A123 - Das Ende oder ein neuer Anfang ?
29-10-2012 18.06 DJ Wanxiang Ersetzt Bankruptcy Lender als A123 Bidding War heizt
Von Patrick Fitzgerald
A123 Systems Inc. (AONE), das Elektro-Auto-Batterie-Hersteller, die vor kurzem in Konkurs, sucht Not Genehmigung einen $ 50 Mio. Darlehen von einem chinesischen Autozulieferer bereitgestellt, um ihre Chapter 11 Verfahren anhängig einer Auktion von der sauberen Energie Unternehmen finanzieren tippen .
Rechtsanwälte für A123 Systems sagte am Sonntag in einem Konkursgericht Einreichung, dass die chinesischen Autozulieferer Wanxiang Group Corp wird die sogenannte Debtor-in-possession Finanzierung, ersetzen ersten Kreditgeber Johnson Controls Inc. (JCI) Wanxiang Konkurs Darlehen, das die Schnitte Zinssatz auf 12% von 15% vom ursprünglichen Angebot von Johnson Controls, kommt als regelrechter Kampf heizt zwischen den beiden Unternehmen wetteifern um die Massachusetts-basierte Batteriehersteller Vermögenswerte.
Wanxiang ist noch begierig, A123, die nach Chapter 11 nach Erhalt fast $ 250 Millionen in staatliche Zuschüsse eingereicht, obwohl er an den Altar gelassen früher in diesem Jahr, wenn eine vorherige Deal zusammenbrach kaufen.
Noch vor einem Monat die chinesische Autozulieferer dachte, es hatte einen Deal, um eine 80%-Beteiligung an A123 Systems für $ 465.000.000 zu kaufen. Wanxiang das erste Angebot - das würde auch den Kauf von A123 Consumer Arm und grid-Energiespeicher Geschäftsbereich aufgenommen haben - gesputterten nach Opposition Gesetzgeber über den Transfer von US-Dollars der Steuerzahler und Technologie nach China betreffenden gestoßen.
29-10-2012 18:06 DJ Wanxiang Replaces Bankruptcy Lender as A123 Bidding War Heats Up
By Patrick Fitzgerald
A123 Systems Inc. (AONE), the electric car battery maker that recently filed for bankruptcy, is seeking emergency approval to tap a $50 million loan provided by a Chinese auto parts maker to fund its Chapter 11 case pending an auction of the clean energy firm.
Lawyers for A123 Systems said Sunday in a bankruptcy court filing that Chinese auto parts maker Wanxiang Group Corp. will provide the so-called debtor-in-possession financing, replacing initial lender Johnson Controls Inc. (JCI) Wanxiang's bankruptcy loan, which cuts the interest rate to 12% from 15% from Johnson Controls' initial offer, comes as a bidding war heats up between the two companies vying for the Massachusetts-based battery maker's assets.
Wanxiang is still eager to buy A123, which filed for Chapter 11 after receiving nearly $250 million in government grants, despite having been left at the altar earlier this year when a previous deal collapsed.
As late as a month ago the Chinese auto parts maker thought it had a deal to buy an 80% stake in A123 Systems for $465 million. Wanxiang's initial offer--which also would have included the purchase of A123's consumer arm and grid-energy storage division--sputtered after it encountered opposition from lawmakers concerned about the transfer of U.S. taxpayer dollars and technology to China.
A123 Bankruptcy Update: Wanxiang, Johnson, Fisker Spar in Court
The unfolding saga of an insolvent U.S. advanced battery company and its competing suitors in bankruptcy court
JEFF ST. JOHN: OCTOBER 29, 2012
Bankrupt battery maker A123 has a lot of demands on its time nowadays. While U.S. giant Johnson Controls and Chinese giant Wanxiang compete over the Department of Energy-backed lithium-ion battery company’s existing business assets, one of its key customers, Fisker Automotive, wants the whole process slowed down.
