Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Silver: No one here questions your commitment and belief in SGLB's future. (The same can be said for Jackie, Driftin, Z, and countless others on this Board). But to encourage a " bold" commitment to the stock is simply wrong. SGLB is a penny stock with an uncertain future. It should remain in the speculative segment of anyone's portfolio and should not contain funds that would cause great pain were they to be lost. You also have to ask yourself why the hundreds of legitimate stock analysts who follow the technology segment of the market, many specializing in early start-ups, have not picked up on SGLB's potential as you have, and written about it to their followers. These are folks who are in constant contact with the movers and shakers in the industry, but have been totally silent regarding SGLB. It's clear that the general investing public does not share your enthusiasm for the stock or the bright future that you see so close at hand (based upon volume and the ability to hold it's price point).
You might ask Magnetics how he feels about your suggestion of making a "bold" commitment. Bold commitments work both ways, up and down and that's why in something so uncertain as the penny stock market bold commitments are rarely a good idea. I hope that your convictions about SGLB's early success prove to be correct and that your bold investment pans out. Recommending a similar path to others is simply wrong however.
Well......not exactly. See post 40486
Jackie:
Automotive, medical and consumer/electronics are all projected to be larger markets than aerospace. SGLB should have hit the ground running early to match solutions they developed in one market to fit the needs of other potentially larger markets.
Driftin:
Clearly we will disagree on most of these because you seem to believe the company was operated efficiently and in shareholder's best interests.
You already pointed out the dilutive financing. Clearly not in the best interest of shareholders and about to happen again unless orders materialize very quickly.
Not bringing on business development expertise earlier. Many here seem to think that "business development" is "sales". It is not. This an area where I do have some expertise having performed the function for Apple's International's Group for over ten years. Business development is generally viewed as a combination of marketing and strategic analysis. It is normally charged with generating new opportnities for the company and in solidifying long-term relationships. In my opinion this function should have been one of the first funded (not less than a year ago) to investigate and develop new opportunities for the company (automotive manufacturing, other defense oriented businesses, etc.) Mark took this role on himself, and did a lousy job in my opinion.
A focus on generating revenue. The Board should have been asking the question (How does this contribute to future revenue generation, each time Mark attended a conference, formed a joint venture, etc. As I said earlier the whole focus of the comapny was more reseach/acadmic paper presentation than making money.
I think purchasing a 3/4 million dollar printer was a big mistake. Yes, the company needed a development machine but leasing time from someone else would have been far less expensive than buying (let alone leasing) their own equipment. The idea that they were going to make money selling one-off prototypes has been a dismal failure and has generated very little revenue.
I think the fact that they have had 20 plus consecutive quarters of losses speaks volumes about the Board. Yes, I know it's a "start-up" but how long is this reasonable? Another five, ten quarters? Who is going to put money into this sort of business.
I think some hiring decisions (like Mark's spouse) at a very hefty salary and a very large stock bonus the first year, when they were short of technical and business development people was questionable and would have raised questions with an independent Board.
So yes, I do feel strongly that Mark lacks business skills and I think the current Board is as bad or worse. Unfortunately they feed off of each other.
Jeff and Driftin: I've done some research as to the Nasdaq and NYSE requirements for a director to be independent. The rules are pretty vague (perhaps intentionally) and basically say that if the majority of the Board says that the director is independent , then he/she is. Well, it's not quite that simple, but pretty close. So, in answer to your question Jeff would Thacker's status delay uplisting? it would depend upon how closely the exchange reviewed his past relationships with SGLB as a paid employee, someone who was granted stock benefits, etc. It's conceivable that they could sneak him through the system. That does not change my opinion of his qualifications and gets me to Driftin's comments. Not surprisingly we differ over how the current Board has impacted SGLB's performance over the past few years. I don't quite understand how you can feel that there has been no real business management in the company and still believe the Board has done it's job. In my opinion the emphasis in the past and continuing today has been far closer to an academic track than a money making business exterprise. This is not surprising, given the background of all involved (save O'Mara, who has also unfortunately proven his worthlessness). Institutional investors will not put a penny into the company (uplisting or not) given the current Board. Given Thacker's long and involved relationship with the company it will surely be a travesty if they somehow sneak him through the systam.
My apologies, but I do get a little overheated about this topic. Michael Thacker has been on the inside of the SGLB organization before there even was an SGLB. Look at this quote from his own resume:
"1995 to Present: Partner and Director, Sumner Associates: offering commercial and scientific due-diligence of complex technologies, and new business start-up analysis. A science consulting company with six partners and 120 Associates".
