Moody's Cuts Afreximbank Rating on Zambia, Ghana Debt Workouts
The ratings company lowered Afreximbank to Baa2 from Baa1, it said in a statement on Tuesday. That's two steps from being rated speculative, which would limit the pool of funds allowed to invest in the lender's debt.
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an hour ago
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Down Over 50%, Should You Buy the Dip on SoundHound AI Stock?
Euphoria gave way to despair after Nvidia sold its stake in SoundHound. Investors need to develop their own investment thesis for the stock instead of reacting to Nvidia. A well-rounded thesis will include a realistic view of future competition. 10 stocks we like better than SoundHound AI › Shareholders of SoundHound AI (NASDAQ: SOUN) were riding high in 2024 after the stock posted an incredible 836% gain for the year. But 2025 is a different story. SoundHound stock is down 55% from the all-time high it reached late last year. The rise and fall of SoundHound stock has a common denominator: Nvidia. In early 2024, Nvidia revealed that it had recently invested in some promising artificial intelligence (AI) stocks, including SoundHound AI. Shares skyrocketed because investors believed this validated the small company's technology. In early 2025, the opposite happened when Nvidia revealed that it had sold its stake in the company. Buying or selling a stock based on another investor's actions -- in this case, Nvidia's -- can be a bad idea. It's important for investors to have their own investment thesis, or a structured argument for why the stock will go up over the long term. With this in mind, I want to explore the investment thesis for SoundHound AI stock today. SoundHound AI offers voice-assistant technology to automotive companies, restaurants, and other industries. It's considered a first-mover in the space, leaning on two decades of experience. But its revenue growth wasn't catalyzed until the relatively recent AI revolution. Now, its revenue is skyrocketing with full-year revenue growth of 85% in 2024 and stunning 151% year-over-year growth in the first quarter of 2025. Bullish investors are salivating over those numbers, particularly because of the total addressable market. According to management, the company has a $140 billion market opportunity. For perspective, it commands far less than 1% of its theoretical market as of this writing. In other words, SoundHound is growing at a head-turning rate, and the runway ahead of it appears to be massive. This combination could lead to many years of growth -- a huge factor for stocks that perform well in the long run -- which is why investors are excited about the company. They're also excited by the prospects of SoundHound's profits. Management believes it will achieve profitability by the end of this year based on adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA). That's a big step forward when thinking about long-term viability for any business. To be clear, SoundHound isn't profitable yet -- it has a massive trailing 12-month net loss of $188 million. But with $246 million in cash and no debt, the company is on solid financial footing as it moves toward breakeven. Put simply, SoundHound stock could be a winning investment because it's a fast-growing business in a massive industry, and its financials are trending in the right direction. So SoundHound believes its market opportunity is over $140 billion. Management also believes the company has a competitive advantage in the space because it's known as "white-label." Whereas bigger companies might have similar voice-technology solutions on the market, these companies usually like to slap their branding on it. In contrast, SoundHound works behind the scenes, keeping its customers' branding front and center. To play the devil's advocate, I'm not sure this is actually a competitive advantage for SoundHound. Auto manufacturers, for example, have no problem putting other branding in their vehicles, including SiriusXM satellite radio and JBL speakers. SoundHound also boasts a big head start in the AI voice-assistant space. But massive progress in AI could be cutting into its lead. On the Q1 earnings call, management admitted that the boom in generative AI applications has increased competition in recent years. Moreover, competition will likely be coming from tech giants in the next few years. SoundHound's technology plays into the nascent agentic AI trend -- AI that can make more autonomous decisions on a user's behalf. All of the big players are working to address this holistically, and a head-on collision with SoundHound seems likely. For example, Alphabet is a leading AI company, and its Android Auto product is getting some attention from auto manufacturers such as Ford and General Motors. The takeaway isn't that SoundHound stock is doomed. On the contrary, the business is doing quite well. The takeaway is that investors should remember the path to SoundHound's $140 billion market opportunity won't be free from competition. If anything, competition will only intensify. For investors who believe SoundHound has what it takes to challenge the biggest tech players in the world, the stock may be a cautious buy in light of the 55% plunge from its peak. But personally, I'd wait on the sidelines to see how competition develops over the next year. I'm not worried about missing the train, so to speak. If the market opportunity is truly as big as SoundHound believes it is, this story still has a long time to play out, allowing patient investors to evaluate the company's competitive position. Before you buy stock in SoundHound AI, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and SoundHound AI wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $699,558!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $976,677!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,060% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 180% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 30, 2025 Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Jon Quast has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet and Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends General Motors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Down Over 50%, Should You Buy the Dip on SoundHound AI Stock? was originally published by The Motley Fool
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Is Regis Healthcare Limited (ASX:REG) Trading At A 28% Discount?
