Bob,
The article is not current and certainly not balanced. Hanglas is the company that is commercializing SPD currently. He only made passing reference to them and made it sound as if REFR made the whole thing up. We believe that he must have been fed some misinformation from someone shorting the stock. He didn't even call the MSC individual who is in charge of the project. If he had he would know as we shareholders have know for over a year that MSC opted not to make emulsion but to wait for emulsion suppliers Hitachi and Dainippon to deliver. Hanglas went the other route and makes their own. So now MSC is on hold until the emulsion suppliers finish ramping up (they are doing so. Hitachi was at the Long Beach show talking to InspecTech about film/emulsion). This was really a shoddy piece of DD on Mr. Lashinsky's part but as I said, it appears he was fed some misinformation by someone need to cover over 1 million shares of a stock that is thinly traded.
BTW MSC doesn't even own that division as of today. Bekaert acquired them. Bekaert has partnered with MSC Specialty films since 1998. This was important for us because of the sputtering facilities needed.
Here is the Hanglas announcment. How could a "balanced" article not include any contact with the licensee that announced commercialization and product delivery? Seems very suspect to me:
Press Release
Research Frontiers: Hanglas SPD Inc. Division Expands Production Capacity and Acquires New Factory Devoted to High Volume Production of SPD Film and End Products
SEOUL, Korea & WOODBURY, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 12, 2001-- SPD Inc., a subsidiary of Korea's largest glass manufacturer, Hankuk Glass Industries Inc. (KSC:02000.KS), and Research Frontiers Incorporated (Nasdaq: REFR - news), the developer and licensor of fast-responding SPD light-control technology, jointly announced today that SPD Inc. has acquired a new factory located in Inchon, Korea which will be dedicated exclusively to the production of suspended particle device (SPD) light-control film and a wide variety of end-products using SPD film. Construction of the new factory building has already been completed, with high-capacity equipment expected to be installed, tested, and fully operational shortly. SPD Inc. expects mass production of both SPD film and end-products by this factory to occur this year.
In addition to supplying SPD film to Research Frontiers' other licensees, the new factory intends to produce a wide variety of SPD products under Hanglas' license with Research Frontiers. These products could include SPD ``smart'' windows for automobiles, trains, aircraft, and boats, as well as for residential and commercial architectural window applications, appliances, optical filters, and flat panel information displays including large area displays such as scoreboards, road and traffic signs, digital clocks, and logographs.
Hanglas' SPD Inc. subsidiary expands Hankuk's present SPD production capacity significantly. The new SPD factory will be able to produce about 35 tons per year of the basic SPD materials used to make SPD light-control film. Seong Man Kim, President of Hankuk Glass Industries' Flat Glass Division and a Director of SPD Inc. indicated that ``While we can outsource additional capacity once demand for this factory's production exceeds the capacity of our coaters, we will probably build similar factories in various locations throughout the world to add further capacity to meet the growing demand we see worldwide for SPD film and end products.'' |
