Smith Electric Vehicles ipo, 2011. One to watch for in my view. This company, based in Kansas City, Missouri, was set up in 2009 as the US offshoot of a long-established UK maker of electric vehicles, but purchased that UK parent company on January 1st 2011. The UK company has been building battery powered roadgoing delivery trucks for about 90 years, and many thousands of them have remained in use for 30 years or more. So this is no frivolous speculative venture - this is a company that knows what it's doing, with decades of real experience and expertise to call on.
With highway-capable electric trucks being a relatively unfamiliar concept in the USA, the company has decided not to try and service their emerging customer base from one factory, but to set up local assembly/service facilities in 20 states. The next one is about to be announced (Feb/March) and will likely be in California. Media coverage arising from that will almost certainly be the starting point for their pre-ipo publicity campaign. Boss Bryan Hansel has hinted at mid-2011 for the ipo, and I am guessing maybe August - by which time they might have pencilled in suggested sites for factories 3 and 4?
Their initial KC facility is currently delivering about ten trucks a week, mostly to bigname customers. At present they are all the Smith Newton model, which is the world's biggest highway capable electric truck in regular production.
Range anxiety is an issue with electric cars - but not with depot-based fleets of delivery trucks (such as postal fleets and urban parcel fleets), which cover known routes and return to a central base each night, where they can recharge or can swap battery packs.
I already hold a stake in Tanfield Group - the UK company (London ticker LSE:TAN) which previously owned Smith Electric and which, at the moment, retains a 49% stake in the US company. I expect that percentage to be reduced when new stock is offered in the ipo, or in any interim fundraising. But for the timebeing it allows me to benefit from any pre-ipo excitement that might lift Tanfield Group's stock price.
