Undervalued ACLS Completes Sale of SEN Interest to SHI

Axcelis Technologies Inc (Nasdaq: ACLS) has completed the sale of its 50% interest in SEN Corporation, its joint venture with Sumitomo Heavy Industries, Ltd. ((SHI)) to SHI for proceeds of $122.3 million. ACLS received around $35.9M in cash after applying $86.4M of the proceeds to meet obligations to the holders of the company’s 4.25% Convertible Senior Subordinated Notes, upon which ACLS defaulted in January.

We started following ACLS on January 8 this year because it is an undervalued asset play with an activist investor, Sterling Capital Management, holding 10.7% of its outstanding stock. In our initial post we estimated ACLS’s liquidating value at around $134.9M, or $1.31 per share. We’ve now updated our estimate following completion of the sale to $147M or $1.43 per share, which is more than 250% higher than its close yesterday of $0.41.