Stratasys (SSYS) reported poor results in the first quarter of 2016, with lower sales and negative EBIT. The company is facing serious headwinds from leaner and stronger competitors entering the 3D Printing market. Pressure is now mounting from activists shareholders to reshuffle the top management and to reconsider the strategy.
Fisher Investments is now the 2nd largest investor in SSYS
We wrote in a previous article how the company has moved from a predator to a prey, and how new significant investors have taken some large stakes in the company hoping for some corporate actions. In the first quarter of 2016, Fisher Investments has increased significantly its shareholding to become the second largest investor with just over 3M shares at end March 2016.
Primecap management did not yet report its position at end March 2016. At the end of December 2015 they were holding 3.3M shares for over 6% of the company.
3D Systems CEO resignation puts pressure on David Reiss
Avi Reichental, former 3D Systems (DDD) CEO, resigned to the top position in October 2015, following poor performance at the manufacturer for a couple of years. Since then the share price managed to grow by 40%. In the meantime, Stratasys share price has decreased by 12%, a clear sign that investors are unhappy with Stratasys current strategy. As we pointed in previous article, the company has difficulty to innovate and to grow its sales. Furthermore, the company had difficulty retaining its best managers and to elaborate a focused vision. Finally the poor performance at Makerbot has weighed significantly on the company’s performance over the last 18 months.
Next step: the CEO resignation?
It becomes clearer by the day, that investors are becoming impatient to see significant change at Stratasys. If a sale of the company could make sense, considering the relative strong performance at 3D Systems since the arrival of a new CEO, investors could push further for David Reiss resignation. With the management reshuffle we could expect Stratasys leaving the desktop market to focus on industrial 3D Printers.
