I listened to the entire conference call. While in the past I have been disgusted by the way this company was run, things may change if any significant part of what I heard today is true. The CC summarized:
1. Yes, the buy-back is an if-and-when-they-feel like it deal, but he stated that they would certainly buy back shares at $0.15, for example (no number stated).
2. I think I heard Eller say they will have a PR about the licensing agreement with Issei-Noritake in about two weeks. This will be their first licensing revenue; they are also dealing with other large firms, and claim that the prospects are good for more and bigger deals.
3. The current burn rate for FEPET, the remainder unit after the splitoff of EBT (and the original heart of SIDT) is less than $150K/month. Given that they are reserving (they say) 2.5 million of the $5MM for buybacks, they will have enuf money to last for a year or more without any outside revenues. While FEPET is earning at least $40k/month under contracts with outside entities, it looks like they are essentially an IP company whose future will be in licensing the diamond field emitter technology. They have ruled out manufacturing. Their revenue projections are about 7-8 million in licensing revenues in calendar 1999, and much larger in the out years. Because I feel that the out-year numbers are basically a SWAG, I won't repeat them except to say that in Eller's words, they are "insane." Almost none of the $5MM will be used to pay back loans from insiders, most of which were paid off from the proceeds of the sale of DTO.
4. One questioner asked them whether they understood that if EBT took off and FEPET fell flat, there would be "hell to pay." Eller agreed. (This was my fear when I first heard of this-- because he agreed, I withdraw the question in my last post..)
5. On the HyFed, each emitter maps to 48 pixels. This seems to be the solution to the manufacturability problem that doomed the original DFED with its one-to-one arrangement. Yaniv said, ñ, that scalability problems were there in theory, but I think he said that if they got the 4x4 working the scalability problems could be solved.
6. They bragged on their patent portfolio (which I understand from long following the company is actually decent).
7. They will let anyone buy into EBT, which will be "private". How this squares with the issuance of warrants mentioned both in the CC and the PR, I don't know. Mebbe warrants can be used for a private company, altho I would rather see tham called options to purchase. The terms of these warrants (sez Eller) have not been finalized.
8. There are about 43 million fully-diluted shares outstanding, and 100 million authorized.
9. Eller was adamant that FEPET has a greater $$ potential by far than EBT.
10. They are hitting the conference circuit pretty hard.
11. Their investment banker is First London out of Dallas. I don't know much about FL, but suspect they are very very small outfit. If I think of anything else, I will post it.
I don't know what to make of this company. Listening to Eller is not an uplifting experience, but then I have a problem with Chicago accents. He said a lot of things that could get him into trouble if they are not true. And their strategy of stripping themselves down to an IP company has long seemed the only way to go to me. I guess the question boils down to whether they can make the technology work satisfactorily. Yaniv said something that made me think that the 4x4 inch display is not yet working right, so there may yet be nothing at all at the end of the tunnel. But if they get a good first licensing agreement, I would have to consider that they and their HyFED technology may be for real.
I am going to look for clues at the Issei/Noritake websites, if any. |
