So far, not so good for my late June high-risk/high-reward call on Calyxt (CLXT).
The “high risk” part has certainly come through promptly, but
shareholders have seen the shares sell off about 25% after a summer that
certainly offered more bad news than good, highlighted by the
surprising resignation of the CEO in late August only a couple of months
after the equally-surprising resignation of the CFO, and a decision in
Europe that puts the acceptance and development of gene-edited crops at
risk.
Assessing these developments is not easy. Both executives may have had disagreements with the board of directors and/or Cellectis (CLLS),
which still controls the company, and those disagreements may have
included the unusual business model Calyxt is pursuing with its
high-oleic soybeans and other consumer-oriented products. It is also
possible that they saw fundamental issues with the technology and/or its
path to commercial acceptance. Unfortunately there’s really no way to
know at this point, and the one remedy I do have is to increase my
discount rate to account for greater risk and uncertainty.
Click here for more:
A Rough Summer Has Knocked Calyxt Down
