Controlled Thermal Resources
Definitive (DA signed)Pre-revenueEnergy · geothermal power and lithium extraction · Imperial, California, United States
- What it is
- Single-asset, phased project developer. Two wholly owned subsidiaries - American Data Power (geothermal baseload electricity, targeting powered sites for co-located AI/hyperscale data centres) and American Critical Resources (lithium carbonate/hydroxide, potash, zinc, manganese and other critical minerals extracted from the same geothermal brine). Future revenue would come from power sales/PPAs and mineral offtake; today there is none.
- What it’s doing now
- Merging with Plum IV (PLMK) — definitive (da signed), announced Mar 8, 2026; expected close H2 2026.
- What you should know
- It reports no meaningful revenue yet — this deal is priced on a story, not on financials. The real share count puts the effective valuation 50% above the announced $3.1B. The deal carries a $100M minimum-cash condition — heavy redemptions can break it.
The business, per its filings
SEC primaryDevelops and operates integrated geothermal power and critical minerals extraction facilities, primarily through its flagship Hell’s Kitchen Project at the Salton Sea in Imperial County, California.
Source: 425, accession 0001213900-26-091868 · extraction confidence: high
What the company says about itself
Web research — not auditedControlled Thermal Resources is developing the Hell's Kitchen project in California's Imperial Valley to produce clean baseload geothermal power together with battery-grade lithium and other critical minerals from a single integrated geothermal brine resource.
- Markets:
- Geothermal / renewable baseload power | Critical minerals extraction and refining | Battery materials (lithium) | Fertiliser (potash) | Data-centre power supply | Defence-critical materials
- Products:
- Clean baseload geothermal electricity | Battery-grade lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide monohydrate via direct lithium extraction | Polymetallics (zinc, manganese) | Potash (KCl) | Cesium, rubidium, boron, barium, strontium
- Customers:
- Stellantis (investor, $100m+ in 2023) | General Motors (strategic collaboration agreement, 2021) | Imperial Irrigation District (power purchase agreement, 2020) | Baker Hughes (field development plan and definitive feasibility study) | Aquatech (DLE process development)
(1) The website names Stellantis and General Motors explicitly as investor/strategic partners; the SEC-filed press release and investor deck only say 'Strategic collaborations and investments with Global Auto Manufacturers and Energy Industry' without naming any automaker, so those relationships are unverified in SEC primary sources. (2) Founding year: the website states 2012; CTR's own Form D (CIK 0001968931) gives yearOfInc 2022 for Controlled Thermal Resources Holdings Inc. and flags it as incorporated within the last five years - the 2012 date refers to the predecessor operating business, not the Delaware registrant that is the merger counterparty. (3) The website cites '0.9 million metric tons of lithium hydroxide monohydrate in probable reserves' for a 30-year Stage 1; the SEC-filed deck cites a much larger '4.1 million metric tons proven and 18 million metric tons probable' LCE figure that it footnotes as sourced from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and expressly states 'Report does not conform to a SEC or CSA standard'. Different bases, easy to conflate. (4) Neither the website nor any SEC filing discloses an employee headcount.
Source: https://www.cthermal.com/ctr · captured Aug 14, 2026 · marketing claims are reported as claims, never merged into the filed figures above.
The deal it’s entering
Controlled Thermal Resources is merging with Plum IV (PLMK), a $173M SPAC currently marked Deal announced and trading at $10.65 against $10.69 in trust per share.
| Headline equity value | $3.1B |
| Effective valuation (all shares) | $4.7B+50% vs headline |
| Sponsor promote | 25% |
| PIPE | ≈ $13M · unsourcedPIPE contemplated but NOT signed at announcement — Plum IV may enter into PIPE Subscription Agreements from time to time before Closing; no size, price, structure or investors stated. |
| Minimum cash to close | $100M |
| Post-close ticker | CTRH |
Structure per SEC accession(s) 0001213900-26-026268, 0001213900-26-024935, 0001213900-26-026265. How to read these numbers: headline vs effective valuation · what a definitive agreement commits
What exactly is being valued, and at what
Three different numbers are all called the deal value
They are not the same fact, and only the last one is what a valuation multiple may be struck on.
