Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : TAVA Research - No Discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: C.K. Houston who wrote (265)	11/15/1997 11:05:00 AM
From: M. Frank Greiffenstein	Respond to of 810

Raw Q1/98 Conference Call Notes, sans inteprretation: FINANCIALS -- Gross revenues qurter on quarter up 42% over q1/97. Increases purely in base business, only 100,000 contributed by y2k work. Over 1 million in billables lost because 15-20 engineers were taken off assingments to get planty2kone DCROM done on time. -- Revenue source: 60% consulting, 40% material resales (in other words, markups) -- Gross profit margin = 34% -- Expenses up over Q1/97 for (a) Infrastructure, (b) sales and marketing ramp up related to y2k product and (c) travel related to y2k product. CFO noted increased expenses "mostly due to higher travel expenses, internal training, recruiting of new engineers and adding more people." -- EBITDA, company would have been slightly profitable to tune of 44K if not for amortization. 240K in interest expenses were saved by calling in subordinated debentures. -- Positive working capital of 4 million, total liabilities down 5 million.. Cash of one million. MANAGEMENT DISCUSSION -- Just received a single 6 million $$$ contract from company in Chicago, related to base business not y2k. -- "Sharp acceleration of interest " in y2k product out there. --Cycle time between presentation and orders is only two weeks, an cinredibly quick turnover. -- 80% of new y2k interest is by new customers. Jenkins commented that never before in history of TAVA has he had access to high level management that makes decisions about multi-plant engagements (menaing, TAVA is tlaking to bigger honchos than previously), Jenkins is "extremely excited." -- TAVA is recruting heavily and adding to senior management. Just welcomed Ken Owens of Fluor-Daniels on board. -- Verified the new accounts mentioned in press release, Unilever the big one. -- Due to supply dmenad dynamics, engineering hourly rate has gone from $75-90 per hour to $160/hour for the y2k work. This is pure gravy as the fees of their engineers have not gone up correspondingly (COMMENT: Hope no TAVA engineers were listening in!) --Marketing is proceeding heavily by word of mouth, may reduce marketing costs in the long run. Marketing also being helped by IT-y2k firms putting out the word. (And who might that be, IS It Satan???) --Jenkins calculates average number of embdded chips is 3,500 per plant. -- New run of 20K CD-ROMS coming out 11/20/97, some of the discs will go to Wonderware. No mention of what %. Q & A Answers to From Hanifen-Imhoff quesitons: --Revenues from pure y2k asessments (menaing CD ROM and use of database only, no renovation work) seen earlier than expected, in Q2/98 rather than Q3 as preivously predicted. -- Bae business will be attended to closely even with ramping y2k work. Answers to StreetCorp Questions: ---- Performance bonds not neccesary for y2k work. Questions from InvestmentTech -- Pricing for y2k products as follows: 4K for CD-Rom alone, (b) 5K to access to database per site, (c) $200 per report per chip/machine. A typical plant will have 100 unqiue devices, so about 20K per site. These are retail prices, per report charges will be negotiated for larger customers. Jenkins did estimate that 20K per site was the average expected revenues taing both retail and bulk work into account. TThe range of per site costs ghoing into this average is "broad". -- Strong efforts to enhance marketing and brnading. Wonderware will provide access to 15-20K accounts. Wonderware getting one call per hour about y2k. TAVA using 'pseudofranchise' model but developing reseller and VAR channels. Answers to ???? -- TAVA expects the following from AON. They expect y2 products to be marketed as a means of lowering business interruption insurance costs. AON is after all a business interruption insurance specliast. THey have a big stake in y2k problems. The association has already resulted in work. -- Further marketing being done indirectly by IT-y2k firms, names not mentioned. Ken Ownes main responsibilities are (a) alliances with IT-y2k vendors and (b) to qualify subcontracting firms, VARs and other resellers. Answers to ???? -- TAVA in talks with GM about y2k products. GM has estimated 300K robots aorund the world with embedded chips. Talks underway about GM getting access to database. Jenkins says "GM not a client yet, diaglogue going on." -- Utility business issues. "One y2k project already underway", worth 600-700K. Jenkins modifying CD-ROM to adapt for utility industry use. --Marshall Hyman Nonsense. Construciton company is 3.9 million in arrears to TAVA. Marshall Hyman agreed to "review the bill and take action at end of month." (My Comment: Meaning, Marshall Hyman is saying "Fuck You"). Because of MHs screwing TAVA, "money is tight." About 1 million cash. Answers to RedChip -- Margins of material reselling about 10%. -- Added only 12 engineers since 7/97, total staff = 330 but total engineer staff now 280. Jenkins not sure what exact % is y2k devoted ast this time. Answers to ???? -- MSFT like strategy, give y2k toolkit out to as many people as possible. -- Tight managemnet of growth, don't want to exceed 400 engineers. y2k and base work beyond capabilities of 400+ would be subcontracted. THis includes y2l remediaiton. Reason? TAVA wants to be a resource for Fortune 500 companies well into next century, so will concentrate on developing long term relationships. -- TAVA has other non-y2k related software. Products were not mentioned. --IVAX pharmaceutical referral came from an IT company. -- TAVA goal is engagement with 3,500 plant sites with estimated revenues of 20K per site. That works out to 300K per plant (menaing of crouse a "plant" has multiple sites). -- They will actively pursue the oil rig and utility substation market. -- Fluor Daniel Alliance out of piture now (?????) "Not as important as it used to be." Word of mouth turning out to be good enough! Keith Owens of Fluor descirbed as so frustrated wiht Fluor's indifference to y2k market, jumped ship to TAVA. -- y2k database has 4,000 cirtical items in it. -- Unilever y2k contract categorized as "food industry" work. Answers to Moishe Spitzer/Smith Barney -- Competition: One other "large" engineering firm doing similar work, not using same methodology as TAVA. DocStone

