A bit of what we learned today What we were presented with today was a highlight in terms of our understanding of what POET represents to industry. VC's in the US and we are talking Silicon Valley have a mandate to invest in technology. This group has been starved. There has been nothing for them to invest in. Shepherd is widely known in industry. His opinion has been solicited for many technology platforms that were trying to achieve just a small fraction of what POET has. Shepherd has never been able to recommend investment in any of these companies that have all failed because they get so far and find themselves painted into a corner. These people expect to hear negative comments about technologies and why they won’t work from Shepherd so they are surprised to hear such an overwhelming endorsement in POET. These same people including a lot of industry types that he has been presenting to are firstly surprised that Shepherd sees POET as the Holy Grail. And I know everyone associates that kind of language with hype but POET is in fact the Holy Grail it is just that it never been promoted and industry is just starting to be aware of it. They are all extremely sceptical but the great thing is they do not have to take Shepherds word for it the proof is being provided by delivery of working chips so they can see the results for themselves. What they have developed so far in the POET platform is enough to compel industry to listen and understand what a breakthrough POET is. Opel expects to have a short list of companies by probably May. POET valuation will continue to increase as Taylor continues to hit milestones. This will happen in parallel with the current state of POET as these companies become familiar with the technology. I am going to have to review my notes but the new equipment for the UConn lab will offer a cheap way to reduce the feature size. The thing is POET even in its existing level of maturity blows away anything in silicon CMOS even in its infancy. A piece of information that might seem insignificant or not meaningful to us is that POET is the first technology that has ever produced both HFET and PFET in GaAs. First time ever and that little piece of information is extremely important. We heard about this from the Taylors team at the UConn lab tour but I don’t think any of us really understood the significance of this.
I sat across from the Brant Broker and I let him know just how well his clients did last year. We talked to a few of the suits prior to the presentation. They said it was a full house today because it was not a gas and oil company or a resource company presenting. There is little interest in resources right now. But just to continue with my train of thought. I spent a lot time talking to these guys about POET and about OPEL while oogee pumped Peter Copetti for info. He is one of the new board members and is a real asset. Really good business sense. Anyway guys I really and truly believe we have the right people in place to maximize shareholder value. Mark emphasized that his job and the job of the board was to get the best value they can for their shareholders...period! That was what he was hired to do. There will be more hires and they may not all be technical people they may be directly associated with monetizing POET. The logistics of what they have to do and the number of people that they have to respond to is huge. This is big. It is really big. And I don’t think I fully understood the man-hours involved. Mark and Peter are putting in a huge number of hours now. Not what they had in mind when they took over control but this is very demanding. Shepherd lives out of a suit case now. He was with Taylor last week and there is still accomplishments that Taylor has proven regarding POET that has never been disclosed. Shepherd is use to meeting with scientists and finding out what the limitations are but with POET he is learning just how well Taylor has designed this technology. Taylor had a view to make it as easy as possible to integrate into the current eco system. He built a set of capabilities that will provide all functions that today’s silicon CMOS provides and many that it can’t. We all know about cheaper more energy efficient higher performance but the focus is now beyond that. The focus is more like we know that this technology is a first and has never been achieved before so the task at hands is all about putting that information into the right hands so that industry can begin to adjust for this new technology.
Let the bashers bash. I still have to go over my notes but I can tell you very honestly that I have never felt as confident about the future of this company as I do right now.
The private placement is half filled before the presentation even stated. This is the start of a big promotion to get the word out and their target is US investors. Canada is tiny. I believe they will only do one more presentation then it is talks with institution here in Canada. Next the promotion in the States. Those investors will have to buy in the market and hopefully our share price will be in the $2.50 range by the time offers start being entertained.
This is a new company people and any comparison to previous history is meaningless.