This, of course was the consulting arm of SGLB, now merged into the company. When I attended the SGLB Board meeting two years ago I complained about there being no independent directors (Thacker was clearly considered by Mark and everyone else in attendance at that time as an insider). Now suddenly, he is by some sort of magic, an "independent" director. Whether Nasdaq buys that claim or not he should be replaced. Both he and O'Mara have proven to be rubberstamps for Mark without any consideration of protecting the rights of shareholders. I find it incredible that the large shareholders here have not launched their own lynching party for these two.
Looks very encouraging to me.
With at least ten printers in place and operational the ramp up to full production is on-going now. Yes, it will take awhile for production to peak but this article speaks to large-scale long term production beginning this month.
"Joe Markiewicz, plant manager in Auburn, says the project is moving ahead on schedule, with quality and engineering requirements being met as a prelude to full-scale production. The company plans to have 10 printing machines installed at the 300,000-square-foot facility by year’s end, a figure that could eventually climb to as many as 50.
“Our plan is still to begin production late in 2015 for LEAP fuel nozzles,” Markiewicz said.
The next-generation LEAP engine, being developed through a partnership between GE and France’s Snecma (Safran), promises improved fuel efficiency for air carriers. Variants will be used on the Chinese COMAC C919, the Boeing 737 Max and the Airbus A320neo, which will be assembled at the company’s new Alabama manufacturing facility.
The LEAP has already racked up more than 8,650 orders and commitments for CFM International, as the joint venture is known. FAA-certification of the engine is expected later this year.
40,000 NOZZLES PER YEAR
GE Aviation plans to 3-D print fuel nozzles for the LEAP engine that will be used on Airbus A320 family aircraft and other passenger jets.
GE Aviation plans to 3-D print fuel nozzles for the LEAP engine that will be used on Airbus A320 family aircraft and other passenger jets.
Since there are 19 fuel nozzles in every LEAP engine, GE Aviation said the stage is set for large-scale, long-term production at the Auburn plant. In March, the company said production there will ramp up quickly over the next five years, going from 1,000 fuel nozzles manufactured annually to more than 40,000 by 2020.
Completely agree. To think that GE is not evaluating every alternative for quality control is totally unrealistic. And yes, in the end they are going to choose the combination best suited to their needs and proven to be most reliable. Witty's statements are always targeted at putting SGLB in the best possible light and must be taken with more than a grain of salt (as are Mark's).
I'm having a hard time getting my head around Witty's statement that SGLB's technology would not be utilized until full production is achieved. I certainly understand the part about it being a productivity enhancement under full production. What I don't understand is the wait. After being tested in their facilities for three years now, one would think that they would begin using it earlier in the ramp up to full production. Sometimes software that might work perfectly in one-off situations might have faults in volume situations. I would think that GE would want to be utilizing SGLB software all during the ramp-up period to be certain that when they do achieve full production they are 100% confident in it's performance . This would seem a more prudent approach than waiting for full production to commence it's utilization and discovering a fault of some sort. There's probably a logical explanation, but it escapes me. Perhaps one of you engineering types can enlighten me.
"Chris Witty stated in an e-mail that it was never their (GE's) intention to utilize PR3D from the start - that it would be utilized as a cost saving mechanism once mass production began." Actually, that is not what he said (from your quote) "Sigma's technology was never intended to be an solution for the initial engine certification, yet rather a cost reduction method once they move into production volumes for this and other engines. Sigma's technology is a productivity solution once manufacturing moves into full swing."
There is a difference between stating the" intended use of SGLB's technology" by Witty and your statement that it "would be utilized". To my knowledge the jury is still out on whether it will be used or not
To my knowledge this is what we know and don't know about GE's relationship with SGLB.
GE has had very early versions in test for about three years now and apparently has done some co-development work with SGLB in which they share rights. They do not have the right to sell SGLB's offerings to others. It is unclear whether should they choose to use SGLB products they would get some price concessions due to their co-development efforts.
The fuel nozzles are in production at Auburn now without the use of any SGLB technology. (We know this because Witty told us so, and Mark has also said that GE would be required to purchase units to perform production). We believe that GE is in the process of ramping up to full production but do not know what their definition of full production is. If GE is at the 5% level of eventual production without the use of SGLB's products that is not a real cause for concern. If they are at the 50% level without the perceived need for SGLB solutions that could signal they have other plans for quality assurance.