What Controlled Thermal Resources on its own is valued at, before a dollar of the SPAC's trust or the PIPE reaches it. This is the price agreed for the business itself.
assumes 0% redemptions
Money the transaction puts INTO the company. It is counted inside the equity value above, which is why it comes straight back out to reach the figure below — nobody pays a revenue multiple for a bank balance.
The combined company net of that cash — what the buyers are paying for the BUSINESS. Every multiple below is struck on this figure and on nothing else.
What that price is, per dollar of sales
Enterprise value ÷ EBITDA — not shown
No EBITDA figure for Controlled Thermal Resources appears in any filing we hold, so no EV/EBITDA multiple is shown. We have not inferred one from a margin assumption — a multiple built on an assumed margin measures the assumption, not the company.
What qualifies these figures
- The equity and cash figures above assume NOBODY REDEEMS — the filing's own assumption, and the most favourable one available to it. Public shareholders in this market frequently redeem most of a trust; at a higher rate both figures fall together and the enterprise value the multiples are struck on does not move.
All figures above are stated in EX-99 investor presentation (August 2026 revision)0001213900-26-091866
EX-99 press release, 0001213900-26-024933: proFormaEnterpriseValueM "approximately $4.7 billion" — the sponsor rounding its own figure. A press release is a party's own claim, not a filed table: any stated capitalisation table supersedes it.
Was this deal done at an expensive or a cheap valuation?
SpacBrain’s read on the price
No multiple can be computed
Controlled Thermal Resources has no meaningful revenue yet, so no multiple is computable — this is priced on a story, not on financials. The deal still values it at $3.34bn.
The company reports no meaningful sales yet, so there is nothing to divide the price by.
Pro-forma enterprise value as filed.
No meaningful revenue in the most recent reported period.
Not computable — the filings show no meaningful revenue for the most recent reported period.
$1 of their sales costs $10.89 on the open market. Median of 2 listed companies we judged a true comparable, which individually run from 8.44× to 13.33×. Their share prices are from 15 August 2026, not today.
What qualifies the figures above
- SLI, LAC, FEAM, ATLX, LAR, PLL, ABAT, TMC, CRML, SDST, IPO-GLDO have no revenue to divide by, so they are shown but left out of the peer median.
- UUUU, MOS shown for context only — not close enough to move the median.
The listed companies it is measured against
| Ticker | Company | Mkt cap | EV / revenue | EV / EBITDA | Why it’s comparable |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SLI | Standard Lithium Ltd. | $569M | — | — | Standard Lithium is the closest listed analogue - a pre-revenue direct-lithium-extraction developer taking brine to battery-grade product through a first commercial-scale plant with a strategic partner, at the same permit-and-finance stage CTR is at; CTR's own deck names it as a comparable.more ▾less ▴ |
| LAC | Lithium Americas Corp. | $1.3B | — | — | Lithium Americas is a pre-revenue US lithium developer constructing a single multi-billion-dollar first-of-a-kind project underwritten by an automaker and federal support - the same single-asset, capital-intensive, permit-driven equity story as Hell's Kitchen.more ▾less ▴ |
| FEAM | 5E Advanced Materials, Inc. | $70M | — | — | Operational comp: Specialty Mining & Metals (NEC); micro-cap ($70m); shares lithium, filed, project, extraction, mineral, stage with the target's own description; no forward EV/Sales published — counted as a peer, excluded from the median.more ▾less ▴ |
| ORA | Ormat Technologies, Inc. | $7.0B | 8.4x | 19.1x | Ormat is the only listed pure-play geothermal power producer and operates plants in the same Imperial Valley resource, making it the direct benchmark for the ~650 MW baseload half of CTR - though it is profitable and in operation, so it brackets the destination rather than the stage.more ▾less ▴ |
| ATLX | Atlas Lithium Corp | $112M | — | — | Operational comp: Specialty Mining & Metals (NEC); micro-cap ($112m); shares lithium, project, minerals, mineral, critical, located with the target's own description; forward EV/Sales 729.3x.more ▾less ▴ |
