Topic: How To Invest

Hi Pat! Could you enlighten me about Heckman Corp.? In your opinion, is this stock a buy, sell or hold? Thanks for your advice.

Article Excerpt

Heckman Corp., $3.38, symbol HEK on New York (Shares outstanding: 149.0 million; Market cap: $503.6 million; www.heckmancorp.com), disposes of the waste water that results from unconventional oil and gas exploration and production. That includes waste water from the fracking methods used in shale oil and gas production. (Fracking involves the high-pressure injection of water, sand and chemicals into rock formations to break them up and make it easier to retrieve oil and gas reserves.) The company has more than 635 trucks in service. It also rents out more than 1,100 “frack tanks” for containing waste water. In March 2012, Heckman bought used-oil recycling company Thermo Fluids Inc. from Chicago-based private equity firm CIVC Partners for $245 million in cash and stock. The company made this purchase to diversify its operations beyond waste-water disposal. In the three months ended March 31, 2012, Heckman lost $0.01 a share. The consensus estimate was for the company to break even. The need for waste-water disposal from shale gas operations…