Jennifer Garner's Baby Food Firm Weighs IPO as Soon as This Year
The Berkeley, California-based company is working with banks on a potential listing, said the people, who asked not to be identified because they weren't authorized to speak publicly.
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Yahoo
16 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Dogs of the Dow: Why Amgen's (AMGN) Dividend Power Makes it a Standout Pick
Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN) is included among the 11 Dogs of the Dow Dividend Stocks to Buy Now. A pharmacist filling a prescription for a complex drug developed by the company. Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN) is on the hunt for its next breakthrough drug— a common pursuit among pharmaceutical companies looking to stay ahead of rivals, especially as biosimilar competition grows. The company boasts a robust pipeline, with dozens of ongoing programs that could result in future drug approvals and expanded uses for existing treatments. Thanks to its strong track record of innovation, Amgen has performed well for years, and that momentum is expected to continue. Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN) also reported strong earnings in the first quarter of 2025. The company posted revenue of $8.15 billion, marking a 9.4% increase year-over-year. It benefited from strong global demand for its products. Management voiced optimism about its long-term growth prospects, supported by the success of recent product launches and encouraging Phase 3 trial outcomes for multiple treatments. Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN)'s cash flow makes it one of the most reliable dividend stocks. The company generated $1.0 billion in free cash flow during the quarter, doubling the figure from the same period a year earlier. Operating cash flow rose to $1.4 billion from $0.7 billion in the prior year. The company also returned $1.3 billion to shareholders in the form of dividends. Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN) offers a quarterly dividend of $2.38 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.11%, as of July 26. The company has raised its dividends every year since 2011, which places it among the best dogs of the Dow. While we acknowledge the potential of AMGN as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: and Disclosure: None. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
16 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Is California Resource Company's 10% FCF Yield a Bargain or a Warning Sign?
When I evaluate a company, I don't think in terms of stock charts, quarterly earnings beats, or Wall Street narratives. I think about businesses. Specifically: Would I want to own 100% of this company at this price and hold it for the next 5-10 years? In that spirit, let's take a closer look at California Resources Corporation (CRC). It's an upstream oil and gas company operating in one of the most misunderstood marketsCalifornia. On the surface, this company produces oil. But beneath that, there's something else: a deeply undervalued asset base, durable cash flows, and an intriguing second enginecarbon capture and storagethat just might turn CRC into a long-term compounder hiding in plain sight. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 6 Warning Sign with LNG. CRC is not your typical shale operator. It holds long-life, conventional oil fields in the San Joaquin and Los Angeles Basins, including names like Elk Hills and Kern Front. These aren't high-decline, capital-hungry assets. These are slow-and-steady producers that have been pumping for decades and still have decades to go. As of year-end 2024, CRC reported 545 million barrels of oil equivalent in proved reserves, with over 80% in oil. That equates to nearly an 11-year reserve life, which is unusually long for an independent producer. Importantly, CRC owns its infrastructurepipelines, steam generation plants, even mineral rights in many of its operating areas. This vertical integration creates both operating efficiency and margin stability. And in a business where the price of the commodity can swing dramatically, any degree of cost control is a significant advantage. Think of it as owning not just the oil, but the entire value chain through which that oil flows. But oil isn't the only thing buried in CRC's asset base. Through a business unit called Carbon TerraVault, the company is turning depleted reservoirs into carbon storage sites. With the U.S. government now offering $85 per metric ton of CO? stored (under the 45Q tax credit), CRC has a shot at transforming geological leftovers into a regulated, cash-flowing service business. It's a free call option on energy transition infrastructureand few investors seem to be paying attention to it. CRC stands out as a rare case where the quality of the underlying assets is matched by the quality of its leadership. The business generates steady, durable cash flowsand management has shown a clear commitment to disciplined, shareholder-focused capital allocation. After emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2020, CRC didn't go on a spending spree or chase high-risk growth. Instead, the company cleaned up its balance sheet, focused on capital discipline, and made a few smart movesmost notably, acquiring the remainder of Aera Energy, which came with synergistic cost reductions now expected to save the company $65 million annually. But the best evidence of management quality comes from how they treat shareholders. In Q1 2025 alone, CRC returned $258 million via dividends and share buybacks. That's over 6% of its market cap in