Fuel cell company Ceres Power Holdings (CWR) registered a substantive increase in revenue and gross profit in the first half and expects this trend to continue through the remainder of FY2018. Money received from grants was broadly stable, but revenue from customer programmes surged ahead, more than doubling to £2.6m.
Another notable change has been the development of larger fuel cells. The group has been developing a 5kw version of its SteelCell product, which will allow it to provide cells for higher power applications such as in data centres or electric vehicle charging, alongside the home power applications its earlier platforms are intended for.
Such developments don’t come cheap, however, and the group has warned it will need to raise additional equity funds in 2018 in order to progress development plans, including the possibility of "strategic investment from potential partners". It went on to note “there can be no assurance the group will be able to obtain adequate finance through a fundraising in the future”. Understandably this spooked investors, who sent the shares down 8 per cent on results day.
Analysts at Zeus Capital are forecasting an adjusted pre-tax loss of £10.7m for the year ending June 2018, giving a loss per share of 0.9p, against losses of £11.4m and 1.00p in 2017.
| CERES POWER HOLDINGS (CWR) | ||||
| ORD PRICE: | 12p | MARKET VALUE: | £117.3m | |
| TOUCH: | 11-12p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 16p | LOW: 8p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | NIL | PE RATIO: | NA | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 2p | NET CASH: | £13.2m | |
| Half-year to 31 Dec | Turnover (£m) | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p) |
| 2016 | 1.0 | -6.2 | -0.63 | nil |
| 2017 | 2.6 | -6.1 | -0.51 | nil |
| % change | +156 | - | - | - |
| Ex-div: | na | |||
| Payment: | na | |||
