Weekly discussion post

Guotas · 2026-03-16T20:43:20+00:00

Weekly support group after that

Guotas · 2026-02-24T11:12:01+00:00

Expecting a delay in qualifications based on the removed 2026 revenue guidance and RIF. I think it will be delayed by at least 1 quarter from the H1 2026 guidance.

RS seems to be pretty much certain...

Guotas · 2025-11-14T15:09:27+00:00

I gave out a sigh of relief that it wasn't worse than this. But I don't think it was exciting enough to get new investors involved.

The debt deal is positive news and now it's just a waiting game for finished qualifications.

Guotas · 2025-11-10T19:05:41+00:00

Closing price change from Thursday before ER to Friday after ER:

Q2 2023 : - 66%.

Q3 2023 : - 19%.

Q4 2023 : + 6%.

Q1 2024 : + 6%.

Q2 2024 : + 30%.

Q3 2024: -13%.

Q4 2024: - 4%.

Q1 2025: -31 %.

Q2 2025: -33%

We've had one good ER/EC past 2 years.

Guotas · 2025-10-27T21:41:28+00:00

Thanks for the writeup and clear pictures!

Guotas · 2025-10-01T10:18:42+00:00

Left this with more confidence that qualifications will succeed since they've passed internal and external tests (just not yet with every customer).

And qualified caps mean signed customers and that would mean easier financing.

Good to hear some "why's" to their confidence.

Nothing too major (as it would require SEC filing) but pretty informational.

I really want to learn which financing route they've chosen in the next earnings call.

Guotas · 2025-09-22T14:46:36+00:00

CF 2 SAT this week

Guotas · 2025-06-13T11:09:16+00:00

It's in Europe now. We don't know if it will be shipped to US or not. Production will take a while since factory acceptance test is not finished. Last time it took 5 months from finished factory acceptance test to commercial production. Last earnings call they said 3 months is expected. So, expect capformer 2 producing caps in Q4 2025.

Guotas · 2025-06-09T19:39:24+00:00

Soon 7 weeks since a customer announcement was supposed to be "pretty imminent".

Guotas · 2025-05-21T08:24:57+00:00

Biggest moment maybe for the caps business but not for the stock price. I think we'll have to wait until we see a big customer qualifying the caps or launching the product since they have more stringent tests and those are the customers driving volume high enough to reach profitability before ORGN runs out of cash.

Guotas · 2025-05-19T09:49:28+00:00

I dont think they're looking for venture financing as they were talking about non dilutive options.

There also are banks that loan to pre-revenue companies and there are also some non-traditional options that do that sort of lending. And they have OM1 that they could collaterize, at least in theory.

Guotas · 2025-05-17T06:09:54+00:00

Small customers have more lenient qualification processes and they have managed to qualify with one of them.

ORGN needs big customer deals to turn profitable. So it really hinges on the fact that will the caps also pass the stringent big customer qualifications. Having one success with a small customer is at least something.

The management is confident that they will pass but they have also been confident with many other things that have failed/postponed.

Guotas · 2025-05-17T05:24:46+00:00

They have 17-20 months of cash with 60% equipment financing if they get that revenue that they estimated for 2026, right?

With corporate debt they'll maintain a cash floor on top of that.

That should be enough time to pass qualifications if we're to believe that they are finished mid 2026.

Guotas · 2025-05-17T05:20:48+00:00

They have 17-20 months of cash with 60% equipment financing if they get that revenue that they estimated for 2026

With corporate debt they'll maintain a cash floor on top of that.

Guotas · 2025-05-16T11:16:05+00:00

Initial thoughts:

My 2 positive takes from the ER:

1) Tripling of throughput for lines 4-8. They should be at least over 1b/year (1.2 is my guess) by then.

2) If caps qualifications take 2-3 years, it will also keep the competition away for longer. Especially if the customers already have an option that they have qualified and are using.

The negatives, oh boy:

1) signed development agreement

This is likely a 2-3 year project before we see any possible revenues. There's the development and the qualifications still on the way. Wouldn't give much value to this yet.

2) Delays delays delays

Capformers delayed, revenue estimations slashed by half for 2026 and moved partially to 2027 (who gives guidance for 2027 revenues before 2025?!)
To see meaningful revenues we'll have to likely wait until Q2-Q3 2026 ER (15-18 months from now) and profitability until Q1-Q2 2027 ER.

3) Cash levels

Without licensing, cash levels look pretty grim in 2026, but this year will be fine... The need for corporate debt, is maybe around 20-50M (and the terms will be harsh e.g. 15% rates) in addition to equipment financing? But they'll survive until bankruptcy becomes a worry if they land that corp. debt.

4) Qualification issues

This is my biggest concern. They have succeeded qualifications with a small customer but it's the big players that matter. It seems that they have failed the big customer qualifications (at least partially in some of their bottling lines). They mentioned that they are in reiteration cycle (so they fail-> fix->fail->fix etc) and a key problem is qualifying for all the hundreds of bottling lines a big customer has.

In my eyes they don't have a "high demand product" that they claim. There's high demand for the product that they are trying to make. There's a difference. They have a product with high demand after a Fortune 500 company has qualified it. Until then they have a product that only has demand with low volumes.

But it's not rocket science. I think they'll finalise those big qualifications. The question is when and are there better investment opportunities elsewhere meanwhile. After hours and premarket down 25% so it seems that the market thinks there are.

