Microfluidics Intl (fka MFLU)

[cfoofme]

Good summation from a poster on another board:

By: andre727
05 Jun 2009, 01:09 PM EDT
Rating: Rate this post: Msg. 238 of 246
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Annual meeting

As many of you know, an annual meeting has as its primary purpose the tabulation of votes and is the very first part of the meeting. ALL items that had to be voted upon were PASSED. So our board of directors was elected without exception, our auditors were approved, and it has been authorized that our outstanding shares could go to 30 million shares when it previously could not have gone higher than 20 million shares. Chairman of the Board James Little presided over this section of the meeting.

Then, we heard Mike Ferrara give a slide presentation on the company. Of greatest interest to me was to hear him reiterate, as of June 4, that he felt that it was a reasonable expectation that MFLU would be EBITDA positive this year. Given that I think he’s less inclined to BS along the lines of Irwin Gruverman (remember Gruverman’s “investors will be pleased when we release this quarter’s information”…only to ultimately find out that the quarter was one in which the company had a net loss?), and that he must know how THIS quarter is going as of June 4, I thought that was a fairly significant statement , particularly after a Q1 $400,000 plus loss (albeit largely due to “severance payments”).

Another interesting slide was one in which he labeled 2008, 2009, and 2010 with descriptive words. 2008 was “fix”, a process that apparently is still ongoing. Apparently, the company’s headquarters infrastructure was/is being fixed, its machines were/are being fixed, and its strategy and direction were and still are being fixed. But “fixing” the company was the main theme of 2008.

2009 is “lean” referring to the company “leaning” towards profitability in 2009.

And 2010 is “grow”.

Let me just say a few words about “fix”. We know about management changes, the correction of problems with the machines, the change in corporate culture, strategy, and direction. But you really have to actually visit the company to fully appreciate how comprehensively the company’s infrastructure has changed.

It’s not just the completely renovated offices, lunch room, small meeting rooms with telephones to be used by visiting clients. I had been taken back into the assembly area by Jack Swig from time to time in the past and was very unimpressed by the drab, dingy, disorganized, poorly lighted assembly area. Production equipment worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, perhaps to be ultimately installed in pharmaceutical clean rooms, looked like they were being installed in some crusty, oldtimer automotive garage (Chief Engineer Bill Conroy told me that his daughter had said that it looked like a basement). Maybe MFIC didn’t have too many client visits but, if they did, they couldn’t help but be concerned about the company’s professionalism after seeing that assembly area.

Yesterday, I was taken back by Bill Conroy and was amazed to see a spotlessly clean, very well lit, completely organized assembly area with shiny clean floors, sectioned off by whatever machine would be built in that section. Any client that were to visit MFLU now would be undoubtedly impressed. The perception of extraordinary professionalism will of course not only result in more sales, but perhaps greater profit margin sales. When you go to a hole in the wall restaurant, you expect to pay “cheap eats” prices no matter how good the food may be. And vice versa when you’re amazed by the “luxury” of the restaurant.

Here’s some tidbits that I think may be of interest. Of course, no one discussed, even in private conversations, how this quarter’s going. However, I can assure you that everyone was in a confident, jovial mood, completely unlike what you might expect if the company were going down the tubes or facing a liquidity crisis.

I perked up when I heard Mike Ferrara mention in his presentation that “swine flu” is (present tense) “helping us out“. Apparently, “people are scared”. If that means what I think that means then I believe that the company might have received some windfall “swine flu vaccine” order or orders of some note. And most likely vaccine equipment will be production equipment and not necessarily basic research lab equipment. Just my interpretation and opinion for you to mull over as I did. Of course, I could be completely wrong.

Nice to think that MFLU is a swine flu play.

When I was talking to new comptroller Peter Byczko, I mentioned in the context of the conversation that investors who had been with the company for a while have suffered. His spontaneous response, and I don’t remember his exact words, was that “it’s a good thing we’re coming back” (or at least that's the message that I think I got).

Again, positivity just oozed out of everybody. Just reading between the lines, things look good.

As for the MRT, apparently they’ve had things breaking in a positive way on that front. I don’t know what that will mean in terms of revenue numbers but CTO Mimi was bubbling with enthusiasm about how well things were going. As someone who’s looked on in amazement at the company’s ZERO sales (!!!???) since first hearing in 2004 that the MMR (the forerunner of the MRT) was selected by the MIT Emerging Technologies Showcase as a “technology poised to make a significant impact upon the world”, it’s about damn time!