As Silver pointed out in an earlier post Mark seems to be hedging a bit on his timelines for GE's eventual adoption of SGLB's technology. In summary, it is not a done deal that will be culminated when full production is reached.
I don't suppose it ever occurred to you that investors may tire of a stock that has never earned a profit for something like 20 consecutive quarters, has diiluted shareholders twice and is about to do so again, has had their software in evaluation with various companies for years but has never booked a significant order, has been "in lockstep" with GE for so long now that they both surely have gangreen, and has a management and Board that has shown little concern for maintaining shareholder value. There is no MM manipulation, it's simply worn down shareholders getting out while they can still salvage some of their investment.
Thanks. I stand corrected. As someone who started programming in Macro Assembly Language on an IBM 7094 (complete with tape drives and punch cards) I guess things have evolved more than I thought.
"I believe it." Really. If you can point me to a self-correcting computer programming language I'd be fascinated. Thanks.
Duffy: That was a great explanation and clarified some things that I didn't completely understand. The Contour software, that you so eloquently described, is designed to work as you and Mark have described it to. The question in my mind remains does it? One of the things I learned as a beginning programmer in the Department of Defense more than 50 years ago is that code has to be 100% accurate to work as specified (99.9% simply does not cut it). So.....if the measurements are not 100% accurate, each and every time, or if the measurements are accurate, but the verification fails occassionally it is simply unuseable in the environment for which it was designed. The beta tests that Contour is now undergoing are designed to prove/disprove that the software works as designed each and every time and is 100% reliable. The fact that there are no substantive orders as yet says to me that the testing is not yet complete, or worse that the software has not lived up to specifications. I tend to believe that the tests are not complete, but I"m certain end users want to be 100% sure of the results before they put their faith and good deal of investment into the product.
Chef: You and I feel exactly the same way. I don't believe there is anything shady going on with the company, but I do feel that they go out of their way to color the facts and put the very best light on every announcement they make. I also believe that Mark and the entire Board would benefit from a course in Basic Business 101. They make consistently poor business decisions and without a Board that is primarly interested in adding shareholder (and is capable of doing so) I see them continuing to flounder. Hopefully we can arouse some interest on this Board to get a few folks to run against both Thacker and O'Mara. Even if they don't win, it will put the current Board on notice that there are a number of shareholders who are not happy with their current performance.
In the past year Rockville would have had to sell at a loss to get out so not much surprise there. Also I'm wondering whether the reverse split was because of a strong push in that direction from Rockville. The private placement was on January 10, 2014 and included this stipulation from Rockville:
"The Company agreed to use its best efforts to list the Company's common stock on the New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ or any other securities exchange acceptable to the Investor within 24-months from the closing of the private placement, to the extent the common stock is qualified to be listed on such securities exchanges." Well, they aren't qualified, at least at the moment, but they could have been feeling some heat from Rockville to take this first step.
I'd like to nominate Silver, Driftin, Jackie (or you pick someone) to run against Thacker for his Board seat. Let's have a director who cares about shareholder value.
Silver: The fat lady has yet to sing......and until she does I'll continue to believe that this reverse split without the benefit of having their ducks lined up for admittance to even the lowliest of Exchanges was a bone-head move. I'm eagerly awaiting Mark meeting the shareholder value and revenue requirements in one fell swoop. If it were so easy it would seem this would have been accomplished long ago. As for SGLB's Board they have been a consistent disappointment. If it's true that Thacker qualifys as "independent" after being associated organizationally with SGLB and it's predecessors for over ten years it is a sad state of affaris in deed for all shareholders. By the way, I prefer Dunkin assorted doughnuts. I'm taking your bet about the Nasdaq trading.
Ronald Fisher: He must be very very good, because he is very very expensive.
Salary: $180,000 annually (same as Mark's)
Signing Bonus last August: Stock option to purchase up to 4,750,000 shares of common stock at an exercise price of .059 per share.
At employment: Issued 250,000 shares of stock subject to performance-based vesting restrictions.
Anniversary of Employment Based Stock Options (options priced at stock price as of the date of grant)
1st Anniversary: 1,000,000 shares
2nd Anniversary: 60,000 shares
3rd Anniversary: 140,000 shares
4th Anniversary: 270,000 shares
5th Anniversary 530,000 shares
Further, Mr. Fisher is entitled to receive performance-based cash bonuses of $25,000 each if the company receives certain contracts within his first 18 months of employment.
