ITM Power's Boardroom Share Moves Are Housekeeping — the 150MW Refinery Is the Real Test
Published on 10/23/2026 at 07:20 | Editorial boerse-global.de
ITM Power spent the middle of the week filing paperwork about how it pays its executives. Investors would do better to spend their time on what that paperwork cannot tell them: whether a hydrogen project with a European oil refinery ever becomes a signed contract.
The Sheffield-based electrolyser maker confirmed on Wednesday that 823,529 previously granted options had become exercisable for CEO Dennis Schulz and CTO Simon Bourne. Alongside that, deferred annual bonus awards were granted to Schulz, CFO Amy Grey and Bourne — 141,352 shares for Schulz, 78,271 for Grey and 80,015 for Bourne.
Those are two distinct steps, and neither amounts to a share purchase by management. They are the mechanics of existing pay programmes working through.
What the filings actually add up to
Separately, ITM Power applied to admit 299,638 ordinary shares to trading on AIM, earmarked for option exercises and vesting deferred bonus awards. The company expected the admission to take effect the same day. That figure should not be conflated with the total number of options that became exercisable — the two numbers describe different things.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying ITM Power?
A day earlier, the picture had looked rather different in tone. Schulz exercised 672,516 options across Tuesday and Wednesday and then sold 354,476 shares to settle tax liabilities, leaving him with 517,894 shares. The stated purpose matters: this was a tax-driven disposal following exercise, not a sale without a stated reason, and it says nothing either way about how the chief executive views the company's prospects.
Goldman stays negative
Goldman Sachs, according to media reports, reaffirmed its sell recommendation on Tuesday, citing execution risk, cash burn and valuation. ITM Power shares were down 3.1% on the day. No direct link between the analyst verdict and the price move can be drawn from that alone.
The sell case rests on the same tension the results themselves expose. Preliminary figures for fiscal 2026, published Monday, showed revenue of £43.6 million — up 68% year on year — against an adjusted EBITDA loss of £20.2 million. Cash and equivalents stood at £215.6 million at the year end, a figure that includes a £40.0 million equity investment from Great British Energy.
A hefty cash balance is not the same thing as a profitable business, and that distinction is the one investors keep having to make.
An order book that behaves better than the P&L
The contracted order book came in at ÂŁ144.0 million, of which 83% was profitable by the company's own account. That points to a different quality of earnings inside the backlog than the still-negative adjusted EBITDA for the full year suggests.
ITM Power at a turning point? This analysis reveals what investors need to know now.
Further out, ITM Power flagged roughly a fortnight ago a Hydropulse venture with a European oil refiner — a heads of terms agreement covering a planned 150 MW hydrogen project built on the company's Alpha platform. The parties are working through joint technical front-end planning. A final investment decision is targeted for 2027, with production expected in 2029.
All of that remains forward-looking. None of it is delivered.
So the real divide at ITM Power is not between insiders buying and insiders selling. It runs between the order book and project pipeline on one side, and losses and execution risk on the other. That is the ledger against which the business will be judged.
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