Just weeks after opening the first phase of a new fabrication plant, called Fab-2, Solyndra said it was shuttering an older and less-efficient facility, Fab-1. Mostly built with a $535 million loan-guarantee from the Department of Energy, the thin-film solar panel maker is counting on the new plant to help it to reduce fixed costs and improve operating margins.
Mounting development costs at Boeing (BA-$70.48) for its oft-delayed wide-body 787 passenger jet threaten not only profitability but distract and delay needed R&D for either enhancements to — or replacement of — its best-selling, single-aisle B737. Asset growth will require more than the $10 billion in liquidity on the balance sheet. Ergo, expect 737 development to be financed not from earnings but from illusionary inventory build (”deferred production costs”) and borrowings (more debt).
A key provision of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA 2009), which subsidized up to 30 percent of construction costs for PV plants (through Investment Tax and Production Credits), will no longer be available for pipeline projects that don’t start construction by year-end 2010. Consequently, First Solar’s (FSLR-$145.29) Topaz and Desert Sunlight won’t be eligible for these tax incentives, as both initiatives are still hung up in Dante-like circles of regulatory hell.Editor David J Phillips does not hold a financial interest in any stocks mentioned in this article. The 10Q Detective has a Full Disclosure Policy.
First Solar’s (FSLR-$143.55) CEO Rob Gillette told investors on the quarterly earnings call the thin-film, PV module maker expected to begin construction of an oft-delayed 2-gigawatt solar generation facility in Inner Mongolia, China early next year.
Obama told a White House news conference yesterday: "If you could build a church on a site, you could build a synagogue on a site, you could build a Hindu temple on a site, then you should be able to build a mosque on a site."
LDK Solar (LDK-$7.87) said module shipments more than doubled in second-quarter 2010 to 74 megawatts. However, chief financial officer Jack Lai has yet to deliver on his promise that moving downstream into module production would position the company to improve profitability across the solar supply chain.
Is General Motors on the recovery road? In July 2009, the “new GM” emerged from bankruptcy after a short 39 days. One-year later, it’s reporting impressive profits of $2.2 billion for first-half 2010….
Retail buyers participating in General Motors’ public offering should be aware that there exists a strong likelihood that their ownership stake could be subject to immediate dilution, depending on how the share price trades in the secondary market: upon the exercise of warrants held by current stakeholders, at strike prices ranging from $30 to $126.92 per share, up to 106 million additional shares could hit the outstanding stock float, according to GM’s preliminary prospectus.Buried deep in the more than 700 pages of the automaker's ’s prospectus was a warning, too:
the bankruptcy court could issue more than $37 billion in third-party claims pending – probably in the form of stock and warrants (for additional stock payable in the future at a pre-set price). In other words, buyers of the common stock in the initial offering would face even more dilution.
Are officials in the Obama administration pushing to unload some of its 60.8% share in the "new GM" to show taxpayers before the November mid-term elections that the $50 billion of their monies invested in the venerable automaker (to stave of liquidation) was a wise decision from the “anointed” one? Read More ….
Editor David J Phillips does not hold a financial interest in any stocks mentioned in this article. The 10Q Detective has a Full Disclosure Policy.
Transocean (RIG-$51.62), the world’s largest offshore drilling contractor, warned in its earnings filing that British Petroleum (BP-$36.34) had reservations and would likely seek to avoid its contractual responsibilities, including protection from financial penalties and liabilities resulting from the Macondo well disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.Prior to the capping of the well on July 15, a federal task force estimated up to 173 million gallons escaped from the damaged well into Gulf waters, less captured or contained crude. Under the Clean Water Act, BP could be fined $4.5 billion, or as much as $17.6 billion (if found guilty of committing gross negligence).Continue Reading ….
Looking to rebuild physician confidence in Byetta injection, Amylin (AMLN-$19.69) and Lilly (LLY-$35.70) directed much of their lecture and lobbying time at the 2010 ADA conference addressing safety and tolerability issues that have dogged their type-2 diabetes treatment since soon after its June 2005 launch.
Clinical data supporting the ability of type-2 diabetes drug Byetta to address the unmet need of glucose control with potential weight loss quickly became a winning narrative for Amylin Pharmaceutical (AMLN-$$20.08) and its marketing partner Eli Lilly (LLY-$37.77). The GLP-1 agonist became the fourth most-prescribed branded product for type 2-diabetes — after Actos, Avandia and Lantus — within 18 months of its June 2005 launch.Prescription momentum swung away from the injection med after reports began to surface of a link between Byetta use and altered kidney function. Throw in concerns of pancreatic inflammation - U.S. sales for the GLP-1 agonist peaked in 2008 at $678.5 million.
The number of patients treated worldwide with Byetta dropped from 470,000 in 2007 to 440,000 in 2009, according to data obtained by Wolters Kluwer.
Launched in early 2010, Novo Nordisk’s (NVO-$90.37) GLP-1 agonist Victoza, has already passed Byetta in new patient starts …. Why? Continue Reading ….
Editor David J Phillips does not hold a financial interest in any stocks mentioned in this article. The 10Q Detective has a Full Disclosure Policy.
Food & Water Watch has accused BP (BP-$40.00) and its minority partner, Melbourne-based BHP Billiton (44% working interest), of operating the Atlantis platform in the Gulf of Mexico without proper documentation required by law – and necessary for safe operation (including maintenance).
So confident was Vivus (VVUS-$5.75) in the efficacy of Qnexa across a range of overweight or obese patients (with or without co-morbid conditions, from diabetes to hypertension), management deferred entering into any clinical and marketing partnership(s) until after the July 15 meeting of the FDA’s Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drugs Advisory Committee.
What’s happening off the Louisiana coast wasn’t from incompetence, but from a purposeful desire – from the Obama administration and an industrial consortium ranging from BP ($38.92) to Goldman Sachs (GS-$145.22) – to spark growth in a nascent alt-renewable industry: algae farming, according to one online conspiratorialist.
