I still have no reason to waver from my personal expectations for the company:
- 6 months H1 2017 to get their head round EMC and their opportunities to scale up a local business into a global product (using their big-hitting global partners).
- 6 months H2 2017 to go out and earn their salary, marketing, chasing leads, talking to isolated clients, governments, military, mermaid hunters I don't care, anyone who is interested in buying, just as long as they buy off us. Pivotal 6 month period we are currently in.
- 6 month period H1 2018 of regular good announcements of substance, selling stuff and progressing CETO in a major way commercially.
That means that - assuming CCE stick to MY timetable requirements - by this time in 2018 we should ALL be quite happy with what we are seeing. This is the timetable I was envisaging when I bought into CCE earlier this year. Nothing whatsoever has changed since I bought in to encourage me to modify my timetable, and nothing a single poster has posted on these threads (negative, substantiated or otherwise) has given me even a moment's pause to reconsider my timetable.
Pretty much all of the negative stuff I have read on CCE on these threads I believe stems from:
1) long term holders wondering when the goose is actually going to lay that golden egg.
2) frustration at announced expectations not being met, and other (steadily growing) frustrations at random numbers.
3) personal gripes with the company (or its subsidiaries).
On (1), this is the thing with research and development. Does anyone believe that, if research and development was in any was a predictable beast, that you could have bought into CWE at 5c? 10c? Less than $1.00? CETO has been worked on by minds far exceeding our own (at least, in the nerdy field of) since the Olympics were in town. 17 years and counting. The really, REALLY good news for everyone is that you got told a couple of years ago, even (from memory, forgive me I am doing so much DD on stocks it gets foggy) before CETO 5 was in the water they said they were working on CETO 6 and that "CETO 6 is the product we will be taking to market".
So we've been told CETO 6 is the ballgame. and they've spent a while working the crap out of it, and now they get a chance to put some into action for real. Nice step! Not the ants pants, but given the timeframe a great step. Sod-turning, etc. Fire up!
Caveat: there are other products in play, which were NOT in play when LT holders took up a position. Later on that.
On (2), I have no issue with the fact that they do not meet revenue expectations. Consider the business. They are currently an R&D stock, funded predominantly by grants. Their revenue expectations are pretty much solely attributable to everything they expect to get from ailing behemoths like a government department. Anyone who wants to pin an R&D company to a government-funding-supported revenue expectation can fix this issue in their portfolio by selling now, and buying a stock that gets their revenue from selling x widgets to y market at price z, with a quarterly sales growth of g.
It's a lot easier to predict what's going to happen when all you do is sell pizza, than it is to determine whether or not that grant that you won, and that you are entitled to, is going to come to papa this quarter.
It also amazes me how, out of sheer frustration it seems, that people try to pick holes in the financials of this predominantly R&D stock. How much did they spend on 1(f)? OMFG, really? I can't recall any company spending that much on 1(f). What about this 2(c) business? This doesn't sound right.
In the end, I am not in this company to split hairs over how they apportion their funds to this or that. Nobody in the company - at the executive level - is even remotely stupid enough to piss money into the wind for la-di-da presentations or frills and overheads. This company is not flush with cash, and they still have to get a product not only to market, but sell it to people. Venting frustration is one thing, but (for example) if somebody mentions admin costs again without an accompanying 25-page in-house report on the details of the figure - for no other reason than they are prone to panic and are looking for a solid figure to embody their frustration, I am going to call you out as a grandma!
Nobody can predict the whimsy of the clients CCE currently have on their books. If their revenue figures were guidance x, and they come in at guidance 0.6x, just chill. It's not easy, or they would always get it right.
On (3), here's one for you, and another for the horse you rode in on.
My timeframe is August 2018. By that time we should have a really, really good idea of whether we are going to roll in it, big tubs of it, or whether it's just a sinkhole. There are a couple of things that could push my timeframe out, but they are things that would push everyone's timeframe out. Things like:
- we have a binding deal to implement 400 microgrids in Indonesia by December 2020, to start in Dec 2019.
- we have a binding deal, conditional upon certain CETO 6 performance in situ, to plant like 25,000 units along the Chilean coastline by 2022.
- other amazing ann's.
In the end, either you back the company, its management and its direction, or you sell your holding and buy something more predictable and less of a punt. I have said many times I am very sympathetic and, given the nature of the company and its ideals, quite respectful, of long term holders in this stock. It's a wonderful opportunity to support something that really will make a difference, including (I believe) to those who are patient enough to wait for profit
But in my opinion, it would be silly (outside of urgent need) for anyone to sell this stock having sat on it for several years when the finish line is so close.
1) they have their 'to-market product' going into the sea at a commercial level.
2) they have been short-listed (within 6 months of picking up the subsidiary) of winning a globally-reported tender with the SA government.
3) they are in the ballpark for the VIC tender on similar grounds (as far as I am aware) in the absence of Tesla.
4) They have just come off a pow-wow with big-name businesses on a global scale where they were leading the discussion on how to deliver affordable energy to the developing world using a for-profit model.
Lots to like. If you don't like how much the CEO is being paid, ask yourself how much your investment would go up or down if he suddenly left, and either contact shareholders to force an EGM to get it done, or sell your holding in the company. But really, I will be extremely surprised if CCE share price does not have a 7 or better at the front of it by this time next year.
Disclaimer: Many wines, big day on the punt. Not for nothing, but today at Broome racetrack, Energy Made Clean sponsored a race (race 6). It was won by "Two for Twenty Two", so to me this means we have to wait for two years for our shares to be worth 22c. The second placegetter was "Ocean Digger", which is a strong portent given that we need to dig into the ocean floor to secure our buoys. Now, the third placegetter was "Herron Point", I don't have a clue where that is, but if someone tells me that they are planning to deploy CETO 6 there, I am doubling my hold in CCE. DYOR, and seriously man, good luck to all holders, I think we will go well with this one with patience and understanding
