The Intrepid Investor: Ceres delays IPO; others in IPO queue shift, accelerate strategies

In this two-part series, we look at the IPO market for industrial biotech stocks. Today, we look at 10 companies in the IPO queue right now.

Who’s been revising their prospectus, and what does that mean?

In Part II of our series, we look today at Ceres, Myriant, PetroAlgae, BioAmber, Elevance, Genomatica, Enerkem, Mascoma, and Fulcrum Bioenergy.

In Part I, yesterday, we looked at the performance of the six IPOs to date in the aftermarket, and at important changes in Coskata’s recent filings.

Ceres: delaying its IPO

Headline news from the world of IPOs: a decision by Ceres to delay their IPO pricing for one week. The company did not offer an explanation, but its fair to assume, after the company cut its price targets from $21-$23 to $a range of $16 to $17, that the offering is encountering unexpected headwinds.

The complete coverage of the original filing, Ceres’s $100M IPO: The 10-Minute Version is here.

PetroAlgae: Changing its name to Parabel

One of the companies that has been in the queue for over a year now is PetroAlgae, which responded to slow IPO going yesterday by announcing a name change to Parabel.

“In the past year, the company has significantly accelerated its commercialization as a result of key strategic changes,” said Anthony Tiarks, CEO of Parabel. “We have developed a scalable and flexible customer licensee model and our technology is now being implemented at pilot scale around the world. Our priority is to facilitate the commercial-scale production of animal feed and potentially human food ingredients, using non-genetically modified and non-algae micro-crops. We believe it is the right time for these important developments and achievements to be given expression through a new name.”

The complete coverage of the original filing, PetroAlgae’s IPO: The 10-Minute Version is here.

Mascoma: Adding More Valero, DOE support to the Mix

In december, Mascoma announced that it has signed a cooperative agreement with the DOE to assist in the design, construction and operation of its first commercial-scale hardwood cellulosic ethanol facility. The combination of the $80 million from DOE and the remainder from Valero effectively completes the financing for the first project. Groundbreaking is scheduled for the first half of next year, with opening of the facility scheduled for year-end 2013. It will have an initial name plate capacity of 20 million gallons, expandable to as much as 80 million gallons. Kinross Cellulosic Ethanol LLC, a joint venture formed by Mascoma and Valero, will develop and operate the Kinross facility.

The complete coverage of the original filing, Mascoma’s $100M IPO: The 10-Minute Version is here.

BioAmber: Raising $20 million in a private offering

In a filing to update its S-1 last week, BioAmber disclosed that on November 4, 2011, it issued in a private placement an aggregate of 20,061 shares of common stock at a per share cost of $997.00 for aggregate consideration of $20 million to Naxamber S.A., FCPR Sofinnova Capital VI, Mitsui & Co., Ltd. and Clifton Equities Inc.

The complete coverage of the original filing, BioAmber’s $150M IPO: The 10-Minute Version is here.

Genomatica – May forego Tate & Lyle agreement

In its most recent S-1 amendment, Genomatica disclosed that its Tate & Lyle commercial development may be terminated by Tate & Lyle if they have not elected to proceed to the second phase consisting of demonstration-scale manufacturing by March 2012, or if they have not elected to proceed to the third phase consisting of commercial-scale BDO production by September 2013.

The complete coverage of the original filing, Genomatica’s $100M IPO: The 10-Minute Version is here.

Elevance – Ramping up production

In its most recent amendment, filed in December, Elevance dropped a reference to “Our products are currently manufactured at commercial scale using tolling facilities, enabling us to validate our target cost of production for our biorefineries.” Instead the company wrote: “We have produced our chemicals at commercial scale through multiple production campaigns ranging in size from 23 metric tonnes (50,000 pounds) to 450 metric tonnes (one million pounds), including two production campaigns that utilized our proprietary biorefinery process, the first of which was completed in November 2010.

The company also disclosed in its update that it lost $10.4M in Q3.

The complete coverage of the original filing, Elevance’s $125M IPO: The 10-Minute Version is here.

Fulcrum – commenced construction at Sierra, reducing cost per gallon

In its most recent amendment, Fulcrum dropped a reference to “The core element of our technology has been demonstrated at full scale,” and “we expect to produce approximately 10 million gallons of ethanol per year at an unsubsidized cash operating cost of less than $1.30 per gallon, net of the sale of co-products such as renewable energy credits.” Instead, it added, “we expect to produce approximately 10 million gallons of ethanol per year at an estimated production cost of less than $1.25 per gallon, net of revenue from the sale of co-products, such as renewable energy credits and recyclables, of approximately $0.45 per gallon.”

The company also discussed results from its Series C preferred stock financing: “we raised an aggregate of approximately $93.0 million from both existing and new investors, including affiliates of USRG Management Company, LLC and Rustic Canyon Partners, as well as a subsidiary of Waste Management, Inc., or Waste Management, the largest waste management company in the United States. We also entered into a credit agreement with a subsidiary Waste Management to provide a project loan facility of up to $70 million to be available to fund a portion of the construction costs of Sierra.”

The complete coverage of the original filing, Fulcrum Bioenergy’s $115M IPO: The 10-Minute Version is here.

Myriant – deeper losses, more production

At Myriant, the company’s latest amendment added a reference to: “We have already produced 24 metric tons of biosuccinic acid in support of internal and customer/vendor sampling and testing programs. We scaled up these quantities from an initial fermentation vessel size of five liters to 50,000 liters from January 2008 to February 2011 at various locations.”

The company also disclosed that its losses expanded to $28M in 2011, but that the loss included $12.6M in interest expense, which reflected conversion of senior convertible notes into equity in January 2011, resulted in a charge to interest expense to fully amortize the remaining value ascribed to the warrants issued as well as an interest charge associated with the beneficial conversion feature of the notes.

The complete coverage of the original filing, Myriant’s $125M IPO: The 10-Minute Version is here.

Coskata – Settled lawsuit with INEOS Bio

We look at the Coskata update in yesterday’s Digest, here.

The complete coverage of the original filing, Coskata’s $100M IPO: The 10-Minute Version, is here.

Enerkem – IPO just filed

Enerkem has not yet revised its F-1 registration statement, which was just filed. The complete coverage of the original filing, Enerkem’s $125M IPO: The 10-Minute Version is here.