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Try writing to the CFO. I've approached him on occasion and while confrontation doesn't work, a drip drip sensible questions might. Good luck.
I'm with you bilboburger CEO has no idea about sales and marketing.
I'm not sure that I a) believe the order book and2) the personnel responsible for these tasks are up to the job.
Europe is spending billions on h2 now and itm are making stock, which will no doubt will be obselete. **** poor management all round. Can't we shareholders do anything
I ran a similar sort of business about 15 years ago and we worked very hard to drive the "sales funnel" to give a pretty consistent load to the factory and we developed the factory to be able to flex its capacity to handle when sales failed. Right now, sales is failing to deliver the right sort of demand to make a profit, it requires more orders to be getting to the factory.
When I took over that factory the two teams of Sales and Operations didn't work to achieve that balance and we had to kick-bottom to get the drum beats in sync. Right now I don't see the structure is developed as everyone seems to report into the CEO. Business Development reports in, Country managers report in, Sales report in and Marketing report into a man who spends a lot of time explaining H2 to the world.
If you look at Graham's career he has been CEO for relatively short periods in the development phase. He lacks a business growth experience and I've said before and will say again, he needs to move into a role like Director Emeritus, or President where his technical and people knowledge would be invaluable but a business developer could move ITM forward. Having £200M+ in the bank is making the board feel comfortable, but positive cashflow is what makes a business and they havn't got it yet,
Oh I see, thanks. I only asked as you said 'lack of orders'.
Yes, I saw the backlog mentioned in an earlier report, can't remember date, was it April?
I see the price has risen nicely this morning. Tricky to know whether to sell out now and wait for next dip on this volatile stock.
No you cannot find their order book on line, that would be confidential. However they do include information on backlog (which is their overall order book in all but name) and they also recognise invoicing slightly differently for certain types of order at the ITM-Power level. The trouble with the term "backlog" is here it is ITM specific and refers to the overall order book and is not "overdues". Hence an order for delivery in 2023 is called backlog. Note that with these sorts of orders from these sorts of customers even the concept of "order book" can be a bit fluid.
A bit fluid.... means that planning regulations in countries might delay actual delivery. So they may have built a unit, invoiced for the unit but cannot invoice for installation until the customer sorts itself out. Equally they cannot build too far into the future as the product specifiction may improve (NB they actually say in their docs that they expect the product to get more efficient as they understand the product better, so who want an out of date unit). Tough market, capital goods.
I did think. Happy days 11 million on top of the next quarter figures. Bumper quarter. But not it there aren’t any orders and they are keeping the staff busy building stock.
Next quarter it will be a chain saw massacre to the share price.
Tempting to sell out and wait for the drop.
Maybe they have a different name for Sales & Marketing? e.g. Business development or something?
Can you find their Order Book online to check for orders? I assume anything still being discussed is going to be confidential wrt contracts.
I think the critical problem is lack of orders.
That is fundamentally down to the Itm-power CEO and the JV CEO.
11 million
So if they are building for stock. Then the following quarter results apart from the 11Ion from last month is going to be dire as well.
Look what happened to the share price on the run up to the April ending results.
Or are there other orders
So I went looking again for a Sales and Marketing department. I found
Andrew Ellis, Head of Sales at ITM Power (LSE: ITM.L)
I found a bunch of (white men) MDs of country (which I guess are local Sales)
I found Sharon Poulter, Head Of Marketing at ITM Power (LSE: ITM.L)
But I'm struggling to find a Sales and Marketing Department
Can anyone else find a Sales and Marketing Department? Maybe too many people are responsible so no one is.
You are right, I think. It is badly expressed as he talks about building for a delayed schedule and about building for stock. Either way I agree they are building 70MW of standard products.
I have two views on this 1) they have to run the factory to develop the processes and they really do need to get running the factory 2) they still don't have the order.
Then they discuss do they need a "full time department of Sales and Marketing", it seems they have one. Big surprise to me and the questionnaire did not push it.
