MP Materials shares have slipped 21% so far this year
Joe Buglewicz/Bloomberg
MP Materials
stock has slipped this year, and director Randall Weisenburger bought more shares of the rare-earths miner.
MP Materials (ticker: MP) shares have slipped 21% so far this year, slightly more than the 18% drop in the
S&P 500 index
.
The company has a contract “to develop a fully integrated U.S. supply chain for rare-earth magnets” with
General Motors
(GM). A leg up from the Biden administration earlier this year initially benefited the electrical-vehicle supply chain. MP Materials went public in late 2020 by merging with a special-purpose acquisition company, and we found that despite the 2022 slump, the shares have provided a hefty return to early investors through May.
Weisenburger paid $1 million on June 16 for 30,000 MP Materials shares, an average price of $33.25 each, according to a form he filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He now owns 146,901 MP Materials shares. A former chief financial officer of
Omnicom Group
(OMC), Weisenburger joined MP Materials’ board in 2020.
Weisenburger declined to comment on his stock purchase.
He last bought MP Materials stock on the open market in December when he paid $3.5 million for 86,901 shares, a per-share average price of $40.10.
Weisenburger also serves on the board of cruise giant Carnival (CCL), and bought $1.2 million of those shares in May.
On June 6, Morgan Stanley analyst Carlos De Alba raised the target price on MP Materials stock to $46 from $42, and kept an Overweight rating.
De Alba made the change “to reflect implementation of the final step—stage III—in MP Materials’ plan to become a permanent magnet producer,” he wrote in a research report. That stage is “the production of NdFeB alloy flake and permanent magnets—critical components for electric vehicles and wind turbines.”
Inside Scoop is a regular Barron’s feature covering stock transactions by corporate executives and board members—so-called insiders—as well as large shareholders, politicians, and other prominent figures. Due to their insider status, these investors are required to disclose stock trades with the Securities and Exchange Commission or other regulatory groups.
Write to Ed Lin at [email protected] and follow @BarronsEdLin.