Regis Healthcare's estimated fair value is AU$10.45 based on 2 Stage Free Cash Flow to Equity Regis Healthcare is estimated to be 28% undervalued based on current share price of AU$7.52 Our fair value estimate is 29% higher than Regis Healthcare's analyst price target of AU$8.08 In this article we are going to estimate the intrinsic value of Regis Healthcare Limited (ASX:REG) by taking the expected future cash flows and discounting them to their present value. Our analysis will employ the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model. There's really not all that much to it, even though it might appear quite complex. We would caution that there are many ways of valuing a company and, like the DCF, each technique has advantages and disadvantages in certain scenarios. Anyone interested in learning a bit more about intrinsic value should have a read of the Simply Wall St analysis model. We've found 21 US stocks that are forecast to pay a dividend yield of over 6% next year. See the full list for free. We use what is known as a 2-stage model, which simply means we have two different periods of growth rates for the company's cash flows. Generally the first stage is higher growth, and the second stage is a lower growth phase. To begin with, we have to get estimates of the next ten years of cash flows. Where possible we use analyst estimates, but when these aren't available we extrapolate the previous free cash flow (FCF) from the last estimate or reported value. We assume companies with shrinking free cash flow will slow their rate of shrinkage, and that companies with growing free cash flow will see their growth rate slow, over this period. We do this to reflect that growth tends to slow more in the early years than it does in later years. Generally we assume that a dollar today is more valuable than a dollar in the future, so we need to discount the sum of these future cash flows to arrive at a present value estimate: 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030 2031 2032 2033 2034 2035 Levered FCF (A$, Millions) AU$188.6m AU$205.3m AU$133.5m AU$139.8m AU$146.4m AU$136.5m AU$131.3m AU$128.9m AU$128.4m AU$129.2m Growth Rate Estimate Source Analyst x3 Analyst x3 Analyst x1 Analyst x1 Analyst x1 Est @ -6.75% Est @ -3.84% Est @ -1.80% Est @ -0.38% Est @ 0.62% Present Value (A$, Millions) Discounted @ 6.4% AU$177 AU$181 AU$111 AU$109 AU$107 AU$94.0 AU$85.0 AU$78.4 AU$73.4 AU$69.4 ("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St)Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = AU$1.1b The second stage is also known as Terminal Value, this is the business's cash flow after the first stage. For a number of reasons a very conservative growth rate is used that cannot exceed that of a country's GDP growth. In this case we have used the 5-year average of the 10-year government bond yield (2.9%) to estimate future growth. In the same way as with the 10-year 'growth' period, we discount future cash flows to today's value, using a cost of equity of 6.4%. Terminal Value (TV)= FCF2035 × (1 + g) ÷ (r – g) = AU$129m× (1 + 2.9%) ÷ (6.4%– 2.9%) = AU$3.8b Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)10= AU$3.8b÷ ( 1 + 6.4%)10= AU$2.1b The total value, or equity value, is then the sum of the present value of the future cash flows, which in this case is AU$3.1b. The last step is to then divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. Relative to the current share price of AU$7.5, the company appears a touch undervalued at a 28% discount to where the stock price trades currently. The assumptions in any calculation have a big impact on the valuation, so it is better to view this as a rough estimate, not precise down to the last cent. The calculation above is very dependent on two assumptions. The first is the discount rate and the other is the cash flows. You don't have to agree with these inputs, I recommend redoing the calculations yourself and playing with them. The DCF also does not consider the possible cyclicality of an industry, or a company's future capital requirements, so it does not give a full picture of a company's potential performance. Given that we are looking at Regis Healthcare as potential shareholders, the cost of equity is used as the discount rate, rather than the cost of capital (or weighted average cost of capital, WACC) which accounts for debt. In this calculation we've used 6.4%, which is based on a levered beta of 0.800. Beta is a measure of a stock's volatility, compared to the market as a whole. We get our beta from the industry average beta of globally comparable companies, with