ClearOne (CLRO) - Good M&A target, revenue growth
CLRO describes themselves as a global market leader enabling conferencing, collaboration, and AV streaming solutions for voice and visual communications. With businesses becoming more comfortable and familiar with remote work, ClearOne has a competitive product line (and is actively developing new products) to cater towards that market, with a product line dedicated to improving remote conferencing for those who work from home. Another benefit is that their product line also offers solutions for corporate offices, allowing themselves to be at the forefront of an enterprise's conferencing equipment. With a market cap in the ballpack of $30 million, ClearOne is an obvious M&A target for industry competition like Cisco, Polycom, Avaya, etc. A smaller competitor, Shure (although ~3x larger in annual revenues) has filed lawsuits claiming ClearOne has been infringing on patents, with rulings constantly siding in the favor of ClearOne - an indication that competitors see them as a threat.
The stock took a big tumble in 2018 when Shure began its patent infringement claims, forcing ClearOne to suspend its dividend indefinitely. Then, the company took a bigger tumble recently as it announced a private placement offering for 2.1 million shares at a purchase price equal to $2.4925 per share, along with warrants to purchase 1.1 million shares (immediately exercisable at $2.43 per share). Insider buying since the latest crash indicates that those closest to the company see it as extremely undervalued.
According to recent filings, ClearOne has announced a product to give enterprises the ability to actively monitor their network of ClearOne products - a gateway to recurring revenue in the future - and plans on using the recently gained working-capital from the private placement to develop products that fit the changing landscape post-COVID.
We will gleam a better insight into where revenue will trend in the year-end 2021 report, and hope to see revenue show signs of real growth throughout 2022.
Full Disclosure: I am long CLRO at an entry of $1.35. I view this as a ~three-year play.
This is not financial advice and the words above reflect only my opinion. You should always do your own due diligence before making any investment.
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