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


To: Jacques Tenzel who wrote (24778)8/24/2001 12:47:47 AM
From: bigcue2000  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 27311
 
Ram - Thanks for taking the time to give us a write-up. I'm ambivalent with respect to VLNC. I wonder if any of these Dell people would have joined VLNC if they would have had to move to Henderson for the job - something we'll probably never know. Doesn't really matter anyway.

I missed the CC. Was any mention made of the 4-5 million $ inventory we've carried for the last three quarters?

Thanks again for the write-up.

Regards,
Bigcue



To: Jacques Tenzel who wrote (24778)8/24/2001 1:47:49 AM
From: Robert Cohen  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 27311
 
While it may not serve the interests of the longs who continue to be true believers, I will continue to voice my skepticism. I have attended SM the past three years and have listened to each CC. Lev has lied, been evasive and has made it clear that stockholders are the enemy and has done little to enhance shareholder value. As just one example, those of you who were at the SM remeber Lev stating that lay-offs were as a result of new state of the art Valence designed packaging machinery. Two weeks later the excuse was the economy and long lead time to product developement. Now we know that no production to speak of has occurred since then. Management contiuned to remain silent and I was told by 2 members of management that contracts were being produced to and shipped. Since current management seems to have based the future prospects for success upon the phosphate technology, let's examine the history of the various chemistries. Since acquiring the initial Bellcore license, management has consistently touted the advantages of manganese in regards to safety, energy density, cost to manufacture, and cycle life. In addition we were led to believe that Valence had the only "non-liquid" design. After nearly a dozen announced OEM "contracts" and 18 months of production the only consumer product that contains a Valence battery is a BK company, Globalstar. Now we hear that the killer application, the first breakthru in battery electrodes in decades is the phosphate chemistry. Since the SM when Lev announced availabilty of samples for the new chemistry and promises to allow Valence scientists to present data at peer reviewed venues we know nothing regarding specifications for this new super battery. Generation I was to have energy densities equal to cobalt but at a fraction the cost with Generation II energy densities of over 200Wh/Kg. None of the posters here with the exception of M_E have the technical background to judge whether these are valid claims and must thus rely upon management being credible as well as have the science subjected to peer review. Unfortunately to date we have neither to rely upon. Nothing I say here will in the long run effect the stock price. The company will fail or succeed by its own merits. This is simply a forum for me to vent my frustrations which I am sure you can tell are many. I don't know if the problems are solvable by the new management. As someone else said the Valence saga continues. It is anything but boring!

Robert



To: Jacques Tenzel who wrote (24778)8/24/2001 10:30:13 AM
From: I. N. Vester  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 27311
 
Jacques and Kai,

Kai, on Hanil the revenue recognition last Q was almost
certainly accounting only, no cash from Hanil. Vlnc had
$2.5 defered revenue which was money they got up-front
from Hanil to cover their expenses in helping to bring up
Hanil. Advanced payment against future revenues. They
must have ended up billing Hanil by the hour for tech
support and expenses, maybe plus a licensing fee. Hanil
had no choice and almost certainly did not pay any more
cash. It's been long evident that Hanil was going nowhere
fast, Stephan may not give a rat's ass about them -
Samsung is the only licensing play that really matters,
and a far better Korean partner i would add. Panasonic
might come into the camp later, based on Phosphates and
if the have $$$ for the CapEx to build mfg lines.

The really big difference in Stephan's plan which makes it
so much more credible than Lev's: Lev started insisting
that licensing the phosphates was were they would be making
most of their money. Stephan says FY2003 will be highly
weighted towards licensing but only because the up-front
phosphate licenses will be large. His plan makes tons more
sense because as he stated, they can make tons more $$$
building their own batteries. This is a major shift and
it makes very good sense, so much so that Lev's plan was
nonsense in fact. But it seems obvious that Lev kinda lost
it in the end because he just could not sell the batteries
and so lost confidence that they would ever sell out the
capacity of NI. It was a major disconnect for me that
Lev turned to "we are a technology company" and stopped
talking about NI except for plans to sell it. Clearly
without the revenues from production in NI they can't make
it with their present expense structure, even take away
NI expense, their R&D alone costs $4MM/Q.

Jacques, re the shares sold off the shelf determining a
level for the stock, we could well end up in a situation
we've seen before where the company holds off altogether
or does 'just in time' financing of smaller amounts just
to keep going until they can announce the business they
are working on and sell the stock at a higher price.
with $20MM from Berg, they will be in exactly that
position if they meet their goal and get the design win
we are looking for.