• The stock offering is priced at $21 per share, while the warrant has an exercise price of $26.15 per share and expires in three years from the date of issuance.
• The capital will be used for expanding operations, manufacturing, and general corporate purposes, among other things.
• POET CFO Thomas Mika has informed the board of his desire to retire sometime this year.

Shares of semiconductor developer POET Technologies (POET) declined on Friday after the company disclosed plans to raise capital through a securities offering and announced long-time finance chief Thomas Mika’s decision to leave the company later this year.

At the time of writing, POET stock was down more than 15% in early open market trading.

POET Stock Offering

The company said it is selling, in a non-brokered registered direct offering of securities, over 19 million common shares, along with a warrant exercisable for over 19 million common shares, to a single unnamed institutional investor.

The stock offering is priced at $21 per share, while the warrant has an exercise price of $26.15 per share and expires in three years from the date of issuance.

Gross proceeds from the stock offering are expected to be $400 million and will be used for expansion of POET’s manufacturing infrastructure, support for corporate development activities, including targeted acquisitions, scaling up R&D, accelerating the company’s light source business, expanding operations, and general working capital.

POET CFO To Step Down

The company also announced that CFO Thomas Mika has informed the board of his desire to retire sometime this year, after serving in the role for ten years. POET said it has acknowledged Mika’s decision and will begin hunting for a suitable successor.

POET Q1 Results At A Glance

First-quarter (Q1) revenue came in at $503,389, ahead of the $250,000 consensus estimate polled by Fiscal AI.

However, loss per share was $0.08, wider than the $0.05 per share loss analysts expected.

What Retail Thinks About POET

On Stocktwits, retail sentiment about POET turned ‘extremely bullish' from ‘bullish’ amid ‘high’ message volumes over the last 24 hours.

One user said they would not “panic sell” their POET shares.

POET stock has nearly tripled in value so far this year and nearly quadrupled over the past 12 months, outperforming the S&P 500.

For updates and corrections, email newsroom[at]stocktwits[dot]com.