Athena Technology Acquisition (NYSE:ATHN) merged with Heliogen last week, and started trading under the new ticker $HLGN on Friday, Dec 31.
Most likely fueled by 90%+ redemptions, the stock price surged from $10 to $16.35 before settling at $15.52 as shorts scurried to cover on the tiny 2.3M float.
Relaying the most important points here, with some notes:
45.8M additional shares were unlocked on Friday. That’s 20x the post-redemption float.
A June '21 (yes 7 months ago) funding round valued them at 750M. Current valuation is ~2.8B. 1/3 of these shares are reportedly unlocked.
Prior round in Dec 2020 valued HLGN at 80M. All these shares are reportedly unlocked.
They have $42M in cash on hand, and raised another $188M through the SPAC. They project FCF of (242M) by EOY 2023. FCF is (183) in 2024. This cash therefore does not make them self-sufficient; they will need to return to the market.
Here are their presented financials (also from the Tweet above).
In a rational world, this enterprise should be worth an order of magnitude less. In the world we live in, however, given their parabolic revenue projections, guaranteed loss for multiple years, and only an experimental product, some probably see the as the next trillion dollar company.
On balance then, what with all the dilution from unlocking of shares that were acquired at a much, much lower valuation, I can see how the Tweeter generously meets in the middle and calls a $5 PT. It’ll probably go much lower, if what is reported is true.
what are your thoughts as far as identifying a good entry point? maybe given how far it has to fall, at least wait for the actual first real knife (like an hour candle, not a 1 min candle) first?
Im just curious if other brokers have the chain showing all the way to 10 or is it just TD that isnt allowing those strikes yet. I guess my question would be how are those options getting purchased if they are not available?
Hmmm if 45M shares are now unlocked, I don’t see why they wouldn’t unleash them right at open on Monday especially with the stock price at a whopping $16.50 in afterhours.
At one point, HLGN was down almost 30% today, closed down 24%. Pinned to the $10 level, which is interesting given that was the NAV floor pre-deSpac.
Makes one wonder if some kind of backstop agreement is kicking in, though skimming SEC docs didn’t suggest any. Could also be a residual buy-wall that carried over, although surely someone would not be that asleep at the wheels, missing the merger and forgetting to update buy orders that assume the NAV floor, would they?
Volume was 2.6M for the day. If anything close to the 45.8M shares were actually unlocked, this should keep falling for a while yet.