Bloody auto correct. There are no "mw".
Great question, I'm mainly off grid at the moment but next week I'll have a listen. BTW, and this may sound me being fussy but it aides communication. Mega watts are spelt MW. Milli watts are spelt mW. There are no m
Hi bilbo in the report ending April 2022 19mins and 6seconds in. It goes on to say products that we build to stock of 70mw
I took this as stock
What did he mean
OK I read that. I think, as I am old, we are getting into semantics.
What do you call a 99.99% reliable minimum energy provision when it isn't windy during winter during off-peak hours?
Nowhere is ITM saying they are building for stock. You have to understand their definition of "backlog" because I think you misunderstood it.
Baseload myths and why we need to change how we look at our grid.
https://www.pembina.org/blog/baseload-myths-and-why-we-need-to-change-how-we-look-at-our-grid
@tennents. I'm guessing here wrt SMRs, but as Nuclear runs almost non-stop (certainly big ones do) then during low-demand they could be planning to produce H2 with the 'spare'. Good plan. A bit like the discussions with off-peak Wind being used to electrolyse.
Nuclear would offer baseline power but I would assume (with the wind blowing in the right direction) there may be excess and H2 storage is a good option for all generation.
I'm not sure whether there is any progress with that Cryobattery liquid air thing in/around Manchester to compete with H2.
I wouldn't worry too much about ITM as long as it is just a part of your portfolios.
@Ramboraven
RR have great engineers but acquisition is a great way to save R&D costs and time. That's how people like Ultra, Thales and many Pharma got where they are.
Let's face it, right now ITM is a speculative punt. I cannot see a USP or moat. Nor can I see encouraging news from the Company.
One good COP or Linde buying it could get the price flying.
Or it could blossom with a couple of decent contracts.
It also worries me that if Rolls Royce apply all their scientific and mechanical knowledge to PEM electrolysers they may end up with a better product. Coming from a company that produces the only vertical lift down draught fan engine in the world
Within the article it goes on to say gigafactory scale. That would suggest more than a dabble. It also mentions more linked to wind and solar than nuclear. They also are the majority share holder. I can’t remember the percentage. It suggests to me a direct competitor to ITM. For some reason ITM just don’t seem to be popular with the people who place the orders.
I have been a holder for some time and at a buy in price of 2.90 and feeling the pain as am sure others are too. I listen to the updates and it worries me when the CEO says he doesn’t care about the share price. It worries me when they are producing stock when they talk about a back log. Unless I’m mistaken. The recorded last update had also been edited from the live update which also worries me.
I have more questions than I get answers.
Do we know what the value of the RR investment is?
I am asking is this a big buck , strategic commitment or a dabble in something that they think might be interesting in the future?
Why would they buy a PEM company in relation to SMRs ? PEM enables rapid shift capture of energy for wind turbine/ solar output that bounce up and down on a minute by minute basis. I hope to heaven our SMRs are not doing that.
I would like to know what the thinking is behind this ( large or small) investment.
Interesting article thanks.
It implies RR bought it as they can actually have some control over the electrloyser development. It doesn't appear to be a simply supply contract. Appears to be a good pairing with RR's SMR (I bought RR recently hoping for SMR approval although Boris might be busy with other things right now :) ).
And yes, hydrogen looks on the up generally but there never seems any good news specifically for ITM right now. I'm sure it'll happen sooner or later.
I’m a little surprised by this. Westinghouse chose Bloom and their SOEC electrolyser technology. The waste heat from nuclear apparently makes it ideal for combining with SOEC in high temperature electrolysis. This looked like it might be an important niche for SOEC.
I guess none of these companies really know the best technology for electrolyser. It’s all still to play for. What is clearer and clearer though is that hydrogen is happening, quicker and at larger scale than envisaged 6 months ago. That is not reflected in share price of any hydrogen company currently- they are all languishing, even those with huge orders.
https://rethinkresearch.biz/articles/rolls-royce-kicks-off-hydrogen-investment-way-new-age-nuclear/