Those are some updates from the ongoing legal battle over the Waltham, Mass.-based company’s remains in U.S. federal court in Wilmington, Del., where the struggling company filed for bankruptcy protection two weeks ago. The key struggle appears to be between Johnson Controls and its $125 million offer for A123’s automotive battery business (and DOE-grant-funded factory in Michigan), and Wanxiang, whose $465 million bailout offer in August still remains on the table as far as the Chinese automotive equipment manufacturer is concerned.
The latest on that front appears to put Wanxiang in the lead. According to news reports, A123 has asked the court for permission to tap a $50 million loan from Wanxiang, supplanting a competing offer from JCI to provide its own debtor-in-possession loan. Wanxiang’s 12 percent offer beat JCI’s 15 percent offer, the Wall Street Journal reported. JCI had previously won court approval to provide $15.5 million of a planned $72.5 million in in debtor-in-possession financing as well, but according to The Washington Post, the Milwaukee, Wisc.-based industrial controls giant backed out to avoid a legal fight.
A123 CEO David Vieau said in an earlier statement that the company had scrapped its Wanxiang deal “as a result of unanticipated and significant challenges to its completion,” though he didn’t specify the challenges involved. But it’s clear that the idea of a Chinese company taking over taxpayer-backed U.S. technology won’t sit well with a Congress already investigating the company’s outstanding loan agreement with the DOE. Wanxiang’s structured deal with A123 did involve it retaining access to the $249 million Department of Energy stimulus loan that’s helped build A123’s factory in Livonia, Mich., as well as ownership of A123’s intellectual property.
What’s A123 worth? Measurements vary. The company had $459.8 million in assets and $376 million in debt as of Aug. 31, according to bankruptcy filings. Certainly its Monday afternoon market capitalization of $23.1 million, compared to post-IPO highs of more than $2 billion, is a sad reminder of the destruction of a lot of investor capital. But its ongoing automotive battery business could offer competitive products to whomever buys it. The same goes for its grid storage business -- 24 percent of its total revenues come from grid partner AES, according to bankruptcy filings.
As for how that business is divided up, that’s up to the courts and its competing parties with an interest in the business. That includes also-struggling Fisker Automotive, which accounts for more than a quarter of A123’s revenues. On Friday, Fisker’s lawyers asked the court to delay the A123 sale process for another 30 days, though the company didn’t specify what it hoped to do with the extra time.
Here’s our ongoing coverage of the A123 bankruptcy and its financial and political fallout:
We’ve already seen the inevitable comparison to bankrupt solar company Solyndra, which took a $535 million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy only to go under last year. DOE-backed flywheel energy storage maker Beacon Power and thin-film solar startup Abound Solar have since declared bankruptcy as well, making A123 the fourth to get DOE cash, then go under.
A123’s fate is likely to be much different than Solyndra’s, which has seen its plant dismantled and its technology stranded. Obviously it has many suitors for its technology. Still, that won’t extinguish the political firestorm to come on A123’s crash and burn, of course. Congressional inquiries into A123’s remaining share of its DOE loan, as well as its relationship to struggling plug-in hybrid automaker (and key A123 customer) Fisker Automotive, have been underway for months.
Let’s start with the main stage. Mitt Romney’s campaign issued a statement on Tuesday calling the bankruptcy “yet another failure for the president's disastrous strategy of gambling away billions of taxpayer dollars on a strategy of government-led growth that simply does not work.” President Obama’s campaign fired back that Romney, as Massachusetts governor, had presided over state loans to companies that later defaulted on their debts.
On a less personal, but still political, note, a Department of Energy spokesman wrote in a blog post that Republican members of Congress had signed on as A123 supporters -- not surprisingly, both from Michigan, where A123’s plant was built with federal and state support.
DOE’s blog also stated that 100-mile-range batteries have dropped in price from about $33,000 before it started investing billions of stimulus dollars into the sector, to about $17,000 today. That’s on track to drop to $10,000 by 2015, DOE predicts. Of course, that’s based on a rosy projection for the advanced battery market, which DOE says is set to grow from $5 billion in 2010 to nearly $50 billion in 2020.
