Clean technology underperforms market by 15 per cent in 2010, bank says

1 April 2010

Since the start of the year, clean technology has been under performing the market by about 15 per cent, according to analysis by Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Steven Milunovich, US renewable energy analyst Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said it has been a difficult year for clean technology and going forward, growth in the sector may not be coupled with profitability.

‘Clean technology stocks performed very well in 2007 and 2008 when there was a lot of issuance in the wind space. But in 2009, our index was down 60 per cent versus the market,’ he said, on a conference call.

‘It has been a very difficult year with clean technology underperforming the market by 15 per cent.’

Milunovich said he is not concerned with the sector’s ability to grow but it needs to focus on ensuring revenues going forward.

‘We are going to have growth, I am not concerned with this over time. What I am concerned about is profitability,’ he said.

Milunovich said it has been hard for funds focused in this space, particularly in Europe, but the market dominance of private companies in the clean technology space over those that are publicly-listed is an encouraging sign for the growth of the industry.

‘It will be very interesting to watch these companies go public because when they do it will be very similar to when Amazon did and people asked whether it was an internet company or a retailer.

‘Would a service materials company be a building firm or a clean technology company? They clearly want to be viewed as a clean technology one.’

The bank estimates the global market capitalisation of companies in this space is about $200bn, roughly the same size as google, with annual revenues of $100bn.

Copyright © 2010 NewNet

Tags: clean technology

This story was published on Thursday, April 1st, 2010 at 3:29 pm and is filed under Europe, North America, companies, energy efficiency, geothermal, solar, wind. You can follow any responses to article entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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