Our past NLT picks: Where are they now?

Looking back at Moller International, Organic Bouquet, and Xethanol. Plus: 15 other companies we've previously profiled as the Next Little Thing.

Xethanol
Xethanol
FSB first began covering New York City-based Xethanol in 2006 when we caught wind of its efforts to produce ethanol from waste, ranging from wood chips to old pizza boxes ("Fill 'er up with caramel," February 2006). However, an article printed later that year by investor website Sharesleuth.com questioned Xethanol's claims about its technology and the background and conduct of its management team, giving FSB reason to take a closer look at our past "Next Little Thing" company. Sure enough, our writers found that the company had exaggerated its experimental ethanol capabilities and was facing multiple lawsuits from shareholders charging management with making false claims to artificially inflate the stock's price. (Xethanol declined to comment but called the suits meritless in an open letter to shareholders published late last year.)

It's been almost a year since our second look at Xethanol ("Broken promises?," February 2007), and the company is still losing money. Since January the publicly traded company has seen its stock price drop 83% to around 38 cents. Xethanol has generated about $10 million in revenues since January, primarily from the sale of four million gallons of corn-based ethanol produced in Blairstown, but the company's net loss was still $18 million during the first three quarters, due to impairment losses on fixed assets and increased legal and administrative costs.

Ian Horowitz, an alternative energy analyst with Soleil Securities Group, projects the company's revenues to drop slightly from $11 million in 2006 to $10.8 million by the end of 2007. Because of the decrease in ethanol pricing across the board, Horowitz expects the company's total losses for this year to reach $25.5 million, 26% higher than 2006. The company's expenses also remain a point of criticism. Horowitz pointed out that the biotech company has spent more on travel and entertainment ($822,000) than on R&D ($483,000) this year.

In May, Xethanol established a research lab at Virginia Tech that is headed by Foster A. Agblevor, an associate professor in the department of Biological Systems Engineering. Agblevor claims to be on track to produce ethanol out of cotton gin waste by the end of 2008, but only in small multi-liter batches. The thousands of gallons of fuel that the company talks about creating from waste materials seem a ways away. "In my opinion, this company will continue to produce positive press releases trying to keep its head above water while they work through a cash burn situation," says Horowitz. "I've had a sell rating on this stock for a significant amount of time."

Xethanol

Organic Bouquet

Ocean Power Technologies

On Demand Books

Moller International

Migo Software

HyperActive Technologies

Biophan Technologies

Spine Wave

Freedom-2

Parker Boston Group

AbTech

John Fluevog Shoes

Regeneration Technologies (RTI)

LipoSonix

O'Live Spas

True Jeans

Zaiger Genetics
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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.