In large part, that’s tied to equally optimistic, official Obama administration goals to put 1 million plug-in vehicles on U.S. roads by 2015 -- a growth rate that is hard to imagine, given the fact that only 50,000 EVs have been sold so far this year.
Cost, Quality Struggles: Will GM Stick With A123?
Beyond the core problem of a slow-to-develop market, A123 may have faced struggles to compete on cost against its rivals, according to an analyst who spoke to Wired. Asian companies dominate the advanced battery market today -- South Korea’s LG Chem makes the batteries for GM’s Chevy Volt, Japan’s Panasonic makes Tesla Motors’ batteries, and the Nissan Leaf’s batteries come from a Nissan-NEC joint venture.
To be sure, A123 has a long list of EV customers, including General Motors, BMW, SAIC Motor Corp., Tata Motors and Smith Electric Vehicles. But Fisker was its main customer, with about 26 percent of A123’s revenue, according to bankruptcy filings -- and Fisker has been having its own problems as it strives to meet terms of its own $529 million DOE loan. Fisker was also the company that received A123 batteries that were subject to a mass recall this spring, a disaster that triggered A123’s spiral into bankruptcy.
It’s hard to predict how the proposed acquisition by Johnson Controls will affect those ongoing relationships. GM, which has tapped A123 to build batteries for its Spark EV, issued an official "no comment" on its Chevy Volt website on Tuesday as to whether it would continue using the bankrupt company’s batteries if the Johnson Controls deal goes through.
Price vs. Value for Domestic Green Technology Support
In the meantime, the company as a whole has lost a collective $1 billion over the course of its publicly-traded life, retaining $459.8 million in assets and $376 million in debt as of Aug. 31, according to bankruptcy filings. The company has seen its market value fall from a high of $2.3 billion shortly after its 2010 IPO to an estimated $8.2 million as of Wednesday afternoon, representing the destruction of a whole lot of capital.
At the same time, EV supporters were quick to point out that A123’s assets and intellectual property represent ongoing value for whichever company picks them up. “Government can help facilitate innovation, but the natural business cycle remains -- some failures in any emerging industry are inevitable," Jay Friedland, legislative director for nonprofit advocacy group Plug-In America, said in a Tuesday statement.
In that sense, A123’s bankruptcy is simply a fire-sale opportunity for consolidation into a growing industry, whether under domestic or foreign ownership. Johnson Controls got its own $299 million DOE advanced manufacturing grant in 2009 to build domestic manufacturing capacity for hybrid and electric vehicle batteries, and will be keeping jobs and intellectual property in the country if it takes over A123’s automotive business.
That means that federal investment into A123 -- and Johnson Controls, for that matter -- will be achieving its goals of creating jobs and fostering domestic technology innovation, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a nonprofit founded and chaired by former Republican lawmakers, noted in a Tuesday statement.
“Through critical public investments in battery innovation by ARPA-E and DOE investments in next-generation battery manufacturing, the U.S. battery industry has made significant technological progress in a few short years,” the group noted. “And as shown by Johnson Controls purchase of A123’s manufacturing plants and technologies, it’s helped spur very promising technologies that U.S. industries will continue to use and build on.”
Whether or not U.S. manufacturing plants can compete on costs with Asian rivals is another question. Both A123 and rival lithium-ion battery maker Boston-Power have turned to building batteries in China with partners, both for low production costs and to serve China’s future market for electric vehicles.
Meanwhile, the fate of A123’s significant grid-scale battery business -- some 24 percent of its revenues came from grid storage partner AES, according to bankruptcy filings -- and other parts of the company remains unclear. Indeed, other bidders may emerge to challenge Johnson Controls for A123’s automotive battery business, which includes plants in Livonia and Romulus, Mich., a factory in China and its stake in a joint venture with Shanghai Automotive.
