Plug Power Raises Capital By Selling Shares Too Cheap, Untimely (PLUG)

Plug Power Inc. (NASDAQ: PLUG) is a company which we accused of plugging its shareholders on Thursday with the filing of a secondary offering to raise capital.  In an underwritten public offering of 13,000,000 shares of common stock, the sale price is at $1.15 per share.  Shares closed at $1.41 on Thursday and the stock has had a really bad year with a prior 52-week trading range of $1.35 to $8.00.

Roth Capital Partners is acting as the sole manager for the offering and the company has granted the underwriter a 45-day option to purchase up to an additional 1,950,000 shares of common stock to cover over-allotments.  Net proceeds after expenses and fees should equate to about $13.6 million.

Plug Power intends to use the net proceeds of the offering for general corporate purposes.  In that reasoning, the company listed “working capital, capital expenditures, research and development expenditures, commercial expenditures, acquisitions of new technologies or businesses that are complementary to its current technologies or business focus, and investments.”

The stock is holding up better than the low price mentioned and shares are down ‘only’ 6% at $1.33 on more than 1.3 million shares so far this morning.  With shares sold at $1.15, it is amazing that the low of the day on the actual market today was only $1.30.  The matter of fact call: Plug Power is selling these shares at a time of severe weakness, and it sold the shares too cheaply even then.

JON C. OGG