The Appen Ltd (ASX: APX) share price has been a hot topic over the course of the last two years. The artificial intelligence data services company experienced tough trading conditions brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
At Tuesday's market close, Appen shares fell 3.48% to $11.39 apiece. Despite consecutive losses across the past three trading days, its shares are up almost 5% in a month.
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Mondrian acquires an interest in Appen
The London-based international investment firm, Mondrian Investment Partners, purchased a sizeable stake in Appen last week.
The firm bought a 5.1% interest or 6,272,348 ordinary shares in the company. This puts Mondrian as Appen's fifth- largest stakeholder, behind notable companies such as HSBC, JP Morgan, Citicorp and C & J Vonwiller.
The date of the acquisition commenced back on 20 October and finalised on 19 November.
Mondrian manages over US$60 billion in both diversified equity and fixed income asset classes.
What's ahead for Appen?
Appen completed its restructure in May, focusing on its core business interests. While its half-year results were underwhelming, the company expects an improved second half. This is supported by a strong order book, higher confidence in its pipeline, and the expected second-half revenue skew. The latter is due to its customers' delivery schedule for e-commerce, digital advertising, and search programs.
Instead of reporting the usual double-digit growth, however, Appen is projecting a slightly lower FY21 underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA). The company advised of a full-year FY21 EBITDA guidance of between US$81 million to US$88 million, down $2 million from previous estimates.
Are Appen shares a buy?
Since the company's half-year results, a number of brokers weighed in on the Appen share price.
Analysts at Macquarie cut their price target on Appen by 20% to $11.80. Bell Potter followed suit, also slashing its rating by 15% to $11.50 per share.
The most recent broker note, however, came from JP Morgan at the end of August. The investment firm had a more bearish sentiment, reducing its outlook on Appen by a whopping 45% to $13.50.
Nonetheless, JP Morgan's price target still implies an upside of around 15% based on the current share price.
Appen share price snapshot
It's been a tough 12 months for Appen shareholders, with the company's share price falling 66% and year-to-date, down 53%. Appen has a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 37.72, and a trailing dividend yield of 0.88%.
Appen commands a market capitalisation of around $1.4 billion, with approximately 123 million shares on its books.