To: C.K. Houston who wrote (265)	11/15/1997 12:12:00 PM
From: C.K. Houston	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 810

TPRO SENIOR MANAGEMENT & BOARD MEMBERS (Revised 11/15/97) ==================================================================== CEO & President, John Jenkins Hired 1/95 to clean up and refocus corporate strategy. Action has been aggressive: non-core businesses have been sold, administrative overhead reduced by $600,000/year, and growth put on a fast track pace through acquisitions. "Turn-Around" Story: tomorrowcast.com biz.yahoo.com Senior V.P. Sales, Larry Hagewood 6/22/97 During his six year tenure as part of the senior management team, Elsag Bailey grew from a $350 MILLION company, principally based in the United States, to a major global corporation with sales of greater than $2 BILLION & offices located in 25 countries. biz.yahoo.com V.P., Business Deveopment, Ken Owen Previous Director of Systems Integration at FLUOR DANIEL, and an early leader in the recognition of Year 2000 issues in factory automation systems. fluor.com CFO, Doublas Kelsall 6/5/97 Named as CFO. Previous 2 years CFO & VP of Finance for Evolving Systems, Inc., (ESI), a developer of computer software and professional services, with more than 300 employees. Mr. Kelsall's tenure at Evolving Systems, Inc. was highlighted by a dramatic improvement in the financial position of the Company, including an increase in gross profit margins, decrease in expenses, and the redirection of product mix to focus on the development of proprietary products. John Jenkins (TPRO Pres & CEO) stated, "Mr. Kelsall's recent experience as CFO of ESI will accelerate our financial consolidation efforts and add greatly to our strategic and business planning process. His years of experience in capital formation will be of great value as we continue to build the proper capital foundation required to support our aggresive growth plans." COO, Kevin Fallon ......................................................................................................................... New Board Members announced 6/5/97 ......................................................................................................................... Robert Costello, also board member of URS Corporation, an engineering firm which has recently doubled in size and currently has more than 3,000 employees and over $400 million in sales. Prior to serving as a URS Corporation director, Mr. Costello was the Chief Executive Officer of Greiner Engineering, Inc. a publicly held (NYSE) firm which in 1996 merged with URS Corporation. As CEO of Greiner, Mr. Costello developed and implemented a restructuring in the leadership of high-growth publicly held companies, and has strong marketing experience in Southeast Asia. Robert Pearson currently serves as Senior V.P. & Manager of Corporate Finance for Renaissance Capital Partners (RCP). RCP is the operating manager of Renaissance Capital Growth and Income Fund III, Inc., and Renaissance United States Growth and Income Trust, Ltd. which combined are the owners of a 9% convertible debenture issued by Topro, Inc. in February of 1996. Mr. Pearson previously served as Executive V.P. and CFO of the Thomas Group, Inc., a publicly traded consulting firm, and was Vice President-Finance of Texas Instruments, Inc.