Fortitude Group, Inc. (FRTD)

[Imperial Whazoo]

Two reasons I can see,

1. I can guarantee there is a checklist governing the stages of the project and, although they do not have to await physical delivery to begin manufacturing, I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts the money is triggered by the checklist.
2. Which brings us to the second reason which is that the university that will do independent testing is the checklist item requiring physical delivery, which triggers access to the $$. Delivery is implicit in meeting the checklist item to get university testing done which, in turn, is the checklist item governing release of funding.

So, shipment is a checklist item of a sort, but a checklist item doesn't govern manufacturing. It concerns only getting checked off by physical delivery so the unit can go thru independent university testing and thus trigger access to funding.

All IMHO, of course, but thats what I think is the reason behind delivery. One thing this tells us, if true, is that testing will not be in a US university. It will be in a European university.

If it were me, I'd also contract with Auburn or Texas A & M or Georgia Tech to independently test it over here. That way, political jackassery over in the EU is counterbalanced by research here in the US. And, by having a US university do it in parallel, it may free them up to sell it to the Chinese while the EU is playing politics with it. Of course, if they only have the one unit, they are not going to be able to leverage this option, so it may be a mute point.

IMHO, of course... all of it.

Imperial Whazoo