4. Clean Energy Fuels Corp. (NASDAQ:CLNE)
Share Price Performance Since July 2021 Start: -76.04%
Number of Hedge Fund Investors In Q1 2024: 20
Clean Energy Fuels Corp. (NASDAQ:CLNE) is a California based company that provides natural gas infrastructure to power up vehicles such as trucks. It is also one of the few companies of its kind that not only provides natural gas for transportation but also provides renewable natural gas derived from animal waste. This means that while Clean Energy Fuels Corp. (NASDAQ:CLNE) enjoys significant competitive advantages and low competition, it has to create its own industry. This requires investment, and despite being in business for years, Clean Energy Fuels Corp. (NASDAQ:CLNE) has mostly operated at a loss. The stock came at the center of the meme stock mania in June 2021 when its shares soared by 29% after data showed its popularity on internet boards. CNBC’s Jim Cramer initially tweeted that Clean Energy Fuels Corp. (NASDAQ:CLNE) had “had no real revenue growth and almost no profitability in a decade” but later shared that perhaps the firm’s time had come after mentioning its deals with big ticket names like Amazon. After the mania was over, the stock declined by 8% in August. This followed a 17% drop in June after the retail buying as the market learned that Clean Energy Fuels Corp. (NASDAQ:CLNE)’s largest investor, oil mega giant Total, had sold ten million shares.
Amidst years of struggles, Clean Energy Fuels Corp. (NASDAQ:CLNE)’s management shared some progress on its market prospects during the first quarter earnings call when it highlighted:
It pleases me to say that we kicked off 2024 with a strong first quarter. Our base business of fueling fleets, constructing and maintaining stations for those fleets, and providing other services that keeps trucks, shuttles and buses operating on a clean fuel performed well. We also made good progress in our business of developing renewable natural gas dairy projects. I’ll expand with a few more details on both in a moment. The 8.6% year-over-year growth in RNG fuel volumes is a testament to the stability and growth in our base business. In addition, it reflects the significant RNG volume that is now flowing through the new state-of-the-art fueling stations that we have built and opened over the last two years, where we have an anchor customer in Amazon.
We are also seeing other vehicles begin to fuel at these stations, which helps our fuel margins. As always Bob will give you more details about our financial results, but I would be remiss in not calling out the $12.8 million in adjusted EBITDA for Q1 compared to minus $4 million of Q1 of last year. The significant upswing is attributed to the growth in our core business that I just mentioned, as well as circumstances which we found ourselves during the beginning of last year with historically high natural gas prices in California that impacted our bottom line. Our balance sheet remains strong with almost $250 million of cash and investments on hand. And you should see continued, improved adjusted EBITDA results through this year. I’d like to take a moment to address the environmental credit situation because I think some might tie the ups and downs of those prices a little too tightly to our overall business.