just one quarter. In full-year 2024, around 85% of free cash flow was returned to shareholders. They're not trying to become Exxon or drill in far-flung frontiers. They're doing what I wish more public companies would do: generate surplus cash and give it back to the owners. If I can buy a dollar for fifty centsand the dollar is growingthat's a business I want to own. CRC generated around $355 million in free cash flow in 2024, and added another $131 million in Q1 2025, bringing its trailing 12-month free cash flow to over $450 million. Right now, its market capitalisation sits at roughly $4.2 billion. That gives the stock a free cash flow yield of approximately 10.7%, calculated as $450 million $4.2 billiona figure that speaks directly to the company's ability to return capital while remaining self-funded. When a company is throwing off this much cash relative to its sizeand returning most of it to shareholdersthat's the kind of setup worth paying attention to. It also trades cheaply at 4.2 times EV/EBITDA and only 8.2 times earnings. Now here's the kicker: CRC's proved reserves carry a PV-10 value of $8.9 billion, assuming around $80 Brent crude. That's nearly double the company's current enterprise value. This is what I call a real margin of safety. Even if you haircut the PV-10 by 25% to be conservative, the adjusted asset value still comes in well above the current stock price. And this doesn't account for the carbon business at all. If Carbon TerraVault becomes even a moderately successful carbon sequestration platform, that's hundreds of millions in future earnings being given away for free today. When insiders and seasoned investors make moves, I pay attention. James Chapman, the company's director, has been quietly increasing his stake. And he's not the only one leaning in. Howard Marks (Trades, Portfolio)' Oaktree Capital may have trimmed its stake, but still holds 1.38 million shareshardly a vote of no confidence. Jeremy Grantham (Trades, Portfolio) boosted his position by nearly 38%, now holding 1.22 million shares. Ken Griffin's Citadel ramped up its stake by over 90%, now sitting on 1.16 million shares. And Renaissance Technologies (Trades, Portfolio)? They more than doubled downraising their position by over 185% to more than 590,000 shares. The signal is clear: CRC isn't just cheap. It's attracting the kind of capital that tends to be earlyand usually right. Many investors avoid CRC for one reason: it operates in California. The Golden State's regulatory environment is tough on oil producers. Permitting is slow. Environmental opposition is fierce. And long-term state policy is tilted toward renewables. This California discount is realand it's precisely why CRC trades so cheaply relative to its assets. But what if that discount is backward-looking? CRC already operates under the strictest oil rules in the countryand still generates 10%+ free cash flow. Its assets are permitted. Its reservoirs are mature. It doesn't need to grow production. In fact, it's better off not growing, just maintaining stable output and maximizing returns. Ironically, California's aggressive climate stance may become a tailwind for CRC's carbon capture business. The same regulatory system that makes drilling difficult also supports carbon sequestration. With 45Q credits, state incentives, and access to industrial CO? emitters, CRC could end up being one of the most profitable climate infrastructure plays in the countryhidden inside an oil company. Of course, CRC isn't without risk. Oil prices are volatile, and CRC's earnings are sensitive to Brent crude. If prices fall to $50 or below, cash flows will compress. That's the nature of a commodity business. And while the CCS business is promising, it's still early. There's execution risk, regulatory complexity, and market uncertainty. Not every CCS project will succeedor scale profitably. But here's where CRC is different from speculative startups or over-leveraged E&Ps: even without CCS, it's a healthy business. Its existing oil fields, infrastructure, and free cash flow give investors a solid floor. The upside from CCS is just thatupside. The best use of capital is to reinvest at high rates of return. But if you can't do that, you should return it to shareholders. CRC appears to be doing both. It continues to invest modestly in CCS and other internal improvementsprojects with a clear path to economic return. At the same time, it is aggressively returning capital through buybacks and dividends. Unlike many in its industry, it's not chasing growth for growth's sake. That's rare. With net debt only $882 million and operating cash flows more than covering capex and dividends, this is a self-funding business that doesn't rely on capital markets or leverage to survive. That's a trait I value deeply. Let's put it all together. If I could buy CRC for $4 billion, I'd be acquiring: Nearly $9 billion in PV-10 value of proved reserves (even more if oil prices stay strong). A carbon storage platform with substantial optionality and favorable federal tax incentives. A vertically integrated infrastructure network that lowers operating costs. A management team that acts like owners and returns cash instead of hoarding it. Even with conservative assumptionshaircutting reserve values and assuming zero value for CCSCRC still looks like a business selling at a 3040% discount to intrinsic value. Add in the fact that shareholders are being paid over 10% annually in cash while they wait, and it's hard not to see the appeal. Warren Buffett (Trades, Portfolio) once said: Price is what you pay, value is what you get. In CRC's case, the price is modest. The value is real. And the optionality is free. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Forbes
