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20 Feb 2025
First Take: Ceres Power - Bosch to end partnership with Ceres

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First Take: Ceres Power - Bosch to end partnership with Ceres
Ceres Power Holdings plc (CWR:LON) | 101 -3.5 (-3.4%) | Mkt Cap: 195.4m
- Published:
20 Feb 2025 -
Author:
Ben Bourne | Lydia Kenny -
Pages:
4 -
Following a wider group strategic review, Bosch has released a statement this morning relating to the realignment of its operations and investments in stationary fuel cell power technology and it has informed Ceres of its intention to discontinue its operations relating to the industrialisation and preparation of production of its decentralised power-supply systems based on solid-oxide fuel cell (SOFC). As a result, Bosch intends to end its partnership with Ceres, which began in 2018, in an orderly way.
As part of revised strategic decision, Bosch intends to divest its minority holding of 17.44% of Ceres in an orderly manner. The Bosch Group representative who is a non-executive on the board of Ceres, Uwe Glock, will step down with immediate effect.
The impact of Bosch's decision will have no impact on Cere's consensus expectations for FY25.
Overall, this is a disappointing update. However, we appreciate and recognise that the decision to discontinue the partnership is part of broader strategic review by Bosch and we note that it does not reflect Bosch's confidence in Ceres or its technology. As a reminder, over the last 12-months Ceres reported record order intake of >£110m as a result of 2 new manufacturing partners and an electrolyser system partner (Delta, Denso and Thermax). We see Ceres’ royalty model and Asian / EU positioning as winning attributes given current US politics.
Why partners chose Ceres. Partners chose Ceres to leverage its low-cost, high-efficiency technology based on a steel construct. This operates at an intermediate temperature range, which removes the need for hard-to-source, expensive materials. Furthermore, the flexibility of its licencing model mitigates execution risk and provides tariff risk insulation.
We place our forecasts/TP/Rec under review.