By Paul Middleton, CFO<\/p>\n
A Seeking Alpha article was published today from a blogger expressing many opinions and making certain statements \u2013 we thought it important to address the incorrect conclusions and assertions.<\/p>\n
“Amazon may only be Experimenting with the Solution” <\/p>\n “Basically, Plug only has Amazon & Walmart as customers” <\/p>\n “10% Improvement in Gross Margin still Yields Negative Operating Margins” <\/p>\n “Value proposition to our customers is narrow” <\/p>\n “Only enough liquidity for 11 months \u2013 absolute Need to raise Equity” <\/p>\n This rebuttal highlights a few of the incorrect assertions made. If the author would like to discuss these or the others, Plug Power is always happy to get the story straight.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Paul Middleton, CFO A Seeking Alpha article was published today from a blogger expressing many opinions and making certain statements \u2013 we thought it important to address the incorrect conclusions and assertions. “Amazon may only be Experimenting with the Solution” The Facts: I guess I would be surprised if Amazon would experiment with their ...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[1569,286,288,278,1572,185,268,284,282,271,298,1570,217,280,296,1571,179,269,1573,274],"class_list":["post-4401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\n<\/em>The Facts:<\/strong> I guess I would be surprised if Amazon would experiment with their overall supply chain in such a significant way \u2013 their lifeblood to fulfilling orders.\u00a0 They have put fuel cells at every new major US big box facility since late 2016; over 20 facilities.\u00a0 I wish more customers would experiment this big.<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>The Facts:<\/strong> We have deployed over 25,000 units and half of those are at customers outside of Amazon and Walmart; these are important customers, but we have many including top industry leaders across all verticals.<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>The Facts:<\/strong> Mathematically true \u2013 Glad you can add.\u00a0 However, your math does not assume growth in volume.\u00a0 As we have stated publicly many times, with our growth year over year at 40 to 50%, while keeping operating expenses in check, our ebitdas breakeven point currently is ~ $60 to 65 million in quarterly sales.\u00a0 As evidenced by our current year performance and guidance to 2019, we are getting to that critical point.<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>The Facts:<\/strong> The analysis is not comprehensive and inclusive of many key factors nor does it accurately reflect how our customers think about the value they get out of our solution.\u00a0 The analysis leaves out factors like recovery of critical floor space in limited capacity buildings, ability to reduce overall vehicle fleets and operators while increasing throughput, and in the case of new facilities, avoid expensive electrical infrastructure to accommodate batteries.\u00a0 Our solution enables our customer to think strategically long term; for every six sites they convert with fuel cells, they can do with one less distribution center; hence they can grow while maximizing asset utilization and curtail capital requirements.\u00a0 As most of our customers have \u00a020 to 150 distribution or manufacturing centers and these are quite capital intensive, Plug\u2019s solution becomes critical to their logistics strategy.\u00a0 Guess I put a lot of confidence in the smart people running the biggest companies in the world who are rapidly expanding their leverage on Plug\u2019s solution.<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>The Facts:<\/strong> As in last few years, our business is seasonal, and we do over 65% in second half; as in years past this business is beginning to turn volume into cash collections in fourth quarter and we will end the year 2018 with significant cash balance.\u00a0 This coupled with limited corporate debt position (less than $15 mil on over $120 mil of current assets); we have ample debt capacity to fund working capital requirements and short-term cash needs.\u00a0 This coupled with continued sales growth and margin enhancement, 2019 will be a milestone year for Plug.<\/p>\n