| SGML | Sigma Lithium Corporation | $1.3B | 13.3x | 540.6x | Sigma Lithium is a deck-named lithium comparable that has crossed from development into production at a similar single-asset scale, giving the clearest read on the re-rating CTR is underwriting.more ▾less ▴ |
| LAR | Lithium Argentina AG | $906M | — | — | Operational comp: Specialty Mining & Metals (NEC); small-cap ($906m); shares lithium, project, mineral, located, operation, used with the target's own description; forward EV/Sales 3.5x.more ▾less ▴ |
| PLL | — | — | — | — | Piedmont Lithium is a US-domiciled lithium developer of comparable market size financing itself on offtake agreements and strategic investment rather than operating cash flow, matching CTR's funding model.more ▾less ▴ |
| ABAT | American Battery Technology Company | $158M | — | — | Operational comp: Specialty Mining & Metals (NEC); micro-cap ($158m); shares lithium, extraction, from, development, integrated, two with the target's own description; forward EV/Sales 14.6x.more ▾less ▴ |
| TMC | TMC the metals company Inc. | $2.3B | — | — | TMC is a pre-revenue polymetallic critical-minerals developer sitting on a very large resource with no production and a valuation driven entirely by permitting and policy tailwinds - the closest analogue for CTR's zinc/manganese/polymetallics stream; CTR's deck uses it as a comp.more ▾less ▴ |
| CRML | Critical Metals Corp | $376M | — | — | Operational comp: Specialty Mining & Metals (NEC); small-cap ($376m); shares lithium, project, minerals, critical, located, development with the target's own description; no forward EV/Sales published — counted as a peer, excluded from the median.more ▾less ▴ |
| SDST | Stardust Power Inc | $30M | — | — | Operational comp: Specialty Mining & Metals (NEC); micro-cap ($30m); shares lithium, power, scale, equipment, from, processing with the target's own description; no forward EV/Sales published — counted as a peer, excluded from the median.more ▾less ▴ |
| IPO-GLDO | Gold Standard Mining Co | — | — | — | Operational comp: Non-Gold Precious Metals & Minerals (NEC); shares revenue, not, but, stage, any, development with the target's own description; no forward EV/Sales published — counted as a peer, excluded from the median.more ▾less ▴ |
| UUUUcontext only | Energy Fuels Inc | $3.6B | 32.1x | — | Energy Fuels is a deck-named US critical-minerals and rare-earth processor benefiting from the same domestic-supply-chain policy push, but it already produces and sells material, so it is a policy-thesis comp rather than a stage-matched peer.more ▾less ▴ |
| MOScontext only | Mosaic Company (The) | $6.9B | 1.1x | 7.5x | Mosaic is the deck's own potash comparable and prices the ~3.0 Mtpa potash by-product stream, but it is a mature multi-billion-revenue fertiliser producer and shares neither CTR's stage nor its scale.more ▾less ▴ |
Which companies belong on this list is our judgement, and the sentence beside each one is the whole of our reasoning — disagree with it and the verdict above changes. Rows marked context only are shown because they are informative, but they are deliberately left out of the median. The multiples come from listed-company data priced Aug 15, 2026; a private target’s deal multiple is not audited the way theirs are.
Common questions
Is Controlled Thermal Resources going public?
Controlled Thermal Resources has a signed merger with the SPAC Plum IV (PLMK), announced Mar 8, 2026. The combined company expects to trade as CTRH. Deal status: Definitive (DA signed).
What is Controlled Thermal Resources's SPAC deal valuation?
The announced headline equity value is $3.1B, but counting every share class — founder promote, PIPE and public shares — the effective valuation is $4.7B, 50% above the headline.
Was Controlled Thermal Resources bought at an expensive or a cheap valuation?
Controlled Thermal Resources has no meaningful revenue yet, so no multiple is computable — this is priced on a story, not on financials. The deal still values it at $3.34bn.
Does Controlled Thermal Resources have revenue?
No meaningful reported revenue in its most recent filed period — the deal is priced on a story and projections, not on financial results. Treat every valuation multiple accordingly.
Educational content, not investment advice.
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