(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on December 23, 2013. Click here to read the entire piece.)
{snip}
MODN started publicly trading in March of this year, but it did not catch my attention until it fell a gut-wrenching 32% on September 10th after a disastrous update on fiscal year 2014 and Q1 earnings and revenue guidance. At that time, MODN blamed reduced sales visibility and announced that it had launched a search for a sales leader to help fix the problems.
{snip}
On November 19, MODN reported earnings for its fiscal fourth quarter and announced the hiring of Chris Larsen as SVP and Chief Sales Officer. {snip} Now, a bet on MODN is partially a bet that Larsen can successfully turn around the business through his sales efforts.
The conservative guidance MODN provided contained no hooks for excitement. {snip}
{snip}
{snip} The company however did not directly answer whether its guidance includes assumptions about the closing of the other large, potential deals. That lack of an answer does concern me as it is hard to determine the degree of conservatism baked into guidance.
{snip}
Overall, the earnings report was slightly encouraging but mainly a “wait and see” kind of event.
One more news item after this report provided more encouragement. In an 8K document dated December 6th, MODN announced the 2014 compensation schedule for its senior executives. Rinat was given a token base salary of $1 and performance-based RSUs of 200,000 shares. Now, his compensation is directly tied to turning the company around.
{snip}
Source: FreeStockCharts.com
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on December 23, 2013. Click here to read the entire piece.)
Full disclosure: long MODN