Crespo's First AGM: Plug Power Races to Close $142 Million Gateway Sale as Stock Tumbles
11.06.2026 - 16:05:11 | boerse-global.de
Jose Luis Crespo faced his first annual general meeting on Wednesday afternoon, stepping into the spotlight less than three months after taking the CEO reins from founder Andy Marsh. The timing could hardly be more fraught: Plug Power's stock has shed roughly a fifth of its value in the past seven days, and the company is staring at a critical end-of-June deadline to close a major asset sale that would channel up to $142 million into its balance sheet.
The Gateway project in upstate New York is the centrepiece of a broader monetisation drive. Plug Power intends to complete the divestiture by June 30, 2026 — a full year away, but the first real test of a strategy that prioritises extracting cash from existing assets over issuing new shares. Management has set a target of pulling in more than $275 million from asset sales during 2025, a figure that includes the Gateway transaction and other disposals still in the pipeline.
That approach is already showing results on a smaller scale. Earlier this month, the company sold a bundle of federal tax credits for roughly $39.2 million, proceeds tied to the St. Gabriel hydrogen liquefaction plant in Louisiana, a joint venture with Olin Corporation. A similar credit transfer was completed in January. The US tax code for clean-energy projects permits such sales, allowing Plug Power to convert non-cash incentives into liquidity without diluting equity.
The newfound discipline comes as no surprise to those who have watched Plug Power’s cash burn. The first quarter consumed about $150 million in operating cash, leaving the company with $802 million in liquid assets at the end of March. Crespo’s explicit goal is to reach positive EBITDA by the fourth quarter of 2026 — a timeline that hinges on whether the Gateway deal and other asset sales close on schedule.
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On the operational front, the Barrow project in the UK has just reached its final investment decision. Plug Power will supply six electrolysers, each with five megawatts of capacity, to produce 100 gigawatt-hours of green hydrogen annually. The offtaker is a local Kimberly-Clark facility, a deal that promises to cut thousands of tonnes of CO? emissions each year. While the project is a win for execution, it does little to ease the immediate cash pressure.
At the AGM, Crespo will also face questions about Plug Power’s push into the power-supply market for AI data centres. Hydrogen as a fuel for energy-hungry server farms is no longer a distant prospect, and capturing even a slice of that market could deliver the high-margin revenue needed to meet the 2026 profitability target. Analysts will be listening for concrete progress.
The stock’s technical picture adds to the tension. After hitting a 52-week high of €3.72 on June 2, the shares slid to €2.47 by Wednesday’s close — a decline of roughly 20% in seven trading days. Yet the longer-term trend is not broken: the price still sits about 13% above the 200-day moving average of €2.18. The 14-day relative strength index has fallen to 35.6, a level that typically signals oversold conditions. Whether that marks a base or merely a pause before another leg lower is the question hanging over the meeting.
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Analysts remain cautiously constructive. B. Riley recently lifted its price target to $5 and reaffirmed a buy rating, citing lower service costs and improving gross margins. The broader consensus target stands at €3.13, implying roughly 27% upside from Wednesday’s close. But those numbers are contingent on the company executing its asset-sale strategy without stumbling.
Crespo’s AGM debut is thus more than a procedural event. It is the first public test of a leadership transition that swaps expansion-for-its-own-sake for a hard-nosed focus on cash generation. The Gateway sale deadline is the first milestone in that shift — and with the stock under heavy selling pressure, the market will be watching closely to see whether the new boss can turn promises into profit.
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