Solazyme reports revenues up in 2011, focus on capacity building for 2012

In California, Solazyme announced fourth quarter revenues of $14.9 million and a loss of $15.6 million, and total 2011 revenue of $39.0 million and a 2011 loss of $54.0 million. In 2010, the company recorded $38.0 million in revenue including $23.2 million in Q4. The company ended the year with $244 million in cash and cash-equivalents, after raising a net $216 million through its 2011 IPO.

Solazyme CEO Jonathan Wolfson said ” Over the past year, we delivered on all of our partner commitments, signed MOUs and JDAs to meet the majority of our long-term feedstock needs, and progressed on important partnerships. We believe we’ve set the stage for commercial expansion in 2012 and 2013.”

Solazyme said that the focus in 2012 would be on capacity building, and CFO Tyler Painter said that the company was “on track to achieve our commercialization targets.” The company has recently expended its  Algenist skincare collection by launching its Firming & Lifting Line, which was launched in over 1,100 retail locations worldwide through a partnership with Sephora.

The company also said that it hard covered 90 percent of its feedstock needs through 2015 via its partnerships, including its Bunge agreement, and signed key off take agreement with Unilever, the US Navy and United Airlines.

The company has completed its Phase I facility in France for Solazyme Roquette Nutritionals, is building out the Phase II facility, and has signed  a Joint Venture Framework Agreement with Bunge that sets forth the key terms for the anticipated JV to build a 100,000 MT renewable oils plant in Brazil.

In a note to investors, Raymond James energy analyst Pavel Molchanov wrote: “Recommendation. The versatility of Solazyme’s algae-produced oils opens the door to wide-ranging opportunities across the fuel, chemical, personal care, and nutrition markets. While fully recognizing the inherent execution risks in an early-stage story such as this, we are bullish on Solazyme’s roadmap to commercialization. We reiterate our Outperform rating.

“Algae pure-play Solazyme fits within a growing peer group of Gen2 companies. Consistent with the rest of that group, we apply a discounted cash flow (DCF) approach to arrive at a DCF value of $15.93/share. Our $13.00 target price is based on 0.8x our DCF per share estimate, in view of the company’s relatively distant outlook (2014) for profitability.”