Financing in Connection with Aspen's PyroThin® Thermal Barrier Capacity
Expansion
NORTHBOROUGH, Mass., Nov. 29,
2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Aspen Aerogels, Inc. (NYSE:
ASPN) ("Aspen" or the "Company"),
a technology leader in sustainability and electrification
solutions, today announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Aspen
Aerogels Georgia LLC, together with the Company and Aspen Aerogels
Rhode Island, LLC have entered into a definitive loan agreement
with General Motors Holdings LLC ("GM"), an affiliate of General
Motors (NYSE: GM), for a secured lending commitment of $100 million in connection with Aspen's construction and equipping of its
second aerogel manufacturing facility in Statesboro, Georgia. The $100 million of loan proceeds (the "Loan") will
be available to Aspen to draw on a
periodic basis from January 2023
through September 2023, subject to
certain conditions precedent to funding and other financing
requirements. The Loan has a maturity date of March 31, 2025 and carries no prepayment
penalty.
"Aspen is pleased to add this
additional financial dimension to our strong technical and
commercial relationship with GM, a relationship we deeply value,"
noted Donald R. Young, Aspen's President and CEO. "GM's investment
will be dedicated to support the construction of our new,
state-of-the-art aerogel manufacturing facility in Georgia, which is designed to triple
Aspen's nameplate aerogel capacity
in support of our significant growth plans. For over two decades,
we have leveraged our Aerogel Technology Platform™ to bring
sustainability solutions into large, important markets and, we
believe that Aspen's focus on
enhancing electric vehicle battery performance and safety is well
aligned with that strategy."
Mr. Young continued, "We are proud to be a key supplier to GM.
Earlier this year, GM named Aspen
an Overdrive Award winner as part of GM's 30th Annual
Supplier of the Year awards. In addition, Aspen has signed GM's ESG Supplier Pledge,
with a shared vision for a collaborative supply chain that
endeavors to minimize environmental impact and enhance long-term
sustainable electrification." Since signing GM's ESG Supplier
Pledge, Aspen's sustainability
performance was assessed by GM's independent third-party supplier
verification platform, EcoVadis, and in November 2022, Aspen was awarded a Silver EcoVadis Medal for
its overall sustainability scorecard, placing Aspen in the 87th percentile of
companies assessed by EcoVadis.
About Aspen Aerogels,
Inc.
Aspen is a technology leader in
sustainability and electrification solutions. The Company's aerogel
technology enables its customers and partners to achieve their own
objectives around the global megatrends of resource efficiency,
e-mobility and clean energy. Aspen's PyroThin® products enable
solutions to thermal runaway challenges within the electric vehicle
("EV") market. Aspen Battery Materials, the Company's carbon
aerogel initiative, seeks to increase the performance of
lithium-ion battery cells to enable EV manufacturers to extend the
driving range and reduce the cost of EVs. Aspen's Spaceloft® products provide building
owners with industry-leading energy efficiency and fire safety. The
Company's Cryogel® and Pyrogel® products are valued by the world's
largest energy infrastructure companies. Aspen's strategy is to partner with
world-class industry leaders to leverage its Aerogel Technology
Platform™ into additional high-value markets. Headquartered in
Northborough, Mass., Aspen manufactures its products at its
East Providence, R.I. facilities.
For more information, please visit www.aerogel.com.
Special Note Regarding
Forward-Looking and Cautionary Statements
This press release and any related discussion contains
"forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private
Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that involve risks and
uncertainties that could cause actual results to be materially
different from historical results or from any future results
expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, including
statements relating to Aspen's
2022 financial outlook. These statements are not historical facts
but rather are based on Aspen's
current expectations, estimates and projections regarding
Aspen's business, operations and
other factors relating thereto, including with respect to
Aspen's 2022 financial outlook.
