French electric car battery maker Blue Solutions is entering the stock market with shares priced at €14.50, placing the company’s value at €418m ($575.6m); A move made by the company to raise awareness of its technology.
Only 10% of the company will be floated with the sole intention of drawing attention to its propriety technology for EVs, the lithium-metal-polymer battery. Demand has already been high but Bollore have insisted not further shares will be sold.
Blue Solution’s technology differs from other lithium-ion batteries in that they are solid so electrolyte cannot leak.
“We don’t need money, we do this to be known,” said Chief Executive Gilles Alix, citing a commitment from the Bollore group to financially back the company until 2016. The Bollore Group manages a portfolio of shareholdings in electricity and energy storage.
Blue Solutions has the capacity to produce 10 000 LMP batteries but does not expect to exceed 1000 this year, rising to 6000 in 2017. The batteries are already being used in a Parisian car-sharing scheme called Autolib in which members can rent a car for short slots in the city centre and leave it plugged into a charging station. The users are charged for the amount of time a vehicle is unplugged.
The company has realistic expectations of loss during the early stages of the company with the CEO admitting any investment in an early stage company could result in a loss.
The parent group Bollore will be covering fixed costs and Blue Solutions expects to break even in 2014.
