Gevo Files For Public Stock Offering

Biofuels and chemicals maker Gevo has filed preliminary documents for an initial public offering of shares worth up to $150 million with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Englewood, Colo.-based company did not say when it would finalize the filing or how many shares it would offer for sale.

The money Gevo raises would help finance its vision to build a network of fermentation-based biorefineries to produce isobutyl alcohol for gasoline blendstocks, as well as jet and diesel fuels. The firm also envisions converting isobutyl alcohol into a variety of feedstocks for plastics, fibers, rubber, and other polymers.

However, since its inception in 2005, the firm has accumulated a deficit of $50.3 million. Revenues to date have been limited and last year amounted to $660,000, none of it from the sale of isobutyl alcohol and most from government grants and cooperative agreements.

Nonetheless, Gevo has a blue chip slate of investors backing the firm whose technology is licensed from the University of California, Los Angeles, and agriculture giant Cargill. Investors include major clean technology investors Burrill & Co., Khosla Ventures, and the Virgin Green Fund. French oil and gas firm Total invested in the firm in April 2009. In May, German synthetic rubber producer Lanxess invested $10 million in Gevo and inked an agreement to jointly develop a renewable route to isobutene used to make butyl rubber, which is used to make tires.

To get its commercialization plan underway, Gevo signed an agreement earlier this month to acquire its first large-scale production facility from Agi-Energy in Luverne, Minn. (C&EN, Aug. 16, page 13). In its SEC filing, Gevo said it would spend $22 million to retrofit the ethanol plant to produce 18 million gal of isobutyl alcohol annually by 2012.

Ultimately the firm says it plans to bring its annual capacity for isobutyl alcohol up to 500 million gal. It also claims that it is in discussions to buy additional ethanol plants and form joint ventures with other ethanol makers to achieve that goal.

Confident of its success, Gevo noted in its preliminary prospectus that it had laid the ground work to sell "significant quantities of renewable jet fuel," to United Airlines. Japanese fiber and polymer maker Toray Industries, Gevo says, has talked to it about purchasing isobutyl alcohol-based p-xylene, a polyester raw material.