Why Taminco Shares Jumped

Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.

What: Shares of Taminco (NYSE: TAM) were looking brighter today, gaining as much 13% after a promising quarterly earnings report, its first as a public company.

So what: The world's largest alkylamine maker, and supplier for industries ranging from agriculture to oil and gas to personal care, said net sales were up 10% to a record $310 million, and volume increased 7% to 144,000 tons. Earnings per share came in at $0.16, a huge turnaround from a year ago, when the company had a loss of $0.88 a share. Gross profit increased by more than 600% from a year ago. Estimates were unavailable for the newly public company, but CEO Laurent Lenoir touted the company's "successful execution of recent growth projects in North America."

Now what: Lenoir noted that first-quarter performance was strong in nearly every segment except crop protection, which was affected by adverse weather conditions. Looking ahead, he sees record EBITDA for the year but did not give a range on any financial numbers such as revenue and earnings per share. The funds from the recent IPO should help alleviate the company's interest expense and fuel future growth, but I'd like to see the top line grow faster than 10% before getting on board.

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The article Why Taminco Shares Jumped originally appeared on Fool.com.

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