The latest Investing Matters Podcast with Jean Roche, Co-Manager of Schroder UK Mid Cap Investment Trust has just been released. Listen here.
Nissan already have a supplier next to their factory. The factory is to be expanded massively according to press releases.
So that is Nissan sorted, JLR have their site to build in Somerset - so that's a fair amount of UK car makers by volume sorted plus BMW are to speed £600 million retooling the Mini factory - supply of batteries is something they won't have overlooked...
True but Seagen did have $2 billion in revenue plus 4 drugs on market - so further down the track than Avacta i.e. looks less risky to the stock market than buying what looks to be a very promising firm whose technology is still to make it commercially. So, your lower pricing for Avacta is likely to factor for Big Pharma when justifying either a license or an acquisition. Hopefully more good data will come shortly and reduce the risk discount.
Hi, As an early investor in Avacta, I hope they will succeed. Just came across Race Oncology - they think they have a solution to some bad side effects on anti-cancer drugs e.g. heart damage. So maybe Avacta does not have the field to itself so making good progress will be important.
A little push - AMTE won't be able to produce at volume with substantial investment - many tens if not hundred million. Tata can but like many large firms will seek to optimise the grants that they can get from Government. If UK Govt gave AMTE say £10 million i.e. several times their market cap, no factory of worthwhile size will emerge.
Does every person fill up their petrol or diesel car every evening - no is the answer. Why would it be different for electric? People can charge to 80% very quickly with the Ultra-Fast charging - Telsa have rolled out 5,000 of these in 5 months.
Nissan have a factory; Tata are looking to build one in Somerset. Nothing to stop either firm from selling batteries at a premium price to firms who don't have a UK supply. With large potential fines for firms that fail to make enough electric cars, paying a premium could be a cheaper route. Recall that Tesla used to get a lot of cash from other firms from regulatory credits. Do you believe that AMTE can raise money to build even a small-scale factory at say $400 million or 100x its market cap?
I like the idea of AMTE succeeding but they lack deep pockets when compared to other players: https://www.quantumscape.com/ - 800 engineers and $900 million cash, https://www.nexeon.co.uk/media who raised $200 million plus have a commercial agreement with Panasonic. So, unless they have some really compelling technology, their future does not look great.
If AMTE has good technology, then other parties may want to license the IP. Manufacturing is an expensive business to set-up and even the major firms like Tesla work with LG, Panasonic and CATL (Chinse firm). For a firm to set up a large-scale battery site as per an earlier RNS needs a lot of capital and large customers orders and the battery market already has vendors that have proven technology at scale. That does not mean firms won't look at new products but I doubt firms will give orders for £10's of millions+ to a small scale start-up.
Shear Class - They did get support from Govt Agency (Highlands and Islands) but that meant having a manufacturing site in Thurso overlooking the case of making heavy items near to main customers or somewhere centrally. Succeeding in the battery space means either having a low cost to make e,g, China and / or owning the IP and licensing out to other parties to make batteries. Maybe one of the other parties Faradion (sold cheaply to Tata) will acquire the firms IP from the administrators.
I wonder if there is an employee share ownership plan? Many start-ups give their staff either share options or the ability to buy shares. Perhaps there is a concern on share dilution :-)
Syme has not delivered their core offering in over 15 months. They only recently showed their IT solution. Any decent FinTech firm would have a beta solution and early customers - Syme has not. 100 fold increase = £10 billion market cap based on no track record. If what they have is so great an innovation why are investors like Scottish Mortgage Trust (an early investor in Tesla @ $8 ) or Softbank not all over Syme like a rash?