Kelper upgrades $XFAB to "Buy" citing:

- Melexis demand strengthening “week-after-week, day-after-day” (their lead customer).
- AI giving XFAB a structural growth leg with SiC, GaN, and photonics offsetting auto cyclicality.
- Scarce Western speciality foundries like $SILEX commanding higher multiples.
"X-Fab remains the cheapest specialty foundry peer on every multiple, trading at 4.8x 2027 EV/EBITDA versus a peer median of 14.5x"
I treat this as good signal for the core fundamentals improving like auto players.
But in terms of unpriced long term growth vectors, I'm personally looking at XFAB from a different angle in terms of photonics growth with photonixfab. Given $NVDA as a potential key driver.
But it's hard for traditional firms to price these types of active developments into valuation models until there's volume contracts.