an imposed limit between 0.8 and 2.0, which is a reasonable range for a stable business. View our latest analysis for Regis Healthcare Strength Currently debt free. Weakness Dividend is low compared to the top 25% of dividend payers in the Healthcare market. Opportunity Annual earnings are forecast to grow faster than the Australian market. Trading below our estimate of fair value by more than 20%. Threat Total liabilities exceed total assets, which raises the risk of financial distress. Dividends are not covered by earnings. Revenue is forecast to grow slower than 20% per year. Whilst important, the DCF calculation shouldn't be the only metric you look at when researching a company. DCF models are not the be-all and end-all of investment valuation. Instead the best use for a DCF model is to test certain assumptions and theories to see if they would lead to the company being undervalued or overvalued. For example, changes in the company's cost of equity or the risk free rate can significantly impact the valuation. Can we work out why the company is trading at a discount to intrinsic value? For Regis Healthcare, we've compiled three essential items you should further research: Risks: We feel that you should assess the 1 warning sign for Regis Healthcare we've flagged before making an investment in the company. Future Earnings: How does REG's growth rate compare to its peers and the wider market? Dig deeper into the analyst consensus number for the upcoming years by interacting with our free analyst growth expectation chart. Other High Quality Alternatives: Do you like a good all-rounder? Explore our interactive list of high quality stocks to get an idea of what else is out there you may be missing! PS. Simply Wall St updates its DCF calculation for every Australian stock every day, so if you want to find the intrinsic value of any other stock just search here. — Investing narratives with Fair Values Suncorp's Next Chapter: Insurance-Only and Ready to Grow By Robbo – Community Contributor Fair Value Estimated: A$22.83 · 0.1% Overvalued Thyssenkrupp Nucera Will Achieve Double-Digit Profits by 2030 Boosted by Hydrogen Growth By Chris1 – Community Contributor Fair Value Estimated: €14.40 · 0.3% Overvalued Tesla's Nvidia Moment – The AI & Robotics Inflection Point By BlackGoat – Community Contributor Fair Value Estimated: $359.72 · 0.1% Overvalued View more featured narratives — Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. 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
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Drive Capital's second act – how the Columbus venture firm found success after a split
The venture capital world has always had a hot-and-cold relationship with the Midwest. Investors rush in during boom times, then retreat to the coasts when markets turn sour. For Columbus, Ohio-based Drive Capital, this cycle of attention and disinterest played out against the backdrop of its own internal upheaval several years ago — a co-founder split that could have ended the firm but may have ultimately strengthened it. At a minimum, Drive achieved something newsworthy in today's venture landscape this past May. The firm returned $500 million to investors in a single week, distributing nearly $140 million worth of Root Insurance shares within days of cashing out of Austin-based Thoughtful Automation and another undisclosed company. It could be seen as a gimmick, sure, but limited partners were undoubtedly pleased. 'I'm unaware of any other venture firm having been able to achieve that kind of liquidity recently,' said Chris Olsen, Drive's co-founder and now sole managing partner, who spoke to TechCrunch from the firm's offices in Columbus's Short North neighborhood. It's a remarkable turnaround for a firm that faced existential questions just three years ago when Olsen and his co-founder Mark Kvamme — both former Sequoia Capital partners — went their separate ways. The split, which surprised the firm's investors, saw Kvamme eventually launch the Ohio Fund, a broader investment vehicle focused on the state's economic development that includes real estate, infrastructure, and manufacturing alongside technology investments. Drive's recent success stems from what Olsen calls a deliberately contrarian strategy in an industry preoccupied with 'unicorns' and 'decacorns' — companies valued at $1 billion and $10 billion, respectively. 'If you were to just read the newspapers or listen to coffee shops on Sand Hill Road, everyone always talks about the $50 billion or $100 billion outcomes,' Olsen said. 