📢NEWS📢: From "Les Affaires"

$Vision Marine Technologies (VMAR.US)$ Specializing in electric watercraft, Vision Marine Technologies carried out a 15-to-1 share consolidation in late August in order to remain listed on the NASDAQ index. Despite nearly $6 million in support from Investissement Québec since 2021, including $4 million in January 2024, Vision Marine Technologies is experiencing significant difficulties. Specializing in electric watercraft, it carried out a 15-to-1 share consolidation in late August in order to remain listed on the NASDAQ index. However, its stock continues to fall, with losses exceeding $60 million.

The Boisbriand-based company received a warning from NASDAQ last February, when its stock price fell below $1 US ($US) for a period of more than 30 days. She had a six-month period to raise its price.

But in mid-August, Vision Marine's stock was trading around 40 cents US. It had reached a peak of US$15.64 in January 2021. On the first day of trading after the consolidation, on August 22, the stock's value was US$5.70. It quickly began to fall to US$1.75 at the time of writing. Once again, the danger of being excluded from the NASDAQ looms on the horizon, which would be catastrophic for the company, agrees its CEO, Alexandre Mongeon.

"It's unthinkable to be outside the NASDAQ. The customers we have are big American players. Being on the TSX could cause harm to the company."

The latter adds that “short sellers have an incredible impact on the stock. Today, it is easier to get rich with the stock market by betting against companies than by investing in companies,” he says to explain the stock’s disappointment.

Last January, Investissement Québec announced a $4 million private placement in the company, notably for the acquisition of nearly three million common shares at a price of US$1.05.

“With this support, we are supporting the growth of Vision Marine Technologies, and we are ensuring that the head office, decision-making centre and intellectual property are kept in Quebec. Investments of this type are winning for all of Quebec,” former Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon said at the time. In June 2021, IQ this time awarded a direct subsidy of $1.7 million following the adoption of a government decree.

The Ministry of Economy, Energy and Innovation declined Les Affaires’s request for an interview about Vision Marine. Asked whether Quebec could put money back into the company, a spokesperson for the ministry simply replied: “The Ministry of Economy, Innovation and Energy, as well as Investissement Québec, as an agent of the Quebec government, are monitoring the situation closely, but never publicly discuss the talks they have, or could have, with a company.”

Almost empty coffers

According to the financial results for its third quarter of 2024 published at the end of July, Vision Marine has only $341,000 in cash left in its coffers. At the same time in 2023, this amount was $3.35 million.

For the first nine months of 2024, the Boisbriand company recorded a net loss of more than $10 million, and its losses since its stock market debut in 2020 amount to $62 million.

In this latest financial report, which largely reports on its difficulties, Vision Marine Technologies emphasizes that “its revenues may never exceed its expenses.” In addition to the problems it is having in obtaining firm orders for its E-Motion outboard motor (between US$80,000 and US$100,000 per unit), sales of its other boats produced in Quebec as well as its boat rental activities in California and Florida are not enough to keep its finances afloat, despite a new partnership recently signed with the company JetRide.

To date, the CEO says, several million dollars of inventory of its E-Motion systems remain in its warehouses. Other orders delivered have still not been paid. And for now, Vision Marine only owns the trademark of its flagship product. Despite having filed about twenty patents, it does not yet own any for the moment.

“The key,” says Alexandre Mongeon, “is when we can deliver our E-Motion. The small boats that we produce, even if we sell 300 per year, the profits generated by that will never be large enough to cover all of our expenses.”

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