Further, Mr. Fisher participates in the company's 2011 Equity Incentive Plan and the 2013 Equity Incentive Plan.
Mr. Fisher receives medical and dental benefits, life insurance,short and long term disability coverage, as well as participating in the company's Section 125 cafeteria plan, vision plan and 401 K plan.
His results will bear watching.
NYSE Standard 1 Requirement: "issuers are required to maintain 6 million dollars in stockholders equity if the issuer has losses in each of five most recent fiscal years". SGLB is a long way from qualifying.
The New York Exchange is not even a remote consideration. They are far from qualifying for even the American Exchange (with the lowest minimum standards for admittance)
Chef: Business acumen, as you politely put it, has been non-existent in this company for a very long time. The reverse split fiasco, illustrates beautifully why an independent board with a fiducuiary duty to look out for shareholders interest is necessary before I become an investor here again. Such a Board would have told Mark: You are far from having the shareholder equity, or revenue history to qualify for even the most lenient upgrading standards. The stock is not going to hold the R/S price without the immediate anticipation of an upgrade and you are going to destroy shareholder value by this action. You are directed to wait until you will immediately qualify for upgrading before implementing the reverse split. I believe that is exactly what 90% of the shareholders on this board would have told him. The fact that Thacker and O'Mara obviously did not, is cause for their removal from the board and the election of a couple of the large shareholders here who clearly have shareholder values as an important consideration. I believe Mark's bone-headed actions are going to end up causing the loss of 50-60% of shareholder's equity over the next 30 days.
My ameritrade account is showing a bid of $5.00 and an ask of $5.25 with 280 shares traded a few minutes ago at $5.50.
It would have been wonderful if they had qualified to uplist when they did the reverse split, but they were a long ways from meeting several of the criteria. The fact that qualifying to uplist is very much an unknown puts price pressure on the stock price going forward. The rationale for having a $5.00 stock price rather than .05 is that most institutional investors will not buy anything that trades under a minimum dollar value (often $5.00). However, for reasons I pointed out in my earlier post I don't believe they will touch this until/unless major orders materialize.
Wow. Today turned out even worse than I was expecting. I believe Kmey, Magnetics, and RFB are worth paying attention to. You may not like what they are saying, but I believe the next few weeks will convince you that they know what they are talking about. As RFB pointed out there really was nothing new revealed during the conference call. If I hear Mark say one more time that they are in "lockstep with GE" I'm going to strangle him. How many years (one, two, three) are you in "lockstep" before orders materialize?
SGLB made a mistake (hopefully not fatal) in implementing the split before receiving major orders. If they had waited I don't think you would have seen this nose dive, which is bound to get much worse before it gets better. I still don't own shares and won't be a buyer for some time now. If I really believed in the future of the company (which I frankly have doubts about now) and owned shares, I would sell half now with the intention of buying in later at a significantly lower price. The odds of the stock price going lower in the short to medium term rather than higher is about 10/1 in my opinion. The idea that institutional investors are going to jump in now with the pathetic financials, continuous quarter over quarter losses, no orders in sight, and an insider Board, is laughable. I'm sure most here won't agree with any of this, but let's wait a month and remember this post.
Driftin: Thacker is a long time insider. O'Mara is independent but has been a terrible disappointment. He has some skill sets that could have helped the company immeasureably but has been a non-entity on the Board. The Board expenses are minimal and I don't see that as a legitimate excuse for obtaining independent voices. You are correct that they could add independent directors at the last minute before updating but why not now when they are in the formtive stage and very badly in need of some solid business expertise. Authorizing a stock buyback (even a token buyback) and actually implementing it are two different things. As to your inquuiry on why insiders are not buying that's a very good question and one I wonder about as well. In my opinion they have about six more months (at most) to produce some significant contracts or the market is going to look elsewhere for better results.
Yup. You are right Duffy they did perform better than I expected. Keep in mind however that espenses are now at the $900,000 level so they are going to have to keep up the momentum to stay ahead of the game. I'll celebrate when they actually produce a profit.....or better yet sign a major sales contract. As to adding independent directors being an easy fix. I would say Amen. It has always been an easy fix that they chose to ignore.
