Tom Armitage/iStock via Getty Images Last May, I wrote an article on a subprime lender , Enova International ( ENVA ), initiating my coverage with a Buy rating. Enova primarily does business with consumers and small businesses, and I thought its financials and growth were strong enough that I assigned a Buy. Since that article, Enova is up 41% versus 11% for the S&P 500. So at least one subprime f...
Tom Armitage/iStock via Getty Images Last May, I wrote an article on a subprime lender , Enova International ( ENVA ), initiating my coverage with a Buy rating. Enova primarily does business with consumers and small businesses, and I thought its financials and growth were strong enough that I assigned a Buy. Since that article, Enova is up 41% versus 11% for the S&P 500. So at least one subprime financial company has done well recently. PRA Group ( PRAA ), however, has not. The stock is down 19% over the past year and more than 50% over the past five years. And it isn't just market sentiment: the financials are weak, with no consistent profitability or growth. But there are a lot of different ways to measure progress with a company like PRAA, which buys charged-off loans from other companies and attempts to collect on them. The company's profit is the spread between what they collect and what they paid for the loan. PRA stands for "Portfolio Recovery Associates", which used to be the company's name before it changed in 2014 , possibly to distance the business from lawsuits that had been made against it . With PRAA, I see a company with roughly flat financials and low insider ownership and a valuation that seems pretty fair. For those reasons, I'm initiating coverage with a Hold rating, with an eye toward understanding the business model and management's strategy, so we can build a thesis on our research down the line should this stock get mispriced one way or another. Business The biggest regulator for PRAA is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), as described in the annual report. That could partially explain the run-up in PRAA's share price following the 2024 U.S. presidential election, as the stock was up over 100% at one point from trough to peak. Indeed, CFPB is undergoing massive cuts and has been significantly weakened. This hasn't quite translated to PRAA's bottom line yet, though. The run-up in PRAA stock after the 2024 U.S. presidential election...
Renishaw ( RNSHF ) on Wednesday named John Shipsey as CFO and executive director, effective April 13. Shipsey brings prior CFO experience from roles at Dyson Ltd., Smiths Group plc, and Featurespace Ltd., and has also held finance and strategy roles at Diageo plc. The company also appointed Sir David Grant as permanent chair with immediate effect for a period of up to two years. More on Renishaw p...
Renishaw ( RNSHF ) on Wednesday named John Shipsey as CFO and executive director, effective April 13. Shipsey brings prior CFO experience from roles at Dyson Ltd., Smiths Group plc, and Featurespace Ltd., and has also held finance and strategy roles at Diageo plc. The company also appointed Sir David Grant as permanent chair with immediate effect for a period of up to two years. More on Renishaw plc Renishaw plc 2026 Q2 - Results - Earnings Call Presentation Renishaw plc (RNSHF) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript Historical earnings data for Renishaw plc Dividend scorecard for Renishaw plc Financial information for Renishaw plc
PM to meet regional leaders to discuss effort to ‘support and sustain ceasefire’ and reopening the strait of Hormuz Middle East crisis – live updates Keir Starmer is travelling to the Gulf to meet leaders in the region to discuss diplomatic efforts to support the ceasefire agreed between the US and Iran. The prime minister’s visit on Wednesday comes hours after a two-week ceasefire was agreed on T...
PM to meet regional leaders to discuss effort to ‘support and sustain ceasefire’ and reopening the strait of Hormuz Middle East crisis – live updates Keir Starmer is travelling to the Gulf to meet leaders in the region to discuss diplomatic efforts to support the ceasefire agreed between the US and Iran. The prime minister’s visit on Wednesday comes hours after a two-week ceasefire was agreed on Tuesday evening, canceling a self-imposed deadline by the US president, Donald Trump, for Iran to surrender or face widespread destruction. Continue reading...
Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA formally removed ousted Chief Executive Officer Luigi Lovaglio after it had stripped him of his powers for defying the board’s plan to replace him. The lender’s board “decided to unilaterally terminate the labor contract with Luigi Lovaglio as general manager,” it said in a statement Tuesday. The move is a “direct consequence” of the decision two weeks ago to re...
Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA formally removed ousted Chief Executive Officer Luigi Lovaglio after it had stripped him of his powers for defying the board’s plan to replace him. The lender’s board “decided to unilaterally terminate the labor contract with Luigi Lovaglio as general manager,” it said in a statement Tuesday. The move is a “direct consequence” of the decision two weeks ago to revoke his powers, it said. Read More: Paschi Strips CEO Lovaglio of Power After He Defied Board Lovaglio has been locked in a bitter fight with Monte Paschi’s board for about a month. The governance body wants to replace him with Fabrizio Palermo , an external candidate, while Lovaglio is seeking a new term as a candidate for a Monte Paschi investor, PLT Holding . Shareholders will get to vote on the candidates at the annual general meeting on April 15. Read More: Paschi’s Ousted CEO Lovaglio ‘Confident’ He’ll Get New Term Lovaglio is widely credited with turning around Monte Paschi after assuming the CEO role a little over four years ago. He also pulled off the takeover of rival Mediobanca SpA last year. However, his plan on how to integrate the acquisition has created tensions with some shareholders, people familiar with the matter have said. In addition, he’s facing a judicial probe over that deal, which also involves two powerful Monte Paschi shareholders, construction tycoon Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone and Francesco Milleri , chairman of the holding company Delfin Sarl . All have denied wrongdoing.
sasirin pamai/iStock via Getty Images Investment Summary The core of CorMedix's ( CRMD ) thesis relies on whether the business can soon find its second growth engine. DefenCath, CorMedix's core business, generated $258.8M of revenue in FY25 but is already guided much lower in FY26 due to a reduction in its reimbursement structure, as the TDAPA period for DefenCath is soon coming to an end. The pro...
sasirin pamai/iStock via Getty Images Investment Summary The core of CorMedix's ( CRMD ) thesis relies on whether the business can soon find its second growth engine. DefenCath, CorMedix's core business, generated $258.8M of revenue in FY25 but is already guided much lower in FY26 due to a reduction in its reimbursement structure, as the TDAPA period for DefenCath is soon coming to an end. The problem is, FY25 pro forma revenue (with the recent Melinta acquisition) was $401.3M. Only $142.5M was generated outside of DefenCath. Melinta alone was already generating $120M in FY24, implying that the non-DefenCath business does not yet add much economic weight, and likely not enough to compensate for DefenCath's sharp decline expected in the coming years given management's FY26 and FY27's guidances. Management presents CorMedix as a diversified anti-infective platform with its future growth assets, Rezzayo Prophylaxis and DefenCath TPN (both in stage 3 of clinical trials), but the business' health still largely depends on DefenCath's trajectory. This is not a "buy the transition" story yet, but rather a "show-me story". As of today, the evidence that the rest of the portfolio can offset or reverse DefenCath's decline is still too thin. Business Overview CorMedix is a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on providing anti-infective care to hospitals. Its business is still centered around DefenCath, a dialysis catheter lock solution. They have additional revenue lines from legacy antibiotics, mostly through the acquisition of Melinta. This non-DefenCath bucket includes the current portfolio acquired through Melinta (Rezzayo, a drug used to treat serious fungal infections in the blood, but also Minocin, Vabomere, etc.), but does not yet include Rezzayo Prophylaxis and DefenCath TPN, which are not yet clinically approved. DefenCath was the dominant driver during the TDAPA period (a temporary reimbursement bonus for new drugs in dialysis), which removed economic friction f...
Dougal Waters/DigitalVision via Getty Images Introduction Given its planned separation into a royalty company and another with a development-stage pipeline, AnaptysBio ( ANAB ) now has to be valued as two different businesses. The royalty business, backed by the billion-dollar blockbuster Jemperli, is high-margin, while the biopharma company has rosnilimab, a phase 2b asset in rheumatoid arthritis...
Dougal Waters/DigitalVision via Getty Images Introduction Given its planned separation into a royalty company and another with a development-stage pipeline, AnaptysBio ( ANAB ) now has to be valued as two different businesses. The royalty business, backed by the billion-dollar blockbuster Jemperli, is high-margin, while the biopharma company has rosnilimab, a phase 2b asset in rheumatoid arthritis. Rosnilimab, a selective pathogenic T-cell depleter, demonstrated statistically significant efficacy across multiple endpoints in a 424-patient global RA study. The royalty company will begin life with roughly $140–$145 million in net cash, a low-cost structure, and royalty from Jemperli alone will be around $100 million annualized. Plus it has imsidolimab. First Tracks, the pipeline company, will launch with around $180 million in cash. That brings us to the idea that if the royalty business, with its steady income stream, is supporting a large part of the current market value, then the pipeline isn’t being priced to succeed. However, rosnilimab’s data—particularly the translational evidence connecting targeted T-cell depletion in both blood and synovium with signs of clinical improvement—deserves to be assigned some value. In this article, after looking at the clinical evidence and the competitive landscape, we will run through a valuation framework that separates the royalty business from the pipeline. The Separation The royalty company, management has said, will operate with a minimal annual operating expense of less than $10 million and minimal infrastructure, so it will be a high-margin business. Jemperli has already surpassed $1 billion in annual sales. Imsidolimab, which targets generalized pustular psoriasis (GPP), has a PDUFA on December 12. The NDA is supported by Phase 3 (GEMINI-1/GEMINI-2) data that saw a rapid response where ~53% achieved clear/almost clear skin vs. ~13% placebo at Week 4. GPP is not a large market, and spesolimab (Spevigo) is the only approv...