It is seldom good news when there are no figures mentioned in the ‘highlights' section of a company's trading update and Peyton Manning's reliability is arguably as good as it gets for Colorado-based Ascent Solar at the moment.
The fact Ascent lists an advertising and branding agreement with American football team the Denver Broncos as a croporate highlight will probably do little to bolster a flagging share price for the thin film CIGS manufacturer.
With a 7-1 record, the Broncos are not doing too shabbily on the field but their new sponsors revealed yesterday, in a filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), third-quarter net losses of $6.5 million.
Although that figure has come in from the $7.1 million lost in the second quarter and from $6.4 million in the year-on-year comparison Ascent will have to shift a lot more of its lightweight EnerPlex brand of consumer electronics products before it can start thinking about recording a profit and needs to break out of its Colorado market although introducing the EnerPlex brand to the UK and Ireland during the three-month period is a step in the right direction.
More promisingly, the company announced plans for a joint venture with the local government of Suqian, China, to fund a production facility in Suqian, although no firm dates were given for the project.
Ascent's third quarter revenues shrank to $275,000 from $556,000 in the same period of 2012 as the nine-month figure came in from $1.2 million to $735,000 although the revenue stats were presented as a rise in ‘product revenues' from $166,000 to $268,000, quarter on quarter.
The overall revenue figure was hit by delays in U.S. government R&D contracts, which came in from $82,000 for January-to-October 2012 to just $8,300 this quarter, presumably hit by the Capitol Hill shutdown last month.
With R&D expenses climbing from $15 million in the opening three quarters of 2012 to $16.2 million for the same period this year and a quarterly $3.7 million hit from ‘deemed dividends on preferred stock and accretion of warrants', shareholders were left facing a net loss of $10.1 million for the latest quarter and $24.3 million for the year so far, compared with losses of $6.4 million and $17.9 million, respectively, for the 2012 equivalents.
That might need more than a Superbowl victory to turn around.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.