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Technology Stocks : American Superconductor (AMSC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter V who wrote (622)	4/9/2008 11:50:53 PM
From: Peter V	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 973

FIgured I'd bring this back from the dead, since my investment has been dead until lately. Hey look, there's NEWS! In IBD, and also on CNN Money. Nice. money.cnn.com; A Mighty Wind: AMSC Tapping Green Appeal April 09, 2008: 08:05 PM EST Apr. 10, 2008 (Investor's Business Daily delivered by Newstex) -- American Superconductor is drafting off the rising interest in wind power. Thanks to the growing appeal of renewable energy, sales are growing, profit is improving and its stock price is soaring. American Superconductor (AMSC) shares have climbed roughly 15% in the past month to around 24, while the broader indexes languish in the red. Over the past 12 months, the stock has almost doubled. The company has been called one of the purest wind-related stocks in the market, with roughly 65% of sales tied to wind power. It provides wind turbine design services along with electronic components that help the giant windmills produce and then deliver power to the grid. Many of the largest wind companies operate in Europe and don't offer a simple way for U.S. investors to buy their shares. General Electric (GE) has a growing wind unit, but it represents a tiny fraction of the conglomerate's overall sales. American Superconductor, which was founded in the late 1980s, has never been profitable. It originally focused on conversion systems that help traditional wires handle more power, but the market has been slow to embrace the technology. In the meantime, wind has emerged as the key growth driver for the company since the early part of the decade, thanks to products it developed to help with voltage regulation. American Superconductor CEO and co-founder Gregory Yurek recently spoke to IBD about the company's prospects. IBD: How did your company get into the wind sector? Yurek: If I go back in history to 2002, we had been selling a product for electric utilities. The (Dynamic Volt Ampere Reactive) is for regulating voltage on the power grid. You get these instabilities that cause things like blackouts. We had started selling the product in 2000. A utility that knew about the D-VAR was installing a wind farm in Wyoming. They said, "Look, we hooked up this wind farm, and we're going to have variable voltage. Can we use that D-VAR product to regulate the voltage?"(We) analyzed it, and said we could solve that grid interconnection problem. Today, we're in some 33 wind farms with that grid interconnection product. IBD: So you've benefitted from the growth in wind? Yurek: I had the right product at the right time. Wind (has) been expanding at a 25% (to) 30% compound annual growth rate in terms of megawatts. IBD: Aren't government incentives important to that expansion? Yurek: Around the globe there is agreement that we need renewable sources of energy. If you think of a country like China -- they need more and more electricity. They have been putting up (many) coal-fired power plants. But they don't get good marks, if you will, on the world stage as a polluter. They said, "Look, wind is a great way to generate electricity and oh by the way, it's less polluting." (Incentives) propelled the industry which has given rise to more and more wind farms, which has given rise for the need for more and more wind turbines -- which can lower the costs. IBD: More than a year ago, you bought Windtec, which helped you expand your wind power play. How did that happen? Yurek: They don't actually make any physical products, but they were starting to grow by leaps and bounds. They design wind turbines, and they license those designs or make custom designs to a customer that wants to get into the business. Windtec will come up with that design. But they said there is one thing: By contract you must buy these sophisticated electrical components that go inside these wind turbines from us (including some newer products from American Superconductor). IBD: You've talked about Gillette's razor and blade model -- that's where this came in? Yurek: They (customers) are going to buy the razor, and then they're going to be buying my blades. In other words, they adopt the wind turbine design, and by agreement they are going to buy (American Superconductor) electronics that go inside. When I met with the CEO of Windtec, he was growing from about $2.7 million in revenue in 2005 to about $13 million (expected) in 2006. We bought Windtec just over a year ago. Since then, it has brought in over $100 million of new orders. Here is a link to a little thing about Yurek. investors.com .