IdaTech to go private this week > Fuel Cell Dispatch

IdaTech to go private this week

After Wednesday, Bend-based fuel-cell maker IdaTech will no longer sell shares in the company on the London Stock Exchange.

On Nov. 1, shareholders approved resolutions to end trading and to register as a private company, making its cancellation of trading effective Wednesday, according to a news release.

Taking IdaTech private will give the company more flexibility to raise funding, CEO Hal Koyama stated in the news release, and also will eliminate the time and expense associated with trading shares, which did not provide significant benefit to the company.

Its largest shareholder, Investec Group Investments (UK) Limited, indicated it would not provide additional funding unless the company stopped trading on the AIM, the London Stock Exchange’s international market for smaller growing companies, according to IdaTech’s Oct. 7 notice to shareholders.

Founded in 1996, IdaTech makes fuel cells, primarily for telecommunications companies that need backup power to supply their networks when the electrical grid goes down.

The company’s newest fuel cell — the ElectraGen ME powered by hydrogen gas created on-site through a mixture of methanol and water — helped increase sales by 26 percent, to $2.4 million, for the first six months of this year, according to its interim financial results released Sept. 30.

IdaTech, however, reported an operating loss of $11 million for the period, which was 10 percent better than in 2010, according to the financial results. For all of last year, it reported a gross margin loss of $3.2 million, an improvement over the $5 million gross margin loss in 2009, according to the 2010 annual report.

Investec has indicated it will make an additional loan to IdaTech and extend the repayment date for current and future loans to October 2012, according to a statement from Koyama and Sir John Jennings in the interim financial results.

Source: Tim Doran, The Bulletin