To All: I heard from a reliable source that a company in England is the licensor of the lithium ion technology utilized by the major conventional (liquid) lithium ion battery manufacturers. My understanding is that this company rakes in something in the range of a BILLION dollars annually in licensing fees.
I did a search and found an outfit by the name of AEA Technology plc in Harwell --- but while this company is definitely immersed in lithium battery technology, I'm not sure if it's the one my source was talking about. Anyway, I haven't yet been able to cross-check the story (billion dollars of licensing income), but if it's reasonably accurate, it helps us to get a little handle on the potential from license fees.
One can make any number of assumptions about the market size, polymer battery market share, licensing fees, etc., but if the billion dollar per year figure is correct, it seems to me that VLNC could be looking at annual licensing fees amounting to a goodly fraction of the billion --- with the fraction increasing as the lithium polymer technology gains acceptance and market share. But beyond this, if you accept what Lev said in one of the CCs last week, lithium polymer technology can be competitive in highly competitive markets such as power hand tools (drills, etc.) and auto batteries. If this is indeed the case, the market size would be significantly larger than the existing lithium ion market, and thus the licensing fee income could conceivably exceed the billion dollars in fees realized by the British company. Now, let's see. A billion in income --- let's say half goes to the bottom line -- divided by the number of shares outstanding -- say 40 million -- is about $12.50/share. Pick a PE multiple -- say 20 -- that's only $250/share. This company could have a bright future ! ! ! I recognize there are alot of IF's, but this is simply an exercise to try to quantify the potential.
rli |
