Intelligent Energy fuel cell company plans stock market flotation …

Intelligent Energy fuel cell company plans stock market flotation …

File photo of a scientist inspecting fuel cell prototypes. Photograph: Peter Ginter/Getty Images/Science Faction

Intelligent Energy, a green power company originally formed by academics from Loughborough University, unveiled plans on Friday to float on the London Stock Exchange, with an expected value of £600m.

The fuel cell developer hopes to take advantage of investor interest in new listings to raise at least £40m of new money to expand its work offering power systems for everything from iPhones to Suzuki motorbikes.

Fuel cell technology was first used in spacecraft of the 1960s and 70s but has been miniaturised and made more capacious and cheaper by companies such as Intelligent Energy, which is also pioneering it in London black cabs.

Philip Mitchell, a Loughborough chemistry graduate and member of the original start-up team in 2001, will own about £6m of the floated business but plans to offload about 20% of this “for personal liquidity reasons”.

Other institutional investors include Foreign & Colonial, a former arm of the Russian oil company Yukos, plus the Singapore sovereign wealth fund, GIC, which has committed itself to taking a further £16.6m stake in the clean energy business.

Henri Winand, chief executive of Intelligent Energy, said there were many aspects of the group that could be considered unique: “There are very few businesses which could say they have 350 employees, 350 patents granted and 450 patents pending as we do.”

He said the flotation was an important strategic step. “[It] will provide us with the funds to exploit fully the exciting commercial opportunities available to the company in our three divisions of [auto]motive, consumer electronics and distributed power and generation, which are the current focus of the business. All three are subject to significant structural trends and they have the potential to generate sizeable product and service opportunities for Intelligent Energy.”

Already the company’s relationship with Suzuki Motor Corporation in Japan has produced the Suzuki Burgman fuel cell scooter, which claims to be the world’s first fuel cell vehicle to earn certain kinds of regulatory approval in the European Union.

Intelligent Energy unveiled its fuel cell powered Upp mobile charger last November. This uses hydrogen from a cartridge and combines it with air to produce electricity that can power smartphones, tablets and portable gaming consoles.

The company has also recently signed agreements with two Indian companies to manage the power requirements of standalone telecom towers and telecom equipment mounted on electricity towers, replacing carbon-heavy diesel generators.

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Intelligent Energy fuel cell company plans stock market flotation …

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