To: kolo55 who wrote (5151 ) 11/15/1998 8:37:00 PM From: Gordon Quickstad Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 27311
As a listener to the 11/11/98 11:00 AM EST conference call, I'll post from my notes the following: Lev spoke from Mallusk, NI. The large cell line is qualified. Bert Roberts will be an active board member and has expertise in taking a small company to a large company. There is scheduled an Analysts meeting in Mallusk on 12/3 and Lev expects they will see that we have a real company here. Lev explained the quarantine period. The batteries are conditioned, degassed, tested, quarantined for 30 days, tested again for electrical leakage and then shipped. Customer's tests vary greatly. Some use elevated temperatures. A CFO will be named fairly soon. Most samples produced are of Notebook batteries. Cell phone batteries and / or PDA batteries will be next. Recharge rates have been made higher and cycle life has been maintained if not improved with the higher recharge rate. The 4" X 4" battery will probably cost less to produce than a comparable sized prismatic LI battery. Competition in the cylindrical cells has made them cheap. The sales force is adequate for the large customers that VLNC is marketing to. Hanil-Valence will be a profit center of their own. Valence will be sending small cells to Korea [samples?] in 1Q99. If the batteries fetch $2.50/WHr, it has been estimated that 1800 cells [probably meant batteries] will make the company break even in cash, not counting depreciation. 3 good customers could take up all their capacity. Regarding the small battery line, batteries look good. Next week the production process may pass their testing. Don Wolanchuk likes the technical behavior of the stock. He thinks we'll see $12 before $6. The convertible preferred issue came up. Tranch 2 for $2.5 MM would need a letter saying battery meets a customer's needs. Tranch 3 requires PO's. I believe the questioner stated this. Retooling for a new format battery would take about 16 weeks. Lev said he couldn't speculate on when the first order would come. [At one point in the call, Lev commented that he couldn't disclose material information in the call or near the time of the conference call.]