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Shares in Ceres Power Holdings PLC fell heavily on Thursday after a scathing attack from activist short-seller Grizzly Research. In a report, Grizzly Research said Ceres is ‘hiding a flawed business model with abysmally small revenue potential behind a facade of big-name announcements and lofty projections.’ In response, shares in the Horsham, England-based clean energy technology developer traded 7.6% lower at 285.20 pence each in London on Thursday. They had earlier traded as low as 260.65p. Grizzly, which has recently targeted Trustpilot Group PLC and Hellofresh SE, said its research shows that Ceres has a history of ‘ambitious partnerships and unrealistic projections that keeps repeating’. ‘Past partnerships with Bosch, Nissan or Honda were loudly announced but failed miserably. Past ambitious revenue projections were also quietly removed from investor presentations,’ it added. ‘Based on our expert interviews as well as the company’s own past commentary, we found that revenue potential is only a fraction of what investors believe,’ the report continued. The report noted that Ceres stock price skyrocketed on the announcement that Doosan Fuel Cell finally started mass producing and commercialising their fuel cell stacks and systems using Ceres solid oxide fuel cell technology. But Grizzly said it found that Doosan is already struggling to find customers for its current 50 megawatt manufacturing capacity. More than four months after mass production began, Doosan has a single 9MW order for their SOFC product, and it comes from a related party, the report noted. Grizzly Research said a core issue in Ceres’ business model is that it shifts all product R&D, industrialisation, and capital requirements onto partners, ‘a strategy that has failed for over a decade.’ This sits alongside ‘other flaws’, the short-seller claimed, including the technology’s reliability, maintenance and serviceability challenges, limited market size, and total dependence on licensees. ‘Ceres has never generated material royalty revenue and, in our view, will not do so in the foreseeable future. The business survives on one-off licensing and engineering fees,’ Grizzly suggested. ‘In conclusion we believe that Ceres is a flawed business model as a public company. The announcements that catapulted Ceres’ market cap by hundreds of millions GBP will likely turn out to yield only minuscule earnings as the stock fades away into obscurity,’ it added. Copyright 2025 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
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