The head of Energy Vault sees the accusations of the short sellers refuted.
(Photo: Bloomberg/Getty Images)
Zurich Energy Vault boss Robert Piconi had to wait weeks to announce the name of the new customer. Now the 50-year-old can report a success: The Swiss-American electricity storage company has received a major order from the US electricity supplier NV Energy.
The Nevada-based power company orders a power storage unit with a capacity of 220 MW from Energy Vault. Construction work is scheduled to begin in the second quarter of 2023 – and to be put into operation by the end of next year.
Energy Vault develops lift storage power plants. Excess energy is used to lift heavy blocks weighing 35 tons up to 100 meters with cranes. As soon as the energy is needed, the concrete blocks are lowered to generate electricity. The company was listed in New York in February through the merger with a stock exchange shell, a so-called Spac, at a billion dollar valuation.
Company from Buffett Reich as a customer
Winning the supplier NV Energy, behind which legendary investor Warren Buffet stands, as a customer is also an important success for Piconi personally: “It is very difficult to convince large companies to publish their name as a cooperation partner,” said the 50-year-old recently in conversation with the Handelsblatt.
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
Energy Vault announced the major order months ago. So far, the deal was known to shareholders as an order from a large western energy supplier.
Energy Vault wants to use gravity to store energy.
(Photo: PR)
This room for interpretation has recently caught the attention of investors who are betting on a fall in Energy Vault shares. At the beginning of December, short seller Chris Drose from Bleecker Street Research published a report in which he accused the company, among other things, of deceiving shareholders with dubious customer orders.
Bleecker Street Research speculated that the 220-megawatt order from a Western utility was a project in Texas that had been canceled. “If it’s a different project, we’ll be happy to update our results,” the report says. The report has not yet been updated after Energy Vault’s announcement. Investor Drose said on request that a further analysis of the NV-Energy deal was necessary.
Deliberate misinformation
Piconi has thus refuted a serious allegation by the short seller. The other allegations are also unfounded, says the head of the company. Among other things, the short seller fueled doubts about Energy Vault’s sales forecast and denounced a stake in a major customer as a circular business.
Piconi described the report as “fundamentally flawed and factually inaccurate”. He is convinced that the short seller is deliberately spreading misinformation in order to profit from a share price crash.
For Piconi, there is also a lot at stake personally in the exchange of blows: With a stake of more than ten percent, he is the second largest shareholder in Energy Vault. His stake is worth over $40 million at the current market capitalization. The largest shareholder with 13.8 percent is the Softbank Vision Fund. Energy Vault co-founder Bill Gross also holds ten percent.
Piconi has extended the deadline for part of its block of shares after which it can sell the paper. He also wants that to be understood as a signal to the many small shareholders.
More: Energy Vault boss contradicts short seller report – and raises counter-accusations.
