Brisbane-based charging company Tritium loses its spark
Brisbane fast-charging company Tritium may be forced to close its Australian factory and move its headquarters overseas after a dramatic fall from a “double unicorn” $2 billion listing on the Nasdaq two years ago to being issued a show-cause notice last week about its underperformance on the American bourse.
While Australian politicians have fallen over themselves to name-drop the technology company – including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Washington this week – the hard realities of trying to compete in global capital markets have been driven home in the past 12 months.
Tritium chief executive Jane Hunter said the company had world-leading technology. Ryan Stuart
Tritium chief executive Jane Hunter said the company faced some tough choices if it could not secure a strategic capital partner in the next year.
She said her preference would be to remain in Australia – strongly believing in the need to nurture a local manufacturing sector – but the company was likely to be at the mercy of its next major capital partner.
“The fundamentals of the business are good, but the only issue we have is we are undercapitalised, and we have been since the time we listed,” Ms Hunter told AFR Weekend.
“We just didn’t raise enough money in the listing, and it’s been a very difficult market for clean tech since.”
Last month Tritium said it had recorded revenue of $US185 million ($292.4 million) for the 2023 financial year, more than double the level of 2022, as its new factory in Tennessee boosted production. But its financial accounts also reveal high costs have delivered losses over the past three years.
The company reported a gross margin of negative 2 per cent for 2022-23 – a clear sign that costs exceeded sales. However, the
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