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Non-Tech : Simula (SMU) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stephen p barnes who wrote (717)	10/30/1997 11:00:00 PM
From: raefon	Respond to of 1671

Stephen, Spoke to SMU and BEAV today. SMU has never been in the "hype" business. SMU indicated BA asked them to make the release, they even gave some input as to the verbage. In speaking with BEAV they suggest that BA denies ever even authorizing the announcement that SMU made. The references you made to a "minority-owned subsidiary" are accurate but if you look back to previous announcements SMU has made, they have previously named that division by name when they had deals. BEAV was clearly irate at the attention SMU has recieved, that came through the phone loud and clear. SMU maintains they have a contract. I expect to see an announcement in the near future that reads "SMU has 100% of all A-1000 seats on BA airplanes". A-1000 is just the SMU brand name. If you reread the BEAV announcement they point out that they have 100% of their own "brand name" seats for BA deal. What do you make of all this fuss? If you have the opportunity you might call the IR firm for BEAV, I believe the fellow I spoke with was Jay Jacobson. The million dollar question is what plane do the SMU seats go on. Noblesse had interesting insight into the situation. I hope he shares it with the thread. Have a great night.

To: stephen p barnes who wrote (717)	10/30/1997 11:01:00 PM
From: Noblesse Oblige	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1671

To the "thread," The seat order is confirmed to be from a British Air 10% owned subsidiary. I don't think it matters. It is important to note that Simula had to be compensated for the special tooling that has to be done to make the seats work in the planned configuration. Given that the total order was for three planeloads of seats (roughly $ 1.5 million), it appears a reasonable assumption that the order will be repeating, or the incremental tooling expense wouldn't have been justifiable to British Air unless they used the announcement to "control" pricing and other issues with their primary supplier, BE Aerospace. It is interesting to note that the "complaint" over the press release comes directly from that competitor, whose stock has been "rocked" since the Simula announcement regarding the British Air order. This is the same company that "bad-mouthed" Simula on the road trip prior to its secondary offering earlier this year, and appears to this writer (at least) to be engaging in "enlightened self-interest." Why else would anyone get worked up over a $ 1.5 million order (in a market that may well approach 400-500 times that size in 1998!) that is at least a year away from delivery? It seems obvious to me. Simula is starting to have an impact in the 16G airline seat business. Now, if they can only normalize profit margins on that portion of their business!