The revenue increase is certainly positive, as is the reverse split in my opinion. Not so good is the fact that they have yet to achieve profitability in even a single quarter, with no major sales or contracts for their product offerings. It will also be interesting to see how institutional investors view investing in a company without an independent board of directors. If they want to attract institutional buyers they are going to have to add a majority of independent directors soon
"Also mentions Sigma is in a 10,000 Sq ft state of the art facility in Santa Fe," I'm sure they simply overlooked mentioning the fact that the space is shared by 22 other start-up companies in Santa Fe's Business Incubator facility.
Capital Mkts is the easiest to qualify for (https://www.theventurealley.com/2012/04/post/). however SGLB does not meet the stockholders equity requirements, the revenue requirements nor the Independent director's requirements at a minimum.
It's going to be interesting tomorrow to hear the rationale for the reverse split. It's not for upgrading....they are not even close to qualifying...even for the American Exchange. It could be in preparation for a buyout...but is that really good new?. Sure you will get a premium over the current price, but it is almost unheard of for that premium to be more than 30-40% over the current price. I would not consider that particularly good news either. The key to share appreciation remains solid orders and contracts. While reported revenue will increase for Q-4 they will also report their largest loss to date. No amount of share price manipulation is going to take the place of solid sales results. Should be an interesting conference call.
These are the requirements for an uplisting to the Nasdaq Capital Marketplace: (Unless they pull a rabbit out of the hat tomorrow, it's difficult to see how they qualify)
$3/share price — for at least five consecutive business days prior to approval, the security has a minimum closing price of at least $3 per share and the issuer has either:
Equity Standard: (A) stockholders’ equity of at least $5M; (B) market value of publicly held shares of at least $15M; and (C) a two year operating history; or
Net Income Standard: (A) net income from continuing operations of $750,000 in the most recently completed fiscal year or in two of the three most recently completed fiscal years; (B) stockholders’ equity of at least $4M; and (C) market value of publicly held shares of at least $5 million; or
$2/share price — for at least five consecutive business days prior to approval, the security has a minimum closing price of at least $2 per share and the issuer has (A) market value of listed securities of at least $50M; (B) stockholders’ equity of at least $4M; and (C) market value of publicly held shares of at least $15M.
In addition, the issuer must also demonstrate that it has:
Net tangible assets in excess of $2M if it has been in continuous operation for at least three years;
Net tangible assets in excess of $5M if it has been in continuous operation for less than three years; or
Average revenue of at least $6M for the last three years.
The share price is creeping up in anticipation of substantive news on the conference call. I'm going to be bold enough to make a prediction. There will be no substantive news on the conference call (I define substantive news as a major contract announcement, or revenue announcement....something in excess of 10 million dollars). Of course there will be no substantive news because management is required by law to announce material events within three days of their occurrence. Therefore the conference call will be yet another attempt to reinforce how swimmingly things are going, how we are in "lockstep" with evetryone and great news will be just around the corner. They will report increased revenues but not enough to offset what will be their largest quarterly net loss yet. The stock will take another small blip based upon the true believers talking up how great the call was and then it's going to be back to the 4's until the time when/if substantive revenue/sales actually occur. I could be dead wrong (and often am) but that's my prediction and I'm sticking to it.
Silver. Let's do that I'd enjoy getting together and I'll spring for something stronger than coffee.
Alan
One has to wonder...... Is this the 10th, 12th, 15th time that SGLB has released news about a joint venture, evaluation system, presentation, etc. that has seen the vocal proponents of the stock price emerge from the woodwork in great numbers to trumpet what great news this particular release brings and how "we are now on our way", etc. etc. The stock price most always responds by climbing 1/2 to 3/4 of a cent and then within days (if not hours) sinks back to it's previous level or below. I've got to wonder if we don't have some active traders among the more vocal supporters who take advantage of these blips to sell and buy in later. I would certainly hope that is not the case but the pattern has been so consistent, one just has to wonder.
You don't need my opinion. Just look at the tape.
Terrific questions Silver. There is unquestionably going to be strong competition from the printer providers and they are going to aggressively push their solution on purchasers of their printers as being integrated with the hardware, etc. Also keep in mind that whatever response you receive from Sigma management to your inquiries the answer is going to be their opinion only and may or may not play out in the competitive marketplace. I think that those here that believed SGLB had a lock on a good piece of this marketplace will face some unpleasent surprises in the coming months.
Competitors to what? SGLB has one saleable component of it's announced suite of software that no one has yet agree to purchase after being commercially available for 18 months. Do you really believe the metal printer companies and the large metal printing users are sitting on their hands while SGLB perfects their offerings? Dream on.
Contour is still undergoing beta testing, and Analytics has yet to be released in any form.