Though I’ve pretty much moved on from the ASPN story, it does remain on my screen, and today’s earnings bump higher had me curious how they managed to finish up the year.
The good news for them is the $25.3M in PyroThin revenues they managed to book, a huge $13.4M sequential jump from Q3, which was only slightly higher than Q2. Base revenues were also up $9M sequentially, leaving the overall sequential revenue increase close to $23M. So apparently their OEM partners are starting to demand more of their product. But is that so?
Commensurate with that revenue increase was an even bigger $30M increase in receivables, from $27.1M at the end of Q3 to $57.4M at the end of Q4, which is larger than the entire PyroThin revenue balance, or, for that matter, the entire sequential increase in overall revenues.
Since first recognizing PyroThin revenues during 3Q2021, ASPN’s receivables have jumped from $18M to $57M, or roughly $40M. Lifetime PyroThin revenues to date are $62.3M.
Base revenues in 2022 were up around 8% year over year, so if you speculate that sans-PyroThin receivables would be in the $20M range, then that puts the lion’s share of the balance due to PyroThin, which just might signal some problems.
But GM is backing these guys, right? And the Kock brothers? Well, yeah, “GM extended a secured lending commitment of $100M in connection with the construction and equipment of our second aerogel manufacturing facility.” And of course Koch put in $150M. That’s gotta mean something, right?
About a decade ago there was this little company called Apple that invested some $429M in GT Advanced Tech to build a sapphire screen plant in Arizona. A year later GT was bankrupt and Apple was stuck with a 1.3M square foot building.
Might the same be setting up to happen here?