Luminar Technologies Announces $250M Share Repurchase Plan; Shares Jump

Florida-based Luminar Technologies, Inc. (LAZR) plans to repurchase at least $250 million worth of its Class A common shares.

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Following the announcement, the company’s shares closed 2.8% up on Tuesday. The stock gained another 2% in the after-hours trading session to end the day at $15.38.

Luminar develops vision-based lidar and machine perception technologies, primarily for autonomous cars.

Plan Details

The company is taking the help of its CEO Austin Russell, Board members and management team to purchase the shares as part of pre-arranged stock trading plans or in the open market.

Luminar plans to buy the shares using a portion of the proceeds from a proposed private financing transaction.

CEO Comments

Russell said, “Given our current position and our trajectory, we think our stock price has not reflected the wins and successes we’ve had over the past year since our public debut, with substantial inefficiency in the market. Today, we’re putting our money where our mouth is by executing this significant purchase of shares as we accelerate our industry leadership.”

Wall Street’s Take

On December 14, Cowen & Co. (COWN) analyst Joshua Buchalter initiated coverage on the stock with a Buy rating and a price target of $22 (46% upside potential).

Further, R.F. Lafferty analyst Jaime Perez maintained a Buy rating on Luminar with a price target of $37 (145.4% upside potential).

Perez expects the company to report a loss of $0.15 per share in the fourth quarter of 2021.

Overall, the stock has a Moderate Buy consensus rating based on 5 Buys and 2 Holds. The average Luminar Technologies price target of $27.57 implies 82.8% upside potential. Shares have lost nearly 52% year-to-date.

Bloggers’ Opinion

TipRanks data shows that financial blogger opinions are 60% Bullish on the stock, compared to the sector average of 68%.