Contrarian Corpus
short seller research note initial thesis
Undated · 16 pages

ADOMANI ADOM

ADOMANI is an electric-drivetrain reseller founded by convicted felons with zero 2017 revenues against a $69M forecast, yet trading at a $500M cap — White Diamond sees 90%+ downside.

Thesis

ADOMANI (ADOM), an electric-drivetrain 'manufacturer' that reached the public market via a Reg A+ crowdfunded IPO in June 2017, forecast $69M of 2017 sales in its prospectus and has booked exactly zero. The company is effectively a middleman reseller — batteries, motors and drivetrains all come from third parties (GreenPower, Blue Bird, EDI) and its CTO's BS degree is in Finance. Co-founders Dennis Di Ricco and James Rogers are convicted felons with California desist-and-refrain orders for prior securities fraud, yet together control roughly 18M ADOM shares. White Diamond argues the $500M fully diluted valuation is indefensible versus peers (GreenPower $28M, Greenkraft $11M) and will collapse once October 2017 warrant exerciseability and the 180-day investor lockup expire in December, releasing ~50M cheap insider shares — including 21M options struck at $0.10 — into a thin market.

SCQA

Situation

ADOMANI (ADOM) is a Reg A+ crowdfunded electric-drivetrain reseller that went public in June 2017 at $5 and now trades near a $500M-$800M fully diluted market cap despite no meaningful sales history.

Complication

Co-founders are convicted felons barred by California regulators; 'patented' technology is a low-tech kit assembled from third-party parts; 2017 revenues are zero against the $69M prospectus forecast.

Resolution

Short ADOM ahead of October 2017 warrant exerciseability and the December 2017 investor lockup expiry, when ~50M cheap insider shares — including 21M options struck at $0.10 — flood a thinly traded market.

Reward

90%+ downside over six months as forced disclosure of zero revenue and a wave of insider dilution collapse the $500M valuation toward peers like GreenPower ($28M) and Greenkraft ($11M).

The three reasons

  1. 1

    ADOMANI forecast $69M of 2017 revenue in its Reg A+ prospectus and has booked $0

  2. 2

    Co-founder Dennis Di Ricco is a convicted felon under California desist-and-refrain orders

  3. 3

    21M insider options at $0.10 strike become exercisable October 22, 2017

KPIs cited

2017 revenue actual vs. forecast
$0 booked YTD versus $69M forecast in April 2017 Reg A+ prospectus
Fully diluted market cap
~$500M-$800M on 89.5M fully diluted shares
Peer market cap — GreenPower Motor (GPVRF)
$28M (ADOMANI partner with actual electric bus product)
Peer market cap — Greenkraft (GKIT)
$11M (ADOMANI electric-truck partner)
Peer market cap — Blue Bird (BLBD)
$450M on $900M+/yr of actual school-bus sales
Historical revenue
$53K in 2014, $0 in 2015, $68K in 2016 — two converted buses total
Insider share overhang
21,218,612 options exercisable at $0.10/share; 199,659 Boustead warrants at $6.00
2018E projection
$309.7M revenue, $40.5M net income per Form 1-A Exhibit 13.1
Stated pipeline
$275.85M one-year pipeline, of which $150M is 'VWS not identified'
Lockup structure
365-day officer/director/affiliate lockup; 180-day investor lockup + 185-day leak-out

Pattern membership

Where this document fits across the library's 12 rhetorical / structural patterns. Orange cells are present in this deck; neutral cells are not.

Precedents cited

  • Ominto (OMNT) — prior White Diamond short, 78% decline from call to Sept 2017

Composition what's on the 14 slides

Visual + textual elements counted across every slide in this deck. Hover a box for what that element is; click to see every slide in the corpus that uses it.

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Notes

Word-document-style short report with inline screenshots of SEC filings, LinkedIn pages, and the ADOMANI prospectus — no custom slide design. Filename dates the file 2018-04 but body content (e.g. 'Starting on October 22, 2017, insider stock options will be exerciseable') is forward-looking at the time of writing, suggesting the substantive report was drafted in late summer/fall 2017; presentation_date left null due to this ambiguity. Report leans on three mutually reinforcing attacks: (1) criminal histories of Di Ricco, Rogers, and Monfort; (2) revenue-vs-forecast gap; (3) impending supply tsunami from warrants, options and lockup expiry. Cites the prior Ominto (OMNT) short as track-record precedent. Peer comparison is textual, not charted.