In short: Up 6.5% after beating expectations; reiterated neutral at Canaccord. Ethridge owns it: "it is my only eVTOL play at this point. I was in Archer as well — I got out of Archer, consolidated into Joby. I think this will be the first one to truly commercialize eVTOLs and they are way ahead of the field." The commercial bridge is what he likes: last year's acquisition of Blade (the helicopter service between Manhattan and the airports/Hamptons) "brought in $120 million-plus annual revenue, and revenue becomes really important when you're funding massive CapEx to launch this fleet." Toyota has a joint venture and an equity stake; he expects the air-taxi service off the ground in Dubai and Abu Dhabi by year end, ultimately coming to the US. His caveat is explicit: "I don't think this is the type of company you should invest in if you need earnings and dividends, because you ain't going to see either one for a very long time. But as a spec, this is one of my favorite plays."
Joby is building electric aircraft that take off vertically like a helicopter — "eVTOLs" — for short urban air-taxi hops. Malcolm Ethridge owns it as his only bet in the category, having sold rival Archer and consolidated into the one he thinks reaches commercial service first.
What separates it from a pure story stock is that it bought revenue. Last year Joby acquired Blade, the existing helicopter service that flies people between Manhattan, the airports and the Hamptons, adding $120 million-plus of real annual sales — useful, because building an aircraft fleet consumes cash. Toyota has both a joint venture and an equity stake, and he expects paying passengers in Dubai and Abu Dhabi by year end.
He labels the risk honestly: "I don't think this is the type of company you should invest in if you need earnings and dividends, because you ain't going to see either one for a very long time. But as a spec, this is one of my favorite plays."
In short: Q&A (JOBY at $7 or below): would not buy — it burns ~¾B a year, runs out of excess cash over the next three years, and isn't forecast to generate positive EBITDA until past 2030. Prefers the big defense primes and AVAV.
Asked whether to buy the flying-taxi maker Joby at $7 or below, Singh says no. It burns roughly three-quarters of a billion dollars a year, will run through its spare cash within about three years, and isn't expected to even reach positive operating profit until after 2030. He'd rather own the big defense companies or AeroVironment among the beaten-down growth names.
Full passage: premium transcript (PDF).
In short: The cautionary contrast — "crappy businesses addressing sexy topics": eVTOL makers that physically build the flying instrument carry multi-billion-dollar caps with no real revenue and capex-vs-gross-margin question marks even if they scale.
Joby is one of the "flying taxi" (eVTOL) companies physically building electric aircraft. Uzo uses it as the counter-example to his picks: a "crappy business addressing a sexy topic." These names carry multi-billion-dollar valuations with little real revenue, and even if they eventually scale, the heavy cost of building the aircraft versus the thin profit margins is a serious question mark.
The contrast is the point: unlike Joby, Merlin doesn't manufacture the hardware — it sells software that retrofits onto planes others already built, which he thinks is a far better business model.
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