Michael Webber of Wells Fargo Securitiesstripped the Nasdaq-quoted operator of 38 LPG carriers and four tankers of its “outperform”rating Monday evening and stamped shares with a grade of  “market perform”.

“While we believe that StealthGas continues to trade at arelatively attractive we believe there are more effective means of gainingexposure to the secular US [natural gas liquids] NGL export theme,” he wrote ina late-breaking briefing released after the close.

Webber also expressed concerns about the recent resignationof finance chief Harry Charogiannis, who abandoned ship during a $125m fundraiserthat was terminated as a result of a departure that came as a surprise since theexecutive took the job only a few months prior.

“While StealthGas’s original chief financial officer hasretaken his seat on an interim basis we view this sequence (and the subsequentallegations of impropriety on both ends) as a significant headwind in terms ofsentiment towards the stock,” the analyst continued.

“While that cloudy sentiment could certainly abate, over thenear-to-intermediate term we believe stability and execution will receive extrafocus, particularly as the public LPG space becomes populated with largerplayers.”

For many years StealthGas was one of the few publicly-tradedshipping stocks that offered investors exposure to the LPG segment, which hasseen an avalanche of initial public offerings (IPOs) in Oslo and New York as oflate.

Given the likelihood that Dorian LPG, Avance Gas and BW Gas willbe added to a list that now includes the likes of Navigator Holdings, Webberfears that StealthGas will lose “thematic appeal” in the coming months.

“Given the likelihood of US listings for several of thoseplayers, we believe StealthGas’s thematic appeal could be diluted,” the Manhattan-basedresearcher continued before lowering his valuation range to $11.50 to 12.50from $14.00 to $15.00.

The commentary came as Wells Fargo initiated researchcoverage of GasLog with an “outperform” rating, which the researcher based on “thepositive optionality around a MLP spin, its solid operating platform, andpositive long-term liquefied LNG fundamentals”.