Shanu Matthew, a public markets portfolio manager focused on clean energy equities, offers market analysis on equipment suppliers versus utilities. He explores why kit makers have surged while utilities lag. The conversation covers hyperscaler-driven data center demand, speed-to-power hardware like fuel cells, and emerging tech such as SMRs and enhanced geothermal.
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volunteer_activism ADVICE
Prioritise Durable Cash Flows Over Binary Bets
Focus on durable tailwinds and businesses with strong cash flows rather than binary policy bets.
Avoid overexposure to areas where you cannot develop an informational edge like commodity or trade-policy timing.
insights INSIGHT
Kit Makers Outrun Utilities
Equipment manufacturers and utilities are diverging sharply in performance.
Suppliers (turbines, engines, service) benefit from immediate pricing power; utilities see slower, regulated earnings.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Buy Installed Base And Service Revenue
Seek installed-base and service-led businesses because they generate recurring, higher-margin revenue.
Prefer suppliers of data-center related cooling and power distribution where visibility and margins are stronger.
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Clean Energy equities have comfortably outperformed the major indices in 2025.
Laurent and Gerard are joined by friend of the show Shanu Mathew, an equity portfolio manager everyone in the sector knows to unpack what’s really driving this performance.
We begin by putting recent returns into a longer-term context — and by flagging an important caveat: some of the strongest results are coming from highly concentrated portfolios.
Shanu makes a critical distinction that often gets blurred in market commentary: equipment providers versus sellers of electrons. On one side sit companies like GE Vernova, Siemens Energy, Schneider Electric, Caterpillar — and the surprise guest, Bloom Energy. On the other are utilities and IPPs. The divergence is striking. Equipment manufacturers have gone ballistic; utilities have performed, but at a far more pedestrian pace.
The difference, unsurprisingly, is pricing power. Equipment suppliers — particularly those insulated from Chinese competition — have been able to push through aggressive price increases, turbocharged by surging demand from Hyperscalers. Utilities, by contrast, remain constrained by regulation, public scrutiny, and political pressure.
The result? Hyperscalers are increasingly looking to self-generation: reciprocating engines, fuel cells, and a growing enthusiasm for frontier technologies such as Enhanced Geothermal and Small Modular Reactors.
We walk through these alternatives, examine how public markets are valuing them today, and end where every cycle eventually leads us: Are we in a bubble? Or, as Chuck Prince, then CEO of Citigroup, famously put it on the eve of the 2008 financial crisis: “As long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance.”
Redefining Energy