RE: Mergers and acquisitions.2 Jan 2022 14:31
Fud,
Possibly AFC will be bought out at some point, but you have to look at the other FC companies further along the commercial path to see that it's unlikely to happen near term (none of them have been bought out), due to technology risk, companies losing big money every year ($100m in the case of some USA FC companies), and in AFC's case the uncertainty of systems over the long term (you can't prove longevity 100% until you have had systems deployed commercially over many years, the lab statistics are pointers to 'expected' longevity, not absolute fact). So I would put takeover at a minimum of 3 years away.
On the acquisition front, we already have our own Fuel Cell IP, Ammonia Cracker IP and Electrolysis IP. We have likely now got 100+ staff to manufacture or assemble our products, so we don't need anyone else's production lines or IP. Battery Storage is best left to Battery Storage companies like ABB and MSP. We don't need to be masters of everything. There's no business types I can think of right now that AFC need to acquire or would benefit from acquiring. It's always possible that something may be spun out of University Research (such as that done by Professor John Varcoe) that AFC could acquire, and this is where AFC will always be looking for potential, rather than existing add-ons, as AFC's core operating principle is to outsource as much as possible, not bring it all in-house.