'But the reality is, while those outcomes do happen, they're really rare. In the last 20 years, there have only been 12 outcomes in America over $50 billion.' By contrast, he noted, there have been 127 IPOs at $3 billion or more, plus hundreds of M&A events at that level. 'If you're able to exit companies at $3 billion, then you're able to do something that happens every single month,' he said. That rationale underpinned the Thoughtful Automation exit, which Olsen described as 'near fund-returning' despite being 'below a billion dollars.' The AI healthcare automation company was sold to private equity firm New Mountain Capital, which combined it with two other companies to form Smarter Technologies. Drive owned 'multiples' of the typical Silicon Valley ownership stake in the company, said Olsen, who added that Drive's typical ownership stake is around 30% on average compared to a Valley firm's 10% — often because it is the sole venture investor across numerous funding rounds. 'We were the only venture firm who invested in that company,' Olsen said of Thoughtful Automation, which was previously backed by New Mountain, the PE firm. 'About 20% of the companies in our portfolio today, we are the sole venture firm in those businesses.' Portfolio Wins and Losses Drive's track record includes both big successes and also stumbles. The firm was an early investor in Duolingo, backing the language-learning platform when it was pre-revenue after Olsen and Kvamme met founder Luis von Ahn at a bar in Pittsburgh, where Duolingo is based. Today, Duolingo trades on NASDAQ with a market cap of nearly $18 billion. The firm also invested in Vast Data, a data storage platform last valued at $9 billion in late 2023 (and is reportedly fundraising right now), and Drive made money on the recent Root Insurance distribution despite that company's rocky public market performance since its late 2020 IPO. But Drive also experienced the spectacular failure of Olive AI, a Columbus-based healthcare automation startup that raised over $900 million and was valued at $4 billion before eventually selling portions of its business in a fire sale. 'You have to be able to produce returns in bad markets as well as good markets,' Olsen said. 'When markets really get tested is when there's not as much liquidity.' What sets Drive apart, Olsen argues, is its focus on companies building outside Silicon Valley's hyper-competitive ecosystem. The firm now has employees in six cities — Columbus, Austin, Boulder, Chicago, Atlanta, and Toronto — and says it backs founders who would otherwise face a choice between building near their customers or their investors. It's Drive's secret sauce, he suggests. 'Early-stage companies that are based outside of Silicon Valley have a higher bar. They have to be a better business to garner a venture investment from a venture firm in Silicon Valley,' Olsen said. 'The same thing applies to us with companies in Silicon Valley. For us to invest in a company in Silicon Valley, it has a higher bar.' Much of the firm's portfolio centers not on companies trying to come up with something entirely novel, but instead on those applying tech to traditional industries that coastal VCs might overlook. Drive has invested in an autonomous welding company, for example, and what Olsen calls 'next-generation dental insurance' — sectors that arguably represent America's $18 trillion economy beyond Silicon Valley's tech darlings. Whether that focus — or Drive's momentum — translates into a big new fund for Drive remains to be seen. The firm is currently managing assets that it raised when Kvamme was still on board, and according to Olsen, it has 30% left to invest of its current fund, a $1 billion vehicle announced in June 2022. Asked about cash-on-cash returns to date, Olsen said that with $2.2 billion in assets under management across all of Drive's funds, all are 'top quartile funds' with 'north of 4x net on our most mature funds' and 'continuing to grow from there.' In the meantime, Drive's thesis about Columbus as a legitimate tech hub received further validation this week when Palmer Luckey, Peter Thiel, and other tech billionaires announced plans to launch Erebor, a crypto-focused bank headquartered in Columbus. 'When we started Drive in 2012, people thought we were nuts,' Olsen said. 'Now you're seeing literally the people I think of as being the smartest minds in technology — whether it's Elon Musk or Larry Ellison or Peter Thiel — moving out of Silicon Valley and opening massive presences in different cities.' Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data
