solar

1.19

Software developer Wind River Systems Inc. recently said its board approved a $50 million expansion of its share repurchase program.

The addition brings the total repurchase amount to $100 million since the program began in April.

The company said it has bought 4.2 million shares, or $35 million worth of the initial $50 million repurchase.

Wind River said since the beginning of its fiscal year 2009, which began Feb. 1, it has purchased 10.9 million shares at a cost of $85 million.

Wind River is headquartered in Alameda, California and makes products that enable companies to run device software faster and more reliably.

On April 8th, the company announced a new $50 million buyback plan. Wind River recently completed its previous repurchase plan which was authorized in June of 2007. In this plan, the company bought back approximately 6.8 million shares for a total of $50 million. No expiration date was offered and the company said they will make the repurchases whenever management deems the time is appropriate.

Wind River reported fourth quarter and full year 2008 results on March 6th. The quarter was highlighted by total revenues of $84.3 million, an 11% jump from $76.1 million reported in the same period last year. “Our fourth quarter business marks our strongest quarterly sales performance in seven years,” said Ken Klein, chairman, president and CEO.

Cross Research believes WIND will climb higher and reiterated their buy rating and $11 price target. The analysts from Cross said, “We think the previous repurchase program may have been accretive by as much as 5 cents per share assuming most of the stock bought back was near the nadir in prices following earnings.”

The analysts added, “The potential for further accretion remains, but we suspect that the allocation of another $50 million will have the effect of serving notice to the marketplace that recent lows were too cheap for the Company to stand by without taking action to buyback stock at very attractive levels."

So here we have a buyback on top of a recently completed buyback, a buy rating and two noteworthy investors into the stock. It may be time to do some homework on WIND.

soros

forward P/E of 17 PEG of 1.24.

cramer pick

6.6

Bouncing off the bottom, PPO and ADX Squeeze!

From Barron's 6-18-07:

Market Outperform - Price 10.40 on June 12
by JMP Securities
Maintaining Market Outperform rating and 13 price target, representing 25% upside from current levels. Wind River is a provider of embedded-system software and is well-positioned to capitalize on a number of trends, including a rise in complexity associated with device development and the widespread adoption of Linux. We [recently] accompanied a group of investors to Wind River's corporate headquarters in Alameda, Calif. In sum, we came away feeling quite comfortable with our investment rating and recommend investors accumulate shares in the name. Furthermore, we believe [the] proposed acquisition of TeleLogic AB by IBM suggests Wind River shares could fetch between $14 and $16. We are maintaining our FY08 EPS estimate of 27 cents, 3 cents below consensus, and our FY09 EPS estimate of 48 cents, 3 cents below current consensus. We estimate FY08 FCF/per share of 52 cents and maintain our FY09 FCF/per share estimate of 72 cents.

lost

good cash low debt trades above book-value

slow mover

wind was.......