I’ve been an investor in LQMT for more than 7 years and still have confidence in the technology and see us as getting closer to adoption. One thing that is somewhat disconcerting is the possibility of transitioning from a penny stock to the more conventional world of sales growth, P/E etc. My first thought was to consider “what would it take to have earnings of a penny per share in a year” …easy 900 million shares times a penny is $9 million in NET INCOME. Using a royalty business model …and a hypothetical 5% royalty says that sales revenue would have to be a whopping $180 million. This is a really big number that is far beyond what the MAZE could supply and bigger than a single whale…we will need several pods of whales to make this happen.
Next thought…maybe I misunderstood the business plan approach and there is another strategy in the wings. I started thinking about alternatives and the franchise approach came to mind. McDonalds had a great business model where they owned the property, building and equipment…sold all the consumables to the franchisee, provided business consulting (accounting, advertising, insurance, menu development etc). They make money by charging a BIG upfront franchise fee, rent on the property, mark-up on the supplies, administrative fee and a percent of the sales. They take a cut at every step and it works!
So…how can we adapt this concept to LQMT? We need “partners” and partners are reluctant to put large chunks of money into something where they can see risk (it’s the bean counters!). If a whale were to build a 20 machine facility …the outlay would be in the $30-35 million range which is a big roadblock so here is the plan to sidestep that problem…
Our partner, (the whale) is responsible for providing the building with appropriate utilities for 20 machines. They also have to have workers available to staff it as it scales up. This is their “buy in”.
We tap the resources of the MAZE for the machines…LK Machine fronts the machines (5 every 6 months) to the whale in a lease or lease-to-buy arrangement and LQMT takes a small cut. Li should be able to help here.
BMG alloy is sourced from either the MAZE in China or through Euctectrix or Materion and LQMT takes a small cut.
LQMT in North America or the MAZE agrees to provide technical support at prevailing consulting rates to assist with start-up and troubleshooting if necessary..
LQMT gets a royalty/license fee based on machine output that is calculated on either product value (difficult) or driven from BMG throughput as $ per pound.
It may be that this scenario in some form is already the plan….timing is by no means instantaneous since there are many “pieces/parts” to be coordinated.
I’m hopeful that it’s already in the works.
