Good morning! I see that Globo (LON:GBO) has issued a positve-sounding trading update, as expected. I'm barred from commenting here on shares where I hold a short position, so will comment elsewhere on it. As always though, it's cashflow that is the litmus test, and I shall await their audited accounts with anticipation, and play a game I invented called "hunt the debits" on the Balance Sheet!
Ilika (LON:IKA)
There is a big share price rise this morning from blue sky materials development company Ilika, on the back of a positive-sounding update on their battery technology. They have two core technologies, one is something to do with fuel cells, and the other is a new method of making a solid state battery that has considerable advantages over other batteries.
The market cap was about £20m last night at 41p, and is up 20% this morning to 49.5p, so that values the company at £24m, which is expensive based on the historic numbers, which show very little turnover (circa £1-2m p.a.) & losses of about £2-3m p.a.
Of course, it's not about the historic numbers with blue sky companies, it's about the future potential. There are several things here which look potentially interesting. Firstly, they are working in partnership with some major global companies, the most significant to Ilika being Toyota, who are paying for development work - which gives credibility to what they are doing, i.e. their research clearly has a commercial application, otherwise companies like Toyota wouldn't be wasting their time & money on it.
Secondly, the two main technologies that Ilika are developing seem to have clear advantages over existing technology. What has ppossibly sparked peoples' interest in today's announcement about their battery technology having been successfully tested, is this comment;
"The performance data generated by these laboratory batteries is extremely promising. Once scaled, these solid-state batteries would offer consumers the equivalent of having a longer-lasting smart-phone battery half the size of current batteries which can be fully recharged in about 10 minutes rather than an hour."
That has obvious commercial attractions, hence why I think these shares look interesting.
On the other hand, there are bound to be numerous other companies worldwide also developing novel battery technology, so…
