Cmr Fuel Cells Share Discussion Threads

[jotoha1] 31/10/2007 14:30

Cher price, yes one or two bad dogs , it's the way of aim, still you never know ,they may hit lucky, newport networks was probably my worst investment, now have over one million shares worth not a lot!

[cher price] 14/9/2007 20:49

Heading for a long drawn out share decline??? Got there, I'd say!
I take it you've had lots of experience investing in such companies jotoha1?

Chin up everybody, things are progressing as planned (unless anyone's heard otherwise) and commercialisation will go ahead eventually (fingers crossed). Don't let the share price get you down ;-)

Take a look at ACTA. Similar shaped graph, but not all downhill.

[jotoha1] 14/9/2007 19:55

this is heading for a long drawn out share decline, probably down to pennies, it's what normally happens to company's with no sales and very little idea when they will have any!!!

[jonwig] 05/9/2007 08:38

Hello C P. Sorry I didn't reply earlier.

Will there be any directors left? Well, a company of this size (OK, it was larger once ...) doesn't actually need more than a Ch and a CEO. The expensive corporate governance stuff can wait.

CMR had two founders, Michael Priestnall and Michael Evans. AFAIK, the latter is still there.
You could argue, of course, that the company should have ensured that it would not be too reliant on key staff. Had he left a lot earlier, the problem might have been serious. Also, he remains as a consultant.

I think the news would have helped put me off buying, but doesn't prompt me to sell.

[cher price] 03/9/2007 20:38

Will there be any directors left by then?
What do you make of Michael Priestnall's departure from the board?

[jonwig] 28/8/2007 08:20

Very positive words in the H1 results - reminds me of why I invested in these.
One of two things caught my eye:

• We expect to be able to announce more of this type of agreement, both on the
customer and supplier sides of our business, in future reports.

ie. like the Samsung JV. A Big Plan, I must suppose!

• We currently anticipate that our cash reserves are sufficient for planned operations until late 2009. At 31 June 2007, assets totalled £10.3m (June 2006: £12.1m), of which £9.6m was held in cash and short term deposits (June 2006: £11.5m).

So they've given a critical date. Combine this with:

• We believe that many OEMs will field-trial Methanol powered portable fuel cell systems into Asian markets in 2008/9 ahead of mass-market launches from 2010 onwards.

and we can see why end-2009 looms large. What will the share price be then?

[jonwig] 24/8/2007 11:55

One of the exhibitors (25-27 Sept):

[jonwig] 17/8/2007 19:21

CP ... absolutely understandable.
And if I thought the game was over, I'd be out, of course.

They floated at the height of fuel cell enthusiasm and so raked in much more money than would have been possible a year later. In retrospect, it was probably too soon - in business development terms, anyway.

On the positive side, assuming they have a grand strategy which is being developed successfully behind the scenes, all the factors are in place for product commercialisation to happen quite quickly.

Samsung might be interested and convinced enough to take the product and go with it. If so, I'd expect an immediate and substantial rerating. I hope we won't have to wait too long for that.

[cher price] 17/8/2007 19:08

I am very disappointed. This is one of my worst performing shares.
Last year I sold ACTA, CWR, ITM, and VLR, but held on to CMF.
I thought CMR Fuel Cells would continue to achieve milestones and strike up manufacturing deals in China. How wrong was I?

[jonwig] 15/8/2007 18:39

ElGordo - cash management has (to now, anyway) been a positive feature of the company.
Cash at 31/12/05 ... £12.6m
Cash at 31/12/06 ... £10.6m
So cash at 30/06/07 around £9m I expect: three years worth, assuming faster burn.

At least the JVs will be joint-funded, we must assume, though they are pretty opaque about this. Remember the names of some of the partners - global players!
What we get, unfortunately, is announcement of new JVs but no progress reports on existing ones.

As for the market being always right, does that stretch to micro-caps such as this, where holders can be selling for all sorts of reasons - especially in today's kind of market?
Of course they could be selling because they have knowledge - we should find out any day now, as you say.

[elgordo] 15/8/2007 16:49

Unless the technology turns out to be a complete bust, there should be a point at which this becomes a strong "buy". When floated, the technology was valued at around £24m (market cap less cash), growing to over £40m when the shares hit 270p. Now at 71p it's down to probably less than £5m (market cap £14.4m, cash approx £9.5m). The market is always right, and, based on 10 years investing, I'm almost always wrong, but surely at this price investors should be starting to take an interest (unless, as I say, everyone else has figured out that the technology really isn't going anywhere...).

