Pasadena-Based Solar Tech Company Heliogen Receives Noncompliance Notice from New York Stock Exchange

Heliogen, Inc., a Pasadena-based company that provides AI-enabled concentrated solar energy, said it has received a written noncompliance notice from the New York Stock Exchange, according to a statement on BusinessWire.

The statement reported the notice was sent due to the average closing price of Heliogen’s common stock, which was below $1 per share over the last consecutive 30 trading-day period, reported Heliogen on Dec. 28. 

$1 is the minimum average share price for continued listing on the NYSE.

The company said it intends to respond to the notice within 10 business days.

According to NYSE rules, Heliogen has a six-month period following receipt of the deficiency notice to bring its share price and average share price back above $1. 

During the “cure” period, Heliogen’s shares of common stock will continue to trade on the NYSE as long as the company complies with other requirements for continued listing.

When the average closing price of a company’s listed security is less than $1 over a 30 trading-day period, the company will be considered to be below compliance standards and may be subject to suspension and delisted from the exchange. A company generally has six months to bring its share price and average share price back above $1 but must notify the NYSE within 10 business days of its intent to cure the deficiency.

Heliogen said the NYSE notification does not affect ongoing business operations or its Securities and Exchange Commission reporting requirements.

“Heliogen is considering all available options to regain compliance with the NYSE’s continued listing standards, including the consummation of a potential reverse stock split,” the company said.

A reverse stock split is a type of corporate action that consolidates the number of existing shares of stock into fewer higher-priced shares.

It divides the existing total quantity of shares by a number such as five or 10, which would then be called a 1-for-5 or 1-for-10 reverse split, respectively. A reverse stock split is also known as a stock consolidation, stock merge, or share rollback.

Heliogen Founder Bill Gross

A report by Simply Wall St said Heliogen founder Bill Gross recently bought $50,000 worth of Heliogen stocks for $1 per share. The report said the purchase increased their shares held by only 2.5 percent.

“Notably, that recent purchase by William Gross is the biggest insider purchase of Heliogen shares that we’ve seen in the last year. So it’s clear an insider wanted to buy, at around the current price, which is US$1.08. Of course they may have changed their mind. But this suggests they are optimistic,”  Simply Wall St wrote about the purchase. 

Gross is best known for founding technology incubator Idealab in 1996 in Pasadena after starting a string of tech companies. But in an interview earlier in the fall, he revealed he started selling solar energy kits in 1973 when he was 15. He was in high school and it was a time when gas was being rationed because OPEC imposed an oil embargo against the United States for providing support to Israel in the Arab-Israeli war, CNBC reported. 

“Because I was reading Popular Science magazine, I saw people used to take out little ads in the back,” Gross told CNBC. “And I had $400 of bar mitzvah money leftover, so I took out a small ad in the back of Popular Science advertising ‘Kits and plans to make your own solar concentrator,’ and I started selling them!”

He sold about 10,000 of these plans for $4 a piece in his first foray into entrepreneurship.

Gross wrote about his business when he applied for college, and got into Caltech to study mechanical engineering. He graduated in 1981 when IBM was releasing its first mass-market personal computer. After graduation, he bought an IBM PC and started a 20-year detour into software development.