Penny Stock Speculators are watching A123 Systems (NASDAQ: AONE) a maker of lithium iron phosphate batteries for electric vehicles, after they filed for bankruptcy in Delaware federal court and arranged to sell their automotive battery business to technology firm Johnson Controls for $125 million. According to the filing Johnson will get A123’s battery technology. Also in the sale are the companies battery facilities in Livonia and Romulus, Mich., that were built after the Company received a famous $249 million grant from the Department of Energy and $125 million in incentives from the state of Michigan.
This bankruptcy came about when A123 was unable to make a payment on a $75 million loan from Wanxiang Group, a Chinese auto parts maker who has been negotiating since August to buy a 80% stock in AONE. The Company ran foal of Republican critics how opposed the sale of A123's tax payer financed intellectual property to foreign buyers. Mitt Romney criticized the firms bankruptcy as a failure of Barack Obama.
On October 19 A123 announced that the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware granted the Company's request for certain "first day" orders that help support its business including interim approval to use $15.5 million of its $72.5 million Debtor-in Possession ("DIP") financing from Johnson Controls, Inc. JCI -1.34% ("Johnson Controls")
Since the bankruptcy was announced AONE has moved from lows of $0.05 to highs over $0.20 before dropping back down to just below $0.15 in recent trading sessions. While volume is massive and there is a huge short position that needs to cover this is a highly risky play here.
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A123 Systems, Inc.
David Vieau, President
Dr. Yet-Ming Chiang, Co Founder
Jason Forcier
Louis Golato
a123systems.com
STOCK INFORMATION
SYMBOL: NASDAQ: AONE
Shares Outstanding: 170,557,467 (as of August 6)
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October 30, 2012 | 2 commentsby: Perry Coleman | about: AONE Disclosure: I am long KNDI, AONE. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. (More...)The recent bankruptcy filing of A123 Systems, Inc. (AONE) on Oct. 16, 2012, sparked the usual sell-off of its stock as investors attempted to salvage what was left of their investments and short sellers weighed in. The stock had already lost over 87% over the year and was trading at about $0.24 per share before it dropped to a low of $0.06 per share. Then boom! A lifeline from Johnson Controls (JCI) suddenly appeared.
Coincidence? Who knows, but it was certainly a blessing for those who were still holding the stock. The stock went from $0.06 to $0.08 on Oct. 17 for a 33% gain. It went to $0.12 on Oct. 18 for an additional 50% after the Chinese automaker Wanxiang Group vowed to top Johnson Controls' offer. Then the stock closed on Friday, Oct. 19, for another 58% pop. The stock has since pulled back to a $0.14 close on Oct. 26, which is still an impressive 133% recovery from the $0.06 low.
So why is there so much interest in this stock? Many long-term stockholders have lost so much money in it that it just doesn't make any sense to sell it now. Of course, some tried to salvage what was remaining after the big drop by selling -- but they soon regretted that after the recovery. And now there is hope in the air. But "hope" is not the best investment strategy. Even though it seems to sometimes work, I would vigorously challenge any claim of a real correlation. Well, I would most likely just dismiss it. But hope can be an important part of conviction when the data points needed to properly manage opportunity and risk are not known.
What's left is trying to determine the legal implications of the bankruptcy and if there will be anything left for shareholders after all the creditors are paid off. The outcome will be dependent on the value of the assets of the company. These are obviously very complex issues subject to the changing legal decisions and negotiations.
What most already know is that A123 Systems filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which permits reorganization or restructuring. This is in contrast to Chapter 7, which goes straight to a liquidation of assets. But as with Chapter 7, the assets of the company will go to pay the creditors first, and if there is anything left it goes to the owners of the organization. For a public company, the owners are the shareholders. Forget about Chapter 13, which is mostly used by individuals for reorganization.
Now, what I think is important for A123 Systems is that (in my interpretation) what the debtors gain in Chapter 11 is the ability to obtain loans with favorable terms for the new lenders. These terms would include placing the new lenders before previous lenders. They can also terminate contractual obligations with court approval. This allows new investors to come in and not incur the total risk of the crippled organization. The bad part about this for shareholders is that this adds creditors, which can erode shareholder value. The good part is that it allows for the entity to continue operations for some time period and possibly create future value.
