BASF, Meta Materials, Siemens Gamesa - Significant acceleration

Market leader with a broad portfolio

One of the favorites to outperform next year could be Canada-based Meta Materials from Dartmouth. This innovative Company has nothing to do with Zuckerberg's Metaverse, even though various investors often confuse it. Instead, this Company is the market leader in metamaterials.

The market for metamaterials is huge, growing at an annual rate of almost 24%. By 2030, the market volume is expected to reach USD 10.7 billion. Metamaterials and materials development strategies focus on structures that create unusual and exotic electromagnetic properties by altering light and radio waves in ways that would be impossible naturally. For a decade, Meta Materials has been successfully researching materials science, offering three core competencies: holography, lithography, and wireless sensing with strong IT networking and artificial intelligence embedding.

Enormous head start

In addition, Meta Materials expanded its portfolio by acquiring Nanotech Security, a company specializing in nano-imprint lithography in the security sector. It also enabled the Company to expand its bulging portfolio of intellectual property rights with a total of 247 patents (154 granted patents and 93 pending applications, including three design applications) in 65 patent families, 44 of which include at least one granted patent. That represents a massive 166% increase in the number of patents compared to the previous year.

The platform is also to be expanded significantly in the coming year, with experts predicting a knowledge lead over the competition of two to three years. With the functional films developed, commercialization could soon start in the 5G communications, medical, aerospace, automotive and clean energy sectors. The stock market value is currently around EUR 719 million, and the Company is still posting high losses. However, this is entirely normal for such a future-oriented industry. Remember Amazon, Google and Apple in the early 2000s?

Division sold

Of course, the chemical company BASF has long since outgrown its growth phase. The DAX-listed Company from Ludwigshafen employs 110,302 people worldwide at more than 390 production sites in more than 80 countries. In 2020, BASF achieved sales of EUR 59.149 billion, making it the world's largest chemical company by sales.

Now BASF is selling an asset to a competitor, specialty chemicals company, Clariant. The Swiss Company has taken over the business with the mineral attapulgite along with a US production site. The USD 60 million purchase is expected to close next summer. In return, BASF has signed a long-term supply agreement. The clay-based substance is used in the production of biofuels, among other things.

Meanwhile, BASF shares are continuing their upward trend. Breaking above the EUR 62 mark would be essential to generate a new buy signal.

End of the slump?

Wind farm manufacturers are currently anything but in demand on the capital markets. The German counterpart Nordex is not getting up to speed despite record orders. Rising production costs are putting pressure on the Hamburg company's margins. The situation is somewhat better at wind turbine manufacturer Siemens Gamesa, a subsidiary of Siemens Energy, based in Zamudio near Bilbao in the northern Spanish province of Vizcaya.

A major order from Iberdrola, a Spanish energy company, could end the slump. According to the deal, Siemens Gamesa will receive maintenance contracts for 1,928 MW at 69 wind farms in Spain and Portugal. The contract runs between three and five years. According to the wind turbine manufacturer, the contracts cover a total of 1,963 Siemens Gamesa wind turbines. With these contracts, the Munich-based subsidiary is consolidating its position as the leading provider of operation and maintenance services for Iberdrola in the region.

New technologies such as cloud computing, Big Data and artificial intelligence are entering the mainstream at an accelerating pace. Meta Materials is a leader in the materials science sector. BASF is on the verge of a buy signal, and the wind could slowly turn at Siemens Gamesa.