Hoku Scientific, a development stage company focusing on the production of components for environmentally friendly electrochemical power devices known as fuel cells, lowered its IPO price range to $8-$9 from $11-$13. The Honolulu, HI based company still plans to issue 4.2 million shares. Piper Jaffray is the lead underwriter on the IPO. At the mid point of the reduced range, Hoku stands to raise just under $30 million from the offering, compared with its prior expectation of $45 million. The deal is now set to price Wednesday evening for trading on Thursday.
Hoku had minimal revenue through December 2004, but booked $2.8 million in its most recent quarter ended March 31, 2005 and generated an operating profit of $1.7 million before stock compensation. All of the company’s revenue to date has been derived from engineering and development contracts with Japanese manufacturers Sanyo and Nissan. The company also recently won a contract with the U.S. Navy for fuel cell power plant prototypes to be tested at Pearl Harbor.
