Neil,
Both Carlton Lutts and PRST know of my views... I talked to
Carlton Lutts today... he does'nt want to hear any of the
negative possibilities in the future. Carlton Lutts heard my
questions at the annual shareholders meeting... but I bet that
the readers of his newsletter did not. There is not one shread
of other future technological possibilities outlined in his newsletter, except that of the great future ahead for
Presstek....
Doesn't that worry anyone?
I was at the shareholders meeting in NY on Tuesday afternoon..
I got off only two questions.... which they confirmed the
Processless thermal phase-change material will be a competitive
process in the future. The material is available today from
3M Company.... not sometime in the future... This process and
the material will be on a press in the 3rd quarter of 1997.
Other press manufacturers such as Man Roland of Germany will
have a competing press to the Heidelberg QM-DI in Q1 of 1998.
It will probably be shown at Graph Expo in Chicago, in October
1997. This is not fiction.
The second item concerned the production rate and number of
machines deployed to date. There were four engineering protos
installed in 1995 and six, three in the USA and three in Germany,
installed in 1996. There were no new presses installed in May as
Heidelberg USA is still waiting for their shipment to arrive. The production rate is low, around 10 per month. PRST shipped 180 diode kits in the first quarter '96. My question stated this, then I asked
since they had shipped 180 kits and only 6 presses were made, would that make Heidelberg cut back on orders to Presstek, understanding
that only ten or so machines were being made per month.....
Their response was.... where did you get that information.... because
they claimed to not have that information.... Earlier people had
asked for that information at the meeting. Presstek directed them to call Heidelberg in Atlanta, because they could not release that kind of information.... I had the information there... They were upset that I had the information that they had told other people to go get....
and they did not want it passed on the the shareholders...
One can ask why?
Hey, my knowledge is not unique.... I'm just a leading edge printer
that has to compete against the likes of RR Donnelly. I have to
stay up on the trends in the industry...and equip my plant to produce
at the most productive level possible.
I can tell you that people in companies dealing in Press imaging
or PrePress industries, know what is coming in the future... I
think that could be a reason why the insiders are selling stock into this momentum. They probably won't be able to do it after October '97.
After the question and answer session was abruptly ended last
Tuesday, I had many people come up and ask advice. Everybody
was scared... Some people had all their 401K money... others
had all their retirement money tied up in PRST stock. I could
not advise them what to do... except to tell the facts as I
know them to be. In an investment class that I had back too many
years ago... the idea was risk management. To have atleast
15 stocks in the portfolio... not one as many do.
Your thoughts? |