A123 Systems reported total assets of $494,965,000 in its Aug. 8, 2012, 10-Q filing. The filing also listed the company as having 147,141,066 shares outstanding as of June 30, 2012. So with these figures you could extrapolate a share price of $3.36 per share. For another data point, Wanxiang had offered to buy 80% of the company for $465 million, which would put the company's value at $581.2 million and would put the share price at $3.95. Yahoo Finance shows a one-year target estimate of $3.50. I don't know how this was calculated or when it was last updated. Of course, the company has still been losing money since August and hasn't traded anywhere near this range since November 2011, but valuation examples above would suggest that the company is worth much more than where it's trading at now. In a bankruptcy where assets can easily be divided, the sum of the parts can be worth more than the whole. And some are saying that Wanxiang's offer will be even higher.
Many are worried that the stock will be canceled. At this point no one knows for sure whether that will happen or not. But from a legal perspective, any remaining value after all creditors are paid belongs to the holders of the shares. One of A123 Systems major problems seems to be cash flow. Much of this can be attributed to a campaign the company launched to replace defective battery modules, which was estimated to cost $51.6 million in March when it was launched. The company also had to fix inventory and took a $15.2 million charge to facilitate the recovery. The effect of this problem was expected to last several quarters. Certainly some of the stock's decline can be attributed to the blunder.
But A123 still has value and utility that has attracted the attention of businesses both foreign and domestic. Wanxiang is the 800-pound gorilla in the room, and Johnson Controls seems to be strategically positioning itself to acquire portions of A123 without involving itself in protracted legal wrangling as demonstrated by them backing away from becoming the debtor-in-possession lender.
Wanxiang wants to own A123 but won't be allowed to purchase the defense related assets. Johnson Controls could provide for the Wanxiang purchase of most of the assets by absorbing the defense portions of A123. Fisker has also weighed in with a request for delay in proceedings to allow for interested parties to participate in the bidding of assets to ensure that more of A123's value can be realized. A123 is a Tier One supplier for Fisker Automotive and it needs the production of A123's battery packs to supplement its current inventory, which is only expected to cover the first quarter of 2013.
Wanxiang has been very aggressive in its pursuit of A123, but it has had to work through some government and political resistance. One must ask why they are it so persistent in acquiring a company with such financial woes. Wanxiang is a Chinese company and most certainly tuned into the Chinese government's promotion of electric vehicles (EVs) to reduce traffic congestion and smog in the country. The Chinese government recently released a policy letter, discussed here, that reveals China's determination to promote EVs. Kandi Technologies (KNDI) seems to be the favored provider to the masses as it has been successful in gaining support and promotion for its 20,000 vehicle lease project and 100,000 vehicle public transportation projects.
Kandi Technologies is just one company in China that will need batteries to support expansion into EV Asian market. Ford (F) is investing in significant infrastructure to engage this growing market. So while Wanxiang's interest in the U.S. market is warranted, its willingness to purchase the company without the lucrative government contracts can be better understood. Some political rhetoric and industry media have suggested that it would move some assets overseas to facilitate production in China. I would certainly think that it would be strategically positioning to take advantage of the growth within its own country.
A123 Systems most likely will not survive intact. But the strength and value of the pieces of the company can and will survive due to their value and maturity. Shareholders both long and short will go back and forth as the value is subject to much speculation. But all should note that it sure didn't take long for major industry players to place A123 firmly in their crosshairs. If discussions intensify and evolve into a bidding war, some unexpected value could be realized for the company's assets.
Disclaimer: Any legal opinions are my own and are based on my own interpretation. Seek legal counsel concerning any legal matters and professional advice concerning your investments and portfolio risk.
Die hier gestern geposteten Artikel sind ja auch sehr positver Natur.
Geld 0,11 09:22:16 75.000 Stk.
Brief 0,12 09:22:16 75.000 Stk.
für 2,20 € würde ich ein wenig abgeben