Tag - Environmental

Shares of Environmental Power Corp. (Amex: EPG) are trading lower today following weak second quarter results that fell below Wall Street’s estimates and reported delays on its projects. 

For the three months ended June 30, the Portsmouth, NH.-based owner and operator of renewable energy production facilities recorded a net loss of from continuing and discontinued operations of $7.1 million, or $0.71 per share, well below the consensus of three analysts polled by Thomson Financial of a loss of $0.32 per share. The company incurred a net loss from continuing operations of $3.9 million, or $0.39 per share, compared with a net loss of $2.9 million, or $0.30 per share, a year earlier.

Environmental in May announced that it was in the process of finalizing negotiations to divest a leasehold interest held by the company’s subsidiary, Buzzard Power Corp. Environmental said it accounted for the divestiture as part of discontinued operations and will write off Buzzard’s net assets, which Environmental estimates will result in a gain of $3 million for the quarter.

Revenues for the quarter increased slightly, to $327,000 from 290,000, in the second quarter of 2006.

Environmental owns a license in North America for a technology known as anaerobic digestion technology, which is used to generate energy by extracting methane gas from animal waste.

When Mexico City, one of the most polluted cities in the world, a few years ago declared that vehicles using liquid fuels could be curbed during pollution alerts while those using clean-burning fuels like propane and natural gas would be exempt, Coca-Cola Mexico decided on a fuel change to keep its fleet of 6,000 delivery vehicles running uninterrupted.
 
Coca-Cola turned to California-based IMPCO Technologies, now an operating subsidiary of Fuel Systems Solutions Inc. (Nasdaq: FSYS), for the devices to convert its vehicles’ engines to propane use, saving money by using cheaper propane and contributing to the reduction of pollution in Mexico City.
 
Fuel Systems Solutions has not been what you could call a model company, but it is orders like these that keep investors interested in the world’s leading supplier of alternative fuel systems for internal combustion engines. Even now, as the company faces delisting for the second time in three years for late reporting of its financials, the stock has been treading water around the $17 level, down from its 52-week high of $25.11 in February, giving it a market cap of about $250 million.
 
The company has not yet filed financial statements for the fourth quarter and full year 2006 and the first two quarters of 2007 because of a voluntary investigation into its stock option grant practices between 1996 and 2006. After the close of trading on Friday, the company said that preliminary review from this investigation indicates that the company will probably need to restate its results for the years 2001 to 2005 to account for non-cash charges with regard to stock-based compensation.
 
The company also said Friday that it believes it has fulfilled the requirements set by Nasdaq to submit information by last Thursday (July 26) to keep the exchange from proceeding with delisting for the late filings of financials. Nasdaq also set a deadline of September 6 for Fuel Systems to submit the late filings.