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Microcap & Penny Stocks : STAX -----> Stelax Industries - A real gem. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jim Chapman who wrote (662)	7/8/1998 8:04:00 AM
From: Jim Chapman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1112

The following is from an interview published in The Wall Street Transcript, dated December 22, 1997. The entire interview will be published over the next few days. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TWST: You mentioned re-bar as one of the product areas. Are there other product areas that you feel have the potential to also be big winners or to be consistent within the industry? Mr. Hardy: Yes, absolutely. One of the others that we feel will have some near term success is what we call grid flooring. This is the flooring that has the spacing in between it. It is a metal flooring type that you see in factories. The initial market for it was offshore drilling sites where there is a very harsh environment. It is also seen in food processing operations where cleanliness is a requirement. Stainless steel is becoming a dominant user in the food processing business. The grid flooring market is a huge market. We have been able to lower the cost of the stainless steel equivalent grid flooring. We now feel that we are very competitive with galvanized grid flooring which is the dominant use in this business throughout the world. It is a huge, multi-billion dollar market. This is one application. We also make a cladded pipe. One application for this product is for power plants, the boilers, where you have a stainless steel, non-corrosive, fire resistant outer wall that withstands the heat and corrosion; and then the internal carbon steel for the conductivity. This is a tremendous market for this product. The architectural aspect of this product is one that we are negotiating orders now. Stainless steel is being used more and more in architectural use of guard rails, hand rails, sidings, and decorative aspects. There again, the substantial savings that exist by using our product, which from all outward appearances would be the same as solid stainless steel, is going to create a lot of demand. TWST: Are there areas or regions of the world that are more receptive to your product than other areas or regions? Mr. Hardy: There is. The Europeans consume more stainless steel than the Americans per capita. There is quite a large market on the continent as far as Germany, Italy, and France. It is still quite large in the U.S, but Asia is a big consumer of the products. Stainless steel is the one element of the steel business that has had a steady growth every year, approximately 7%, versus a more level market for carbon steel. TWST: Looking at your current management team and your internal operations, are there any plan changes or adjustments in these areas? Do you see specific needs that you will address over the next year or so? Mr. Hardy: Over the last two years, we think that we have developed a strong management team. Nino Cacace, who is the managing director of operations in Wales, is the inventor of the process. He is basically a second generation steel man. His father was in the steel business. He was bought up in the steel business in South Africa. Then he moved the operations, during the time of sanctions, to the U.K. for economic considerations. His knowledge of the steel business and his contacts and associates have helped us develop a strong team that we think is the foundation for being able to grow the company to substantial size. TWIST: What brought you to the company? What were the challenges and opportunities that you saw? As a personal report card, have you met the goals that you have set for yourself? Mr. Hardy: We have met some of them. Some of those goals and objectives were longer term as the aspect of the introduction to the market is developing faster than we had anticipated. The aspect of making sure that all of the production processes were proper and that it could be produced in production quantities. We have met all of those objectives. The facility is a fully commissioned and proven operational to date. The company is well poised to take advantage of what we think is a huge market potential. There are still objectives that we have to meet. This is to get the Stelax steel accepted as a generic name.