Buy Questor Technology for Canadian cleantech exposure, this investor says

Investors looking for a way to tap into the clean technology space should be thinking about waste gas combustion company Questor Technology (Questor Technology Stock Quote, Chart TSXV:QST), says Tim Nash, an expert on sustainable investing who claims that at least over the near term, Questor’s technology will be in high demand.

“There’s a lot of waste in our energy sector and [Questor] has found a way to monetize that waste. I think that this company can do very, very well in the short- to mid-term while we’re still relying on those combustion technologies,” says Nash of Good Investing, in conversation with BNN Bloomberg on Thursday.

“What’s going to help them are policies like a carbon tax. As we start to tax the pollution, it makes a lot of these alternatives that much more cost-efficient,” he says. “Obviously, long term I have some concerns if we do shift from combustion fuels towards renewable energy but certainly in the short- to mid-term I think that this is a great way to be able to earn financial returns from helping a lot of companies become more efficient when it comes to energy and water.”

Calgary-based Questor has been on a remarkable run since mid-2017 when its share price was stuck for the better part of a year and a half in the $0.70 range. Since then, the stock has skyrocketed over 680 per cent, this week reaching above the $5.00 mark.

Questor’s earnings have certainly helped. The company finished off 2018 with revenue of $23.5 million, a 20-per-cent increase over the previous year, and a profit of $7.1 million, an 87-per-cent increase over 2017. On Wednesday, Questor released its first quarter fiscal 2019 results which showed a top line growth of 29 per cent to $7.7 million and profit of $2.3 million versus last year’s Q1 of $2.1 million.

“The strong performance in the first quarter of 2019 is a result of great effort by the Company to secure contracts and to continually succeed in accessing new markets,” said President and CEO Audry Mascarenhas, in a press release. “The combination of an increased sales contribution and the Company securing longer-term rental contracts with rate-based incentives has resulted in an 11 per cent increase in gross profit over the same 3-month period in 2018.”

Questor’s share price rose 5.4 per cent in trading on Wednesday and currently sits up 57 per cent year-to-date.