Still glum, but I read in the paper today that "men in their late 30s and early 40s are the least satisfied members of society", so perhaps I'll grow out of it...

(P.S. Do my figures make sense, or have I misunderstood or miscalculated the valuations?)

[jonwig] 15/8/2007 15:57

Not pleasant, is it?
Though not heavy.
The trades data today are probably not reliably reported here on ADVFN.
Otherwise, sorry, can't un-glum you.

[elgordo] 15/8/2007 10:48

Ho hum, results not yet out and meanwhile price slide continues apace. Feeling glum - anyone able to see the bright side here?

[elgordo] 05/8/2007 20:07

Was away for a long weekend, so am now rather disappointed to see Friday's further fall. Market cap now around £18m, with cash at 31/12/06 of £10.5m (cash burn around £2m per year, so maybe £9.5m now).

Last year's interims were released on 7th August (without prior notification), so maybe something this week, even tomorrow?

[jonwig] 06/7/2007 14:48

Thanks, tuffbet - but I can't help feeling the author of that has his tongue firmly stuck in his cheek, with turns of phrase such as ...

"Cambridge fuel cell specialist, CMR, has added one of the electronics big guns to the veritable armoury of collaborations the firm has collected this year,..."

and

"The newest joint effort, which brings the total number that the company has launched into this year to three, will provide a very large foot in the door of the portable electronics industry for CMR."

Anyway, there can't be many shares which would double in price on the right kind of news. (I didn't say this was one of them, either ...)

[tuffbet] 06/7/2007 14:25

another article on the Samsung link

[jonwig] 02/7/2007 07:21

Right on time, and ...

CMR has already delivered the first such stack to Samsung.



The trouble is, of course, we have "collaboration fatigue".
Will CMF get any money up-front?
Dunno.

[jonwig] 02/7/2007 07:14

The Independent again gets the story over the weekend.
I haven't looked yet, but I bet there's an RNS:

With the market's enthusiasm for alternative fuel stocks drying like yesterday's washing up, perhaps is isn't surprising that shares of CMR Fuel Cells are short on buyers. That could be set to change this morning as the company prepares to announce a joint venture with Samsung that could transform CMR's prospects.

The world's largest maker of consumer electronics has given CMR's technology a big boost by agreeing to collaborate in the development of a fuel cell using CMR's reactant stack technology. Although fuel cells have been a jam tomorrow story, this deal could mean the technology is adopted across a range of Samsung's products, including mobile phones, MP3 players and laptops.

The consumer electronics market has been the first to adapt to, and adopt, new technology, and battery life is a perennial problem for manufacturers and consumers alike.

Financial details of the contract have not been revealed, but chances are the Samsung deal will reverse CMR's recent slide.

[elgordo] 28/6/2007 13:44

Jon –

I had a trawl myself, and it does appear that the timescales for production have been meandering over the horizon. Specifically:

March 06 - Investors' Chronicle stated that "2008 looking like the most realistic target for mass production"

November 06 - Shares suggested first deliveries in 2008

January 07 - Business Weekly gave Christmas 2009 earliest date for launch of products

June 07 – EGov Monitor expects availability in "mass market products" from 2010 (so perhaps initial launch could still be during 2009?)

[jonwig] 28/6/2007 08:06

Hi ElG.

Yes, CMF are members of lots of groups, and we never hear any more after they've been formed.
For example (post #159), icatdesign.org still isn't live six weeks after the RNS advertising it.

I'll have to track back through this thread and links, but I feel sure 2009 was mentioned somewhere, not 2010.

[elgordo] 28/6/2007 07:36

Good spot, Jon. As for how soon is soon, the article says "CMR is also part of a working group formed by Intel that is specifying this next generation of portable power sources and they expect their technology to become available in mass market products from 2010."

[jonwig] 28/6/2007 07:17

Dated yesterday. Interesting, though hard to find much new in it.

Laptop computers could soon be powered by ..."

How soon is soon?

[elgordo] 12/6/2007 14:46

Maybe the market makers were simply trying to find a price level which would stimulate some trading volumes. Apart from one or two small sells every day, there's been no real market in CMF all the way down, but the only silver lining I can see in this morning's gap down is that it has prompted a few reasonable buys (as well as sells).

[jonwig] 12/6/2007 10:52

Yes, a point well-made ... I suspect the selling is unrelated - the same happened a year ago.
CMF have lots of collaborations, perhaps some of them should publish progress reports.