I'm all for speculating, too. However, the risk factor increases with time, maybe geometrically with the absence of good news. The company has been postponing a successful contract negotiation to the next quarter for many quarters now. We're getting to the point where there are only a couple of quarters left before insolvency unless a Sugar Daddy steps up (Berg, Roberts, Shugart, Gates, Allen?), or the announcement of income.
Why someone hasn't already is troubling to me. The company has risked dilution with the lousy floor-less convertible preferred stock private placement. A Sugar Daddy could have made a better deal, say, for $20 million of capital, and it just wasn't done. They would have been made aware of every aspect of where the company stands. It seems such types might have been reluctant to step up because of the threat of the Japanese juggernauts, or even perhaps ULBI. The rescuers wouldn't have been able to find out much more about competitors than we are, because of their intentions, but they would have known a lot more than we do about VLNC. $20 million to one of these types is probably much less percentage-wise than most of the posters here have invested in VLNC, with a lot less consequences if were lost.
It's also interesting the way that the second commercial (TDI) Li-Poly battery (if you count ULBI as the first) is being introduced through a distributor (Thomas/Betts) rather than through an OEM contract. Is the technology a little too new? Is TDI a little too small for a big contract? I am being more careful, less enamored, and less greedy by lowering my position, entering it more carefully, and watching it closer, when I do.
I'm not getting too patriotic with any company I invest in. It's the wrong place for it. Business is about money, not love. As long as there is money, or the hope of money, eveybody gets along like one big happy family. I don't want to be the one left with the hurt expression and the missing money. |
