Ceres Files $100M IPO – The Complete Digest Analysis
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) …In California, energy crop breeder Ceres has filed for a $100 million IPO on Nasdaq, with Goldman Sachs and Barclays Capital as underwriters.
…From the S-1: “We are an agricultural biotechnology company selling seeds to produce renewable biomass feedstocks that can enable the large-scale replacement of petroleum and other fossil fuels. We use a combination of advanced plant breeding and biotechnology to develop dedicated energy crops, that increase biomass productivity, reduce crop inputs and improve cultivation on marginal land.”
…(Ceres CEO Richard) Hamilton told the 450 conference delegates that companies must look to low-rent land for opportunities to produce sustainable biofuels, noting that, for example, salt-intruded fields in represented the most economically advantaged and environmentally sustainable options for producing biomass at scale. Hamilton noted that most projects varied only in choosing between high-rent land and mid-rent land because of limits in the development of new energy crops to date, but said that the new generation of energy crops were making it possible to access low-rent land, that is typically not now in food, feed, fiber or fuel production.
…The company’s IPO leans heavily on its prospects in Brazil, where growers and mills see an opportunity to extend mill operations by up to 60 days via sweet sorghum. READ MORE