Subject: My letter to Forbes Executive Editor
From Kknightmcc
Agora: PostID 205930 On Thursday, August 01, 2002 (EST) at 11:06:49 PM
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Subj: Josh Wolfe (inaccuracies in his article today)
Date: 8/1/02 11:09:55 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: KKnightmcc
To: pmaidment@forbes.com (''Paul Maidment - Executive Editor,Forbes'')
CC: paul@nanopierce.com
Dear Mr. Maidment:
This is in regard to the Adviser Soapbox article titled ''Beware Of Nano Pretenders''
by Josh Wolfe, Forbes/Wolfe Nanotech Report, 08.01.02, currently the Forbes web site at: forbes.com
I must say that I am astonished that a well respected publication such as Forbes would publish an article that is so full of inaccuracies and which makes insinuations that NanoPierce Technologies is a bad company and to be avoided based upon that faulty information.
I have been writing about NanoPierce in my newsletter Investor to Investor for more than four years now and I have an extensive data base of information on the company on my web site at investortoinvestor including photographs of facilities in Germany and Colorado Springs. For the record NanoPierce's Technology made the cover of a very prestigious magazine in the interconnection industry ''Advancing Microelectronics'' which is a publication of IMAPS (International Microelectronics and Packaging Society) in the July/August issue. There are articles in the issue that were written by two very distinguished scientists who are NanoPierce Technologies executives and who are also chairs for the upcoming IMAPS 2002 September 6-8, 2002, Dr. Herbert J. Neuhaus and Dr. Michael E. Wernle. Dr. Neuhaus will be receiving an award from his peers at the IMAPS 2002. You can see the issue at: investortoinvestor.com If you are interested in a more balanced picture of this company.
Just because NanoPierce's headquarters are based in Denver, Colorado, is no reason to link it to a ''hot bed for penny-stock hustlers.'' I have seen this company grow from a three person office to an international company with offices and facilities in Munich and Rudolstadt, Germany, a clean room in Colorado Springs, and a sales office in Taipei, Taiwan with more than 30 plus employees in only two years.
Yes, the company is involved in a lawsuit, but it is not against a ''slew of promoters'', it is against Mark Valentine and Thomson Kernaghan for providing a funding in a fraudulent manner. Mr. Valentine is currently under investigation by the Ontario Securities Commission and being sued by quite a few companies for the same activity. Thomson Kernaghan, of which Mr. Valentine was the head, is currently in receivership for bankruptcy and no longer allowed to trade any securities, while Mr. Valentine has been forbidden to trade any OTC or Nasdaq stocks until at least the beginning of 2003.
Mr. Wolfe mentioned the former owners of the shell that NanoPierce went public with. It has no bearing on the company today with no officers, employees or facilities in common at all.
While it is true that the company has negative cash flow at this time, that is only because the company is currently ramping up to go into production of smart inlays for smart labels and smart cards, and has customers waiting for product to be shipped this month. NanoPierce subsidiary company, ExypnoTech just recently took delivery of its first high-speed production line for RFID smart inlays from F&K Delvotech and has a signed agreement to supply smart inlays to one of the largest label companies in Germany, Schreiner LogiData GmbH & Co KG, a subsidiary of Schreiner GmbH & Co. KG of Munich, Germany. A company they have been collaborating with since November 2000 to evaluate and test NanoPierce's NCS(TM) (NanoPierce Connection System) technology for the production of smart labels. Shipments will be delivered during this quarter. See the press release: biz.yahoo.com
Mr. Wolfe was inaccurate on the revenues as well. NanoPierce made $132,000 revenues in their first year of revenues ending calendar year 2002, not $103,000. NanoPierce's fiscal year ends on June 30, 2002, not in December.
NanoPierce has never claimed to be a NanoTechnology company, so slamming them for the fact that they have ''Nano'' in the title of the company, is wrong. NanoPierce's technology NCS is made up of microscopic hard particles (diamond) as small as 5 millimeters and coated with metal. These particles are so small that you need an electron scanning microscope to see them. The hard particles pierce the oxides and other contaminents on the surface of printed circuit boards and other substrates to make connections between RFID antennas and other devices in order to make and electronic interconnection. Thus the name NanoPierce.
The process has to do with miniaturization of electronic connections. For more information on the process: nanopierce.com
NanoPierce's web site is worth looking at to get a more rounded picture of the company: nanopierce.com
NCS is also in process of being tested (second round to verify) by several large semiconductor companies for direct deposit to the wafer level of semiconductors, and also for LED arrays.
I would think that Mr. Wolfe would do better research before he writes his reports. In my opinion, if he writes such inaccurate reports on other companies as he did on NanoPierce, it will make his ''Advisor Soapbox'' worthless to your readers. I think you owe it to your readers to print a correction or retraction of this report.
Kathy Knight-McConnell
Investor to Investor
investortoinvestor.com
Kathy@investortoinvestor.com
The portion of Mr. Wolfe's article that is in question:
Adviser Soapbox
Beware Of Nano Pretenders
Josh Wolfe, Forbes/Wolfe Nanotech Report, 08.01.02, 7:00 AM ET
3) NanoPierce Technologies
This one is traded on the OTC bulletin board. It has nearly doubled since January. My advice: Stay far, far away from this one. In April 2001, the company initiated a lawsuit claiming a slew of promoters were fraudulently manipulating the price of its stock.
The company operates out of Germany, but has corporate offices in Denver, Colo. Denver has been a hot bed for penny-stock hustlers for three decades. It is not surprising that the junk-stock crowd is latching on to nanotechnology. NanoPierce was originally incorporated in 1996 as Sunlight Systems and was also known as Mendell-Denver. The company currently has negative cash flow from operations, and the bulk of its revenue was from a German division--which sells consulting services and software. Revenue was $103,000 for the 12 months ending last December, yet its stock, at a price of $1.05, has a market cap of over $55 million.
NanoPierce has nothing to do with nanotechnology. Its technology revolves around what it calls NCS, NanoPierce Connection System. At its essence, NCS creates electronic connections between the microscale and the macroscale on circuitboards. It hopes to apply the process to smart-card applications.
cc: Paul Metzinger, President and CEO of NanoPierce Technologies, Inc.
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