Jamie: "In standing up for Ballard, their potential market is absolutely huge, they're ahead of the competition, they have excellent management, a top notch strategic partner, great credibility, and a technology that will help save the world."
I can't disagree with a word you said. All of that is true. And it is also true of Energy Research, except that ERC has two impressive technologies - its nickel-zinc batteries and its molten carbonate fuel cells. And ERC's technologies will be on the market about five years before Ballard's will be. And ERC's market cap is under 10% of Ballard's.
I think that ERC's market cap should be the same or more than Ballard's; not that ERC deserves a US $700,000,000 market cap at this stage, but then neither does Ballard, given how much time there is before any earnings show up, and the uncertainty involved. But here is an interesting thought - if Ballard stock stays where it is, and at some time over the next few years people become convinced that ERC is worth just half of Ballard's market cap, with only 4 million shares outstanding that works out to around $90 per ERC share, compared to today's close of $12 1/4. Not a bad return.
As to others in the field, the only public ones include Westinghouse, which is working on some promising solid oxide fuel cells (appropriate for stationary power, rather than vehicles, and more of a potential threat to ERC than Ballard) and United Technologies, parent company of the leader in phosphoric acid fuel cells, Int'l Fuel Cells (also referred to as ONSI.) These are both big companies whose other interests dwarf whatever they are doing in fuel cells. So Ballard and ERC are the only games in town at the moment. |