Words such as "may," "will," "could," "would," "should,"
"anticipate," "predict," "potential," "continue," "expects,"
"intends," "plans," "projects," "believes," "estimates," "outlook,"
"assumes," "targets," "opportunity," and similar expressions are
used to identify these forward-looking statements. Such
forward-looking statements include statements regarding, among
other things, Aspen's ability to
meet the conditions precedent to funding and other financing
requirements needed to draw on the $100
million loan from GM; Aspen's expectations about capacity, revenue,
backlog, costs, expenses, profitability, cash flow, gross profit,
gross margin, operating margin, net loss, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted
EBITDA margin and related decreases, improvements, timing,
variability or trends; beliefs about higher than expected demand
from automotive original equipment manufacturer ("OEM") customers
and how they may enable path to profitability, expectations about
improvement in ability to absorb fixed costs and reduction of
conversion costs as a percentage of sales and the same leading to
target gross margins; beliefs about the general strength, weakness
or health of Aspen's business;
acceleration in demand; demand increase from OEM customers for the
remainder of 2022, energy industrial demand book acceleration for
the remainder of 2022, level of penetration in the EV market,
growth in energy industrial markets; beliefs about current or
future trends in the energy, energy infrastructure, chemical and
refinery, liquefied natural gas ("LNG"), sustainable building
materials, EV thermal barrier, EV battery materials or other
markets and the impact of these trends on Aspen's business; beliefs about the strength,
effectiveness, productivity, costs, profitability or other
fundamentals of Aspen's business;
beliefs about the role of Aspen's
technology and opportunities in the EV market; beliefs about
Aspen's ability to provide and
deliver products and services to EV customers; beliefs about
content per vehicle, revenue, costs, expenses, profitability,
investments or cash flow associated with Aspen's EV opportunities, including the EV
thermal barrier business; beliefs about revenue growth and
profitability; beliefs about the performance of PyroThin® including
its ability to mitigate the propagation of thermal runaway in EVs;
beliefs about Aspen's ability to
expand the market for PyroThin, to achieve design wins, to commence
shipments of production parts, and to become an industry standard
solution for thermal runaway management; beliefs about Aspen's thermal barrier design, prototype,
quoting and assembly activities; expectations about the cost of the
capital projects, including Plant II, expectations about the timing
of commissioning of Phase I of Plant II in the first half of 2024;
beliefs about our Mexico parts
fabrication facility and its operations, ability to timely meet
demand, the growth in thermal barrier demand to match the parts
fabrication operation and vice versa; ability to shift operations
from East Providence, RI to
Mexico in a timely manner. All
such forward-looking statements are based on management's present
expectations and are subject to certain factors, risks and
uncertainties that may cause actual results, outcome of events,
timing and performance to differ materially from those expressed or
implied by such statements. These risks and uncertainties include,
but are not limited to, the following: inability to execute the
growth plan through 2025, inability to complete construction and
commissioning of Phase I of Plant II and reasonably within budget
in a timely manner, or at all, inability to manage supply chain
disruptions to avoid undue delay or impact on operations or
construction of Plant II and Mexico fabrication facility, inability to
create new product, partnership and market opportunities; any
sustained downturn in the energy industrial prices; any sustained
downturn in the energy, energy infrastructure, chemical and
refinery, LNG, sustainable building materials, EV thermal barrier,
EV battery materials or other markets due to the coronavirus
pandemic, COVID-19 or any other factor; any failure to sustain
project-based demand in the subsea, LNG, on-shore or other markets;
lower demand than expected from OEM customers, in particular during
the remainder of 2022; the contractual the right of automotive OEM
customers to cancel contracts with Aspen at any time and without penalty; any
costs, expenses, or investments incurred by Aspen in excess of projections used to develop
pricing under the contracts with automotive OEM customers; any
failure of Aspen or PyroThin to
meet contractual specifications and requirements under contracts
with automotive OEM customers; Aspen's inability to create customer or market
opportunities for any of its products, including PyroThin; any
other battery performance and safety products, battery materials or
other new products developed from Aspen's aerogel technology; any disruption or
inability to achieve expected capacity levels in any of our three
existing production lines in East
Providence, RI or the Mexico fabrication facility, including due to
the coronavirus pandemic, COVID-19 or any other factor; any
inability to expand manufacturing capacity in a second
manufacturing facility in Bulloch County,
Georgia or at any other location; any inability to establish
or timely establish thermal barrier assembly operations in
Mexico or any other location; the
failure to receive all applicable regulatory or other approvals
required to operate, maintain or expand any of Aspen's facilities; any failure to achieve
demand for Aspen's products; any
failure to achieve expected price increases or average selling
prices for Aspen's products; any
significant increase in the cost of raw materials, utilities or any
other manufacturing consumable; shortages of raw materials,
utilities or any other manufacturing consumable due to the
coronavirus pandemic, COVID-19 or any other factor; the failure to
generate sufficient operating cash flow or to obtain significant
additional capital to pursue Aspen's strategy; any failure to timely raise
sufficient capital to fund various capital projects; the failure of
Aspen's products to become widely
adopted; the competition Aspen
faces in its business; any failure to enforce any of Aspen's patents or other intellectual property
rights on a global basis; any failure to protect or expand
Aspen's Aerogel Technology
Platform™; any future finding of invalidity of any of Aspen's patents in any jurisdiction; any
failure to generate sufficient operating cash flow or to obtain
sufficient additional capital to continue to pursue Aspen's new business, technology, patent
enforcement, or patent defense strategy; any failure of
Aspen's products to meet
applicable specifications and other performance, safety, technical
and delivery requirements; the general economic conditions and
cyclical demands in the markets that Aspen serves; the economic, operational and
geopolitical risks associated with sales and expansion of
operations in foreign countries, including Mexico; the loss of any direct customer,
including distributors, contractors and automotive OEMs; compliance
with applicable health and safety laws and regulations; the
maintenance and development of distribution channels; and the other
risk factors discussed under the heading "Risk Factors" in our
Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021 and filed with the Securities
and Exchange Commission ("SEC") on March 1,
2022, as well as any updates to those risk factors filed
from time to time in our subsequent periodic and current reports
filed with the SEC. All statements contained in this press release
are made only as of the date of this press release. Aspen does not intend to update this
information unless required by law.
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SOURCE Aspen Aerogels, Inc.