OT: SCCI & Crossy
Below is a post, supposedly by Crossy (I saw it reposted on RB recenty -- I'm not sure when Crossy may have originally posted it) saying nice things about SCCI -- a tiny ($3m revenue) company, but a major supplier of materials for superconduction. It went through a phase of wild volatility earlier this month (up to 29 from single digits), probably just because it has "superconduction" in its name (a word Illinois Superconductor made "hot" again).
Being of small mind, I put in a buy order at night, and next morning it was filled at $12 -- but also by next morning the company had been delisted (its symbol now is SCCIE). I've NOT seen a press release about the delisting before or since. However, I did find an article where the possibility of delisting SCCI was discussed in connection with the general change in listing requirements that affects many NASDAQ clients.
Today SCCIE fell... to little over 4! Or as oft the sages have sung, OUCH!
This is seriously off topic, of course, except for a tangential Crossy connetion. There's no SCCI board on SI, so I'm inviting comments here. I won't make a habit of going OT...
- Charles
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SCCI It's small but actually profitable right now. I like that they have their strength on the materials side of Superconductors, unlike most other major SC plays on major exchanges which are more into wires & vertical markets: IMG, AMSC, CDTS, SCON, ISCO. Last fiscal year, revenues ran around $2 million US-D.
they have 2 divisions:
1) SUPERCONDUCTORS (SMES, power, wire etc.) : superconductivecomp.com Right now they do supply IMG (Amex). Their strengths are proceessing patents for the ceramics side of superconducting and Magnetic SC discs for Flywheels / Gyroscopes & SMES applications
2) TARGET MATERIALS: targetmaterials.com optical coating, thinfilm, laser ablation substrates. This goes straight into fuel cell, solar power and possibly TELECOM applications -> does this ring a bell <g>. This is a non superconductor operation and reflects the fact that SCCI had its origins in advanced ceramics. They had a cooperation with NANX for bulletproof vests. In this process SCCI acquired important capabilities that directly should benefit this division in the future.
I don't really have a target on this one but it could be quite attractive based on its current tiny marketcap. According to the company there are around 800 shareholders holding the stocks in the float as of now. Maybe they should split 1:3 to increase the float to the requirements (for AMEX trading) outlined below and move the stock to the AMEX for which they should qualify : amex.com
regards
CROSSY
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Business First-Columbus January 1, 2000
January 1, 2000
HEADLINE: Firms wrestling with prospect of OTC delisting.
BYLINE: Buchanan, Doug
Some small public companies in Central Ohio have a decision to make this year: whether to stay listed on Nasdaq's Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board.
At issue is whether the companies want to invest the time and money to file regular financial reports with regulators, which would keep them on the more liquid Bulletin Board system. Companies that don't comply, with the new regulations are being delisted and moved to the daily "pink sheets."
The National Association of Securities Dealers Inc., which regulates the Nasdaq stock market and the separate OTC Bulletin Board system, decided in December 1997 to beef up the Bulletin Board's listing requirements so current financial information on listed companies would be available to investors.
"By requiring the half of all (Bulletin Board) companies that currently do not provide publicly available financial reports to join the half that do, we will take a major step toward improving the quality of the microcap market," NASD chief Frank Zarb said at the time.
The more than 6,800 companies on the Bulletin Board had only needed a market maker to be listed on the quotation service. But such ease of entry couldn't be found on the Nasdaq or the New York Stock Exchange, which demanded companies applying for listing meet strict requirements.
NASD began phasing in the regulations after the Securities and Exchange Commission approved them in January 1999. The phase-in schedule:
* The new requirement went into effect immediately for any company first quoted on the Bulletin Board after Jan. 4, 1999.
* Securities already quoted on the Bulletin Board as of Jan. 4 began to be phased in over 12 months beginning in July 1999.
* The phase-in schedule is based on an alphabetical listing of the companies' names and ticker symbols. Companies starting with K-M will fall under the new regulation in January.
* From July through November, 1,975 issuers were reviewed and 61 percent, or 1,195 companies, were delisted from the Bulletin Board.
Tom Cunningham, controller at Sims Agricultural Products Co. in Mount Gilead, said the maker of micronutrients for fertilizers is trying to figure out the costs before deciding whether to meet the Bulletin Board's demands. And the company has to decide soon so it would be able to meet the requirements when "S" companies are phased in next April.
"At this point we're saying: 'What is the benefit for the company, vs. the costs?' And in all honesty, unless we're trying to raise capital, there's really minimal benefit for the company," Cunningham said. "At the same time, a lot of management are shareholders as well. So we're going back and forth on the crazy thing."
Sims expects its annual auditing fees -- without factoring in the quarterly costs -- to increase about $ 10,000 annually to become a so-called "reporting company," Cunningham said
J.R. Gaines, vice president and general manager of Columbus-based Superconductive Components Inc., echoed concern about employee shareholders wanting to keep stock in as prominent a market as possible. Superconductive, an industrial materials developer that posted a $ 13,000 profit on revenue of $ 2.6 million in 1998, places a significant portion of employees' compensation in stock options, he said.
"Almost every person on our staff here has stock or stock options, so the decision ripples through the whole building," Gaines said. "It kind of goes contrary to our philosophy on how we were going to take care of everybody to go delisted."
He said the company will meet the standards by the April deadline, even though the costs haven't been determined.
"There's definitely a big price tag on it," Gaines said. "The problem is we have 900 shareholders who diligently threw their money in with us, and for us to go delisted doesn't reward them for their confidence and investment. So we didn't look at the alternative very hard at all." |