18 minutes ago
- Forbes
Startup Morelle Markets 15-Minute-Charge E-Bike—Tech Powers Robots, Too
Morelle e-bikes promise 15-minute superfast charging. E-bikes tend to be hooked up to power overnight or throughout the day while at work, but for the founders of startup e-bike brand Morelle, this trickle charging is too slow. The Californian company has developed a $3,000 urban e-bike that can go from flat to almost full in minutes, rather than hours. The battery technology they're using isn't bought in; it's proprietary and, later this year, is set to power humanoid robots. Morelle's lithium-ion battery tech uses silicon instead of graphite. Compared to graphite, silicon stores up to ten times more energy, so using silicon powder instead of graphite for anodes—the part that releases electrons during discharge—can significantly improve a battery's energy density. Morelle isn't the only company using such silicon anodes. The black powder already powers the five-day battery life of the latest Whoop activity-tracking wearable, and it's the same kind of nanoscale powder that American companies, such as Sila, say could enable ten-minute recharges for electric cars. And it's not just a case of swapping one anode powder for another; there's a significant amount of chemical complexity built into the process. Morelle's technology was developed by battery scientist Kevin Hays, whose PhD was in silicon anodes, and who cofounded the company with tech development specialist Michael Sinkula. They previously worked together at Ionblox, a battery company specializing in large-format pouch cells using pre-lithiated silicon-dominant anodes for electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) air taxis, a fiercely competitive sector yet to scale. The pair left to found Morelle, teaming up with legendary bicycle designer and entrepreneur Gary Fisher. Fisher, a notable San Francisco bicycle racer in the late 1960s, was one of the Marin County pioneers who, racing down a steep fire road near the forest town of Fairfax on modified 1930s Schwinn paperboy bikes known as 'clunkers," codeveloped the product and sport of mountain biking in the mid- to late-1970s with other legends such as Joe Breeze. Spotting a commercial opportunity to promote and sell clunkers more widely, Fisher coined the term 'mountain bike' in 1979 and, in the same year, cofounded MountainBikes, the first company to specialize in the manufacture of this type of 'balloon tire' off-road bicycle. Just 160 were sold in the first year. Fisher went on to found Gary Fisher Mountain Bikes, a brand later acquired by Trek Corporation. Fisher worked as a brand ambassador for Trek until 2022. Hays and Sinkula started working with Fisher in 2023, appointing him as Morelle's chief bike designer. 'We didn't know if [Fisher] would be interested in e-bikes at all,' said Hays, 'but he was super excited about what we're doing, and was very forward thinking, and wanted to get involved with what we were proposing.' Shrink it And what they were proposing was an e-bike that was lighter than other e-bikes and didn't look like one, either. 'We wanted to shrink the battery to get to a point where you're not carrying around all this excess battery,' said Hays. 'We wanted the bike to feel more like a bike, and less like an e-bike. When you're worried about range and charging times, you end up putting large batteries on the bike, but that makes the bike heavy and cumbersome.' Morelle principals Gary Fisher, left, with Michael Sinkula and Kevin Hays. Morelle bikes will be lighter and slimmer than traditional e-bikes, said Hays. And they'll charge much faster. E-bike batteries typically charge at a rate of 100-300W, while Morelle can charge through standard wall outlets at a rate of 1000-1200W. Using a proprietary wall charger will boost this recharge to 1500W, a rate that could prove attractive for fleet operators. 'We wanted to move away from the idea that you have to leave your e-bike battery charging for four to eight hours, perhaps even unattended," said Hays. 'With our bike, you'll charge for 10 or 15 minutes, so you're not sitting there worrying about leaving a battery charging for a long time.' Hays and Sinkula formed their own brand after being rejected by e-bike battery companies such as Bosch. 'We were hoping that the bike industry would be more forward thinking on [new technologies],' said Sinkula, who has a biomedical engineering backgound. 'But they were not forward-thinking at all. That pushed us to pursue this.' Self-funded so far, Sinkula said Morelle will be seeking venture capital. In addition to its own e-bikes, Morelle is also supplying batteries to Under Control Robotics (UCR), a US supplier of humanoid robots for deployment in challenging work environments such as construction, energy and mining. 'Performance-wise, the kind of battery pack we're putting in the e-bike is almost identical to what's required for untethered robotics,' said Sinkula. '[Makers of humanoid robots] are also somewhat restricted to volume and weight constraints, so energy density is also an important factor.' Morelle—derived from Morty and Ellie, the names of the dogs owned by the Hays and Sinkula families—is a direct-to-consumer brand with an initial focus on the US. The company's aluminum bikes will be manufactured in Taiwan. Pre-orders are now being taken, and the first batch of Morelle's $3,000 e-bikes will be available early next year, with a limited production run of 1,000 units. Morelle's batteries will be used in UCR's robots set for commercial release in the fall.
