage with us, we have no choice but to go directly to your shareholders. As you know, your shareholders have the ability to act at any time by written consent to remove and replace the board.” Medivation responded with a press release saying that there was nothing new in the letter and that the offer was still inadequate. Meanwhile, rumors continued to fly about other interested parties. AstraZeneca ( AZN ), Novartis ( NVS ) and Pfizer ( PFE ) had already been named by anonymous sources in previous weeks, but on Thursday Bloomberg reported that big biotech Amgen ( AMGN ) was also pondering a bid as it seeks a major acquisition to fill out its aging drug portfolio. Weeks of buyout speculation have driven the stock up more than 120% since its 30-month low, hit on Feb. 9, helping it to a strong IBD Composite Rating of 97 and the No. 50 spot on the IBD 50 list of top-performing stocks over the past 12 months.