NEW YORK, Aug. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bragar Eagel & Squire, P.C., a nationally recognized shareholder rights law firm, reminds investors that class actions have been commenced on behalf of stockholders of Sea Limited (NYSE: SE), Syneos Health, Inc. (NASDAQ: SYNH), and Lordstown Motors Corp. (OTC: RIDEQ). Stockholders have until the deadlines below to petition the court to serve as lead plaintiff. Additional information about each case can be found at the link provided.
Sea Limited (NYSE: SE)
Class Period: April 23, 2022 - May 15, 2023
Lead Plaintiff Deadline: September 19, 2023
Sea, together with its subsidiaries, provides digital entertainment, e-commerce, and digital financial services in Asia, Latin America, and internationally. The Company's digital financial services platform provides, inter alia, payment processing services, credit offerings, and digital bank services under various brands, which purportedly work in tandem with Sea's digital entertainment and e-commerce platforms to drive synergies among all three business segments. Defendants have consistently asserted that these purported synergies allow the Company to grow its user base and loan book in an efficient, cost-effective manner, while managing risks impacting the Company's profitability.
On May 16, 2023, Sea issued a press release announcing its financial results for the first quarter of 2023. Among other items, Sea reported first-quarter earnings that fell significantly short of expectations due to a sharp increase in loan loss reserves. The Company advised that "[o]ur provision for credit losses increased by 120.5% to US$177.4 million in the first quarter of 2023 from US$80.5 million in the first quarter of 2022, primarily driven by expansion to a broader user base and the growth of our loan book" (emphasis added). Sea also disclosed that the Company's previous Chief Investment Officer, David Ma, had left that role and joined the Company's Board of Directors.
On this news, Sea's American Depositary Share ("ADS") price fell $15.62 per ADS, or 17.74%, to close at $72.45 per ADS on May 16, 2023.
For more information on the Sea class action go to: https://bespc.com/cases/SE
Syneos Health, Inc. (NASDAQ: SYNH)
Class Period: September 9, 2020 – November 3, 2022
Lead Plaintiff Deadline: September 25, 2023
On February 17, 2022, Syneos revealed that its reimbursable expenses would likely never recover to pre-pandemic levels. As a result, Syneos segregated reimbursable expenses from many of its operational metrics, revealing that $3.8 billion of Syneos’ Clinical Solutions backlog (36%) was at risk of never being collected and providing an alarmingly low book-to-bill ratio of just 0.34x in the segment when reimbursable expenses were included. Although Syneos did not disclose the magnitude of the backlog “adjustment,” some analysts estimated that Syneos had eliminated as much as $950 million in prior pass-through revenues.
On this news, the price of Syneos common stock fell nearly 5%.
Then, on August 2, 2022, Syneos revealed substantial deterioration in its business, disclosing that net new business awards within Syneos’ Clinical Solutions segment had declined by roughly 34% including reimbursable expenses and 15% excluding reimbursable expenses, reflecting book-to-bill ratios of 0.94x and 1.29x, respectively. In addition, Syneos disclosed that it would not achieve even its lowered expectations for reimbursable revenues for the year, causing Syneos to slash expected 2022 revenues by $185 million at the midpoint.
On this news, the price of Syneos common stock fell more than 17%.
Thereafter, on September 13, 2022, Syneos disclosed that it expected to announce a book-to bill ratio in its Clinical Solutions segment for the trailing 12 months ending September 30, 2022 in the range of 1.05x to 1.15x, excluding reimbursable expenses.
On this news, the price of Syneos common stock declined nearly 17%.
Subsequently, on November 4, 2022, Syneos revealed that its book-to-bill ratios had plummeted below even the reduced figures provided in September 2022. Specifically, Syneos stated that its Clinical Solutions segment had achieved net new business awards of $182 million including reimbursable expenses – a startling year-over-year decline of 87% – and a book-to-bill ratio of just 0.18x for the quarter, which was just one-tenth of the new business growth expected by some analysts.
On this news, the price of Syneos common stock fell more than 46%, further damaging investors.
As the Syneos class action lawsuit alleges, defendants throughout the Class Period made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) Syneos’ business development capabilities had been materially impaired by workforce reductions and leadership and operational changes, as well as labor force turmoil caused by the COVID-19 pandemic; (ii) Syneos had struggled to integrate recent acquisitions, causing Syneos to suffer from a bloated and confused organizational structure and impairing Syneos’ ability to provide comprehensive or effective customer engagement across its product portfolio; (iii) Syneos was suffering from acute competitive disadvantages as clinical trials moved to remote monitoring and decentralized administration, as Syneos lacked the tools possessed by some of its rivals to successfully run remote and decentralized trials, such as certain data visualization and statistical modeling capabilities, and Syneos had failed to adapt to changing business demands in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic; (iv) Syneos’ backlog, book-to-bill ratios, and net new business awards had been artificially inflated by more than $500 million through the inclusion of reimbursable expenses that Syneos would never collect; (v) as a result of the above, Syneos was struggling to execute on its existing contracts and to agilely respond to its client needs, causing Syneos to suffer client dissatisfaction across its client base; and (vi) consequently, Syneos was exposed to a material undisclosed risk that Syneos would lose customers, be unable to grow its client base or win significant contract renewals, and cede market share to its rivals.
For more information on the Syneos class action go to: https://bespc.com/cases/SYNH
Lordstown Motors Corp. (NASDAQ: RIDE)
Class Period: August 4, 2022 – June 27, 2023
Lead Plaintiff Deadline: September 25, 2023
The lawsuit alleges that, throughout the Class Period, Lordstown represented publicly that it had been working collaboratively with Hon Hai Technology Group (“Foxconn”) in the context of the companies’ joint venture. However, on June 27, 2023, Lordstown revealed in a court filing that, contrary to Lordstown’s Class Period representations, the Company’s vital partnership with Foxconn had long been in jeopardy and Foxconn’s conduct toward Lordstown had been anything but collaborative. Lordstown filed litigation against Foxconn and several of its subsidiaries in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware alleging Foxconn’s fraud, bad faith, and failure to live up to its commercial and financial commitments to the Company.
On this news, the Company’s stock price fell $0.54 per share, over 21%, to close at $2.29 per share on June 27, 2023.
For more information on the Lordstown class action go to: https://bespc.com/cases/RIDE
About Bragar Eagel & Squire, P.C.:
Bragar Eagel & Squire, P.C. is a nationally recognized law firm with offices in New York, California, and South Carolina. The firm represents individual and institutional investors in commercial, securities, derivative, and other complex litigation in state and federal courts across the country. For more information about the firm, please visit www.bespc.com. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.
Contact Information:
Bragar Eagel & Squire, P.C.
Brandon Walker, Esq.
Marion Passmore, Esq.
(212) 355-4648
investigations@bespc.com
www.bespc.com
