Alto Ingredients Inc (ALTO)

[Harry Winston]

Copied from the latest company stats, which have been updated to reflect the fourth quarter:

Book Value: $6.55/share

Friday's closing price is only 17% of the Book Value, so there's a lot of upside from here, especially with almost $35 in revenue per share.

The company has $0.58 in cash per share. That's just over half of Friday's price per share. The other half is the market's estimate of the value of the operations and the value of other assets, including their plants. One of these other assets was the subject of this September 2016 article in the Sacramento Business Journal. These are the first four paragraphs.

Pacific Ethanol Inc. will be using PACE funding to install a $10 million solar project at its ethanol plant in Madera. This is the largest amount of funding ever granted for a commercial project under a PACE, or Property Assessed Clean Energy, program.

PACE programs are used to finance the installation of energy-efficiency features. There are no upfront costs — the improvements are financed via property tax payments over five, 10 or 20 years.

Pacific Ethanol will get the benefits of a $10 million solar system, including lower electric costs of $1 million annually, without any up-front investment, all while earning up to a 30 percent federal tax credit. The system also will lower the carbon-intensity score of the ethanol produced at the plant, said Paul Koehler, a company spokesman.

“There are a lot of good features on it for us,” he said. “It pays for itself.”

Institutions own half of the shares. That's always a good sign. It means that they won't overreact to the news from any one day but will stay the course and keep the company interesting for the benefit of the small investors.