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Technology Stocks : VALENCE TECHNOLOGY (VLNC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brad Davies who wrote (22295)	11/13/2000 12:35:46 AM
From: Zeev Hed	Respond to of 27311

Brad, there is a difference between the US (and Canada) on one side and Europe and Japan on the other. In the US, the filing is not public domain, until it is issued and published. In Europe, upon the filing it is open to the public. Because of the PCT agreement, however, you have only one year from the date of the US filing until you have to apply in Europe (and make it public), if the examination has not proceeded, you sometimes (for a nifty fee of $2400) can extend the PCT, if memory seres. (The PCT is an international patent treaty governing, amongst other things, when you are "forced" to open your kimono). Zeev

To: Brad Davies who wrote (22295)	11/13/2000 12:49:42 AM
From: Rich Wolf	Respond to of 27311

Brad, you said << I am unaware of the details of the Berg loan >>. See the last financial statements, or await the current one to issue, re: Berg's line of credit (he always issues another one if need be, so access to financing has not been an issue).... and you said << or the IDB funds >>. The latter were modified last fall, when the IDB gave them more money for building expansion. The last 10Q also described the prior agreement for $32M or so the IDB would provide to Valence as they hit certain sales and hiring targets. I expect more details of the current arrangement in the next 10Q. Cash a problem? No, Berg is happy with the progress, he'll see his baby through if no one else will. Larry will remind that price is always the issue. I'd add that Berg bought a quarter million shares during the short-induced panic in the spring, around $13/sh, to defend his company's stock price. Has cash flow slowed the development? Hard to say. The process technology seems to have continued to evolve over the last few years, only the Valence employees know whether they would have had more sales a year ago if they had access to say $100M of capital to build out the facility. From the comments from Lev, they had to jerry rig the Klockner and even fiddle quite a bit with the Arcotronics assembly lines, and now await delivery of the latest generation equipment of their own design, from a German manufacturer. Could money have expedited the process? It never hurts. However, one could observe that the prime Asian competitors (who have theoretically infinitely deep pockets to finance any endeavor and beat all American companies at this technology game, according to Barrons two years ago) have stalled in their attempts to manufacture lithium-polymer cells, and have taken temporary shortcuts to make gel cells using half-breed equipment based on liquid-electrolyte cell manufacturing techniques; word is that their issues with cobalt have limited the cell sizes to postage-stamp size only; Matsushita et al. would still be prime candidates for the complete Bellcore/Valence recipe and process, in order to make the large format cells only seen in production from Valence to-date. (sidebar: there are Asian variants of the Hydro-quebec technology, see the work from Hitachi-Maxell; but not in production, and they're as secretive as Valence, so who knows the status.) Don't mess with the big guy (Berg). Shorts think if they are patient, they will 'win' here. Others here believe the shorts are gravely mistaken. Only time will tell. Download and read the last few Qs and you'll find your answers. Good luck!