Ballard Power Systems (NASDAQ: BLDP) (TSX: BLDP) has purchased complete ownership of its European subsidiary from Dansk Industri Invest A/S for what it termed a “nominal value”. The subsidiary is now named Ballard Power Systems Europe A/S.
With that name change, the subsidiary will now use the Ballard brand, such as visual identity and logo, and will play an expanded role in supporting all of Ballard’s activities in Europe. The transaction will enable the company to not only acquire all the shares of the company, but also cancel the debt owed by the parent company to Dansk Industri. Prior to this, Ballard held 57% of the shares of the subsidiary, while Dansk Industri held the other 43%.
Ballard is a clean power company that specializes in fuel cell stack development (proton exchange membrane), fuel processing and systems integration. Ballard is considered one of the key vendors in the global fuel cell market. The company has announced that its fuel cells, branded as FCveloCity®, are in engines used in 80 buses internationally in Europe, China, the United States, Brazil, and India. Ballard is currently focused on expanding within the countries in which it is already operating, as well as adding to the list of countries using its fuel cell engines. Other transportation systems also use the technology, such as light rail.
The acquisition of the subsidiary closed on January 5, 2017. In a news release, Tony Guglielmin, CFO of Ballard Power Systems and chairman of Ballard Power Systems Europe A/S, said the company began the takeover process two years ago. “Europe is a critically important market for Ballard and we have taken important steps to strengthen our sales, engineering and service capabilities to support expected market growth,” he noted. About 50 employees work at the European subsidiary based in Hobro, Denmark. Ballard’s headquarters are located in Burnaby, British Columbia, in Canada.
Randy MacEwen, Ballard president and CEO, also said that the company achieved 10 million cumulative kilometers (6.2 million miles) worldwide with vehicles powered by its fuel cell motors. “We are moving beyond technical validation into commercial scaling at a time where market demand is at a breakthrough inflection point,” he said. “The cumulative learning by Ballard during our unparalleled field experience serves as a major competitive differentiator.” The company said it is seeing increased market demand for its fuel cell engines.
Ballard Power recently reported its third quarter results, with revenues for the three-month period ended September 30, 2016, totaling $20.6 million, compared to $16.0 million for the same period of the prior year. For the nine months ended September 30, 2016, revenues were $54.6 million, versus $36.5 million the prior year. Shares of Ballard were trading at $1.91 on the Nasdaq Global Market as of January 17, 2017.
Last month, Ballard announced that its stock ticker symbol on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) had been changed to BLDP. The result is that the company now has the same ticker symbol on both the Nasdaq and TSX.
Ballard was named one of the nation’s Top 20 innovative public technology companies by the Canadian Innovation Exchange (CIX).
For more information, please visit www.Ballard.com
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