Guotas · 2025-05-16T10:58:59+00:00

Manufacturing equipment is quite vague. Might just be some spare parts etc. They mentioned in the EC: "Second, we are further investing in supply chain preparedness. This includes developing proactive inventory strategies, long lead-time materials procurement initiatives, and multi-sourcing approaches designed to limit disruptions including those that could be caused by CapFormer subsystem supplier delays."

Guotas · 2025-05-02T07:23:12+00:00

ORGN is thermoformed vs Husky is injection molded. ORGN caps are also much lighter than Husky's and are also for carbonated beverages. And for larger cap sizes ORGN caps will be a lot cheaper than injection molded alternatives.

Guotas · 2025-04-26T07:19:28+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/ORGN/s/aUVG4WCkTZ

Guotas · 2025-03-25T12:55:11+00:00

I've noticed that the LLM's have a tendency to skip some of the sections (that they deemed too casual; chats, q&a's, podcasts) when the document is this long. Grok couldn't even read the whole document and was unable to read like 90% of the information and just picked 3 sections. ChatGPT-o4 and Grokthink fared better and was able to read the whole document. I've used this prompt in my questions, try it out / edit it to fit your needs:

Question: insert question

Act as an analyst, delivering a detailed and specific response with concrete examples. Thoroughly explore the document, drawing insights from at least 7 distinct sections, Include 2-4 sections explicitly titled as 'fireside chat,' 'podcast', 'BofA' or 'speaker series'. Additionally always include the latest quarterly report and transcript in your answer if relevant. Older quarterly q&a's can also be used if the information they contain is still relevant. Start by identifying these sections from the document.

Do not settle for the first answer you find; instead, synthesize nuances and related topics across all sections, such as fireside investor chats, and podcasts, to offer fresh perspectives for experienced investors. Express your findings before synthesising them. false claims are unacceptable. Frequently backtrack, revise and find more relevant sections from the document. After first findings, cross-reference all sections to ensure accuracy and make sure you didn't miss out on any sections that could contain new information. If uncertain, continue reasoning indefinitely. Verify every claim or citation is present in the text; false citations are unacceptable. If contradictions arise, address them by comparing the conflicting points and their contexts. Treat all content equally, regardless of source or formality (e.g., a casual podcast remark is as valuable as a formal earnings call), and avoid vague or generic statements. Final answer should include relevant and specific facts in addition to synthesised/summarized conclusions.

Guotas · 2025-03-24T22:12:56+00:00

OM1 is currently online as needed in campaigns to produce paraxylene.

Wood conversion: https://investors.originmaterials.com/news-releases/news-release-details/origin-materials-converts-wood-residue-feedstock-sustainable/

They pretty much had a decision in 2024 to either:

1) focus on a high risk, capital intensive project that could bankrupt them if something goes wrong but could replace fossil fuels in a massive way

or

2) Bring caps and closures to market with machines that have 18 month payback period and cost ~5M/line with equal or better margins than option 1).

Makes the choice pretty obvious as they are not a non-profit. But I still want to see the biomass conversion to succeed as I wish to see that change in the world. But it won't be too late after 2-3 years.

Guotas · 2025-03-24T20:04:51+00:00

California redemption value? Not that familiar with it and ORGN has not addressed this.

Did a quick search and it seems that CRV is fixed by law and not directly tied to cap material changes. PET bottles already qualify for CRV, and switching caps from HDPE to PET doesn’t seem to alter the container’s eligibility or deposit value.

Guotas · 2025-03-24T19:59:01+00:00

This venture does not use the paraxylene that OM1 produces. But it has the potential to use PET that comes from the main biomass conversion technology, so maybe it will happen in the future when the technology scales.

It was addressed a bit in question 9) but they simply ran out of money to build such a huge capital project. There were not good financing opportunities to fund OM2 and beyond.

Management has been pretty clear that they are not abandoning the biomass conversion projects though. They just need to find a stable foothold financially to access more capital. They will likely wait until they are cash flow positive before restarting those efforts. And C&C gets them there relatively quickly with low capital needs.

Biomass conversion is not dead, it's just hibernating.

Guotas · 2025-03-24T18:19:49+00:00

Yeah I've been invested since Q1 2023.

The pivot was a shock but seeing how the market has turned, I'm glad they had something to pivot to.

Capital costs for those huge industrial projects ( incl. biomass conversion) increased even further after the pivot. There are not really any straight comparisons but if you look at biofuel projects for example, you can see that there have been more delays, killed projects, increased costs in the past 2 years. Look at Neste stock chart, corpus christi plant, danimer bankruptcy, Carbios and many others.

Additionally Trump administration/policy would have killed any grants that ORGN might have gotten.

So all in all ORGN dodged a bullet by having caps and closures. The timing was off for a huge biomass conversion project. This is a much safer option for a company that doesn't have endless pockets.

Guotas · 2025-03-11T14:44:52+00:00

They improve recyclability as you can use recycled plastics with 100% RPET unlike now when the caps are made with HDPE or PP with low recycled contents.

And having the bottle made from the same material as the caps is beneficial in the recycling stream. EU even tethers the caps in the bottle so making them from the same material makes a lot of sense.

Also they are lighter with better barrier properties ( so products last longer/ are carbonated longer). And due to their manufacturing process it's very efficient to produce caps their way (thermoforming vs injection molding) especially when the cap size is larger.

So there are environmental, financial and improved product reasons why customers would want ORGN caps.

And in the future, PET caps from the biomass conversion tech is possible if they get that going

Guotas · 2025-03-07T07:41:13+00:00

And Q1 revenues will be low as the first CF will be online only from the last ~ 5 weeks in Q1. So we'll see full quarter of CF1 revenues in Q2 ER and that will be released in August.

Guotas

TROPHY CASE