Adept Technologies (NASDAQ:ADEP) has been in the financial news for months. First because of poor financial showings; then because of a management shakeup; and recently because the “turnaround plan” has worked well enough that shareholders are bidding the stock up to new highs.
Last week, the most recent quarterly earnings report came out and it showed that three things happened: (1) the big losses were quelled – the company broke even; (2) clients were buying Adepts products; and (3) the company was focusing on reducing costs, increasing sales and quality. One analyst reported: “While the June 2013 quarter represents a tentative improvement, it shows demand for Adept’s robots is returning and the company has a much lower cost structure than one year earlier.”
The stock rallied to close at $5.90 – an increase of 126% year-to-date yet the market cap is just $64 million. A small price for a good company.
This may be the perfect time for Adept to be acquired. All the big contract manufacturers are buying robots and creating internal robot operations. Foxconn has even set up its own Foxbot line of robots. Flextronics (NASDAQ:FLEX), Foxconn (TPE:2354), Jabil (NYSE:JBL), Celestica (TSE:CLS), New Kinpo, Plexus (NASDAQ:PLXS) and Benchmark (NYSE:BHE) are perfect candidates.
We’ll just have to wait and see.