Imagine you're the CEO or a director at Poet Technologies and you are chairing or attending an important board meeting. You have been given evidence and advice that your company is substantially on its way to achieiving the claim made by its chief scientist, who sits on the board, and that the GaAs wafer has achieved improvement in speed and power efficiency over any rival currently available. Also, it is likely that no other company can achieve this for some years, and there is some protection through patent law to prevent copying etc.

Any responsible board would see the advantages and potential value but also the risks at this juncture. The major risks, in my view, must be:

• How do we develop this product quickly to bring it to market?
• How do we maximise the company's value to all shareholders?
• How do we protect ourselves from a cheap hostile takeover bid?
• How do we sustain finance into the future?
• We must brainstorm other potential risks as per cieived by each board member in light of experience and background.

In response and despite a previous report which valued the company at $1 billion, there is a pervading sense that a successful break-in to the semiconductior market, whose total annual value, including civil and military world-wide, is substantially above £1 trillion, makes the company seriously undervalued. I believe it would be irresponsible not to revalue the company, particularly to protect from a hostile bid and to encourage a reasonable outcome in any negotiations and bargaining with a future partner. The most ecomnomical way was always likely to be to use the same company (Pelligrino) to do this. This cannot be a waste of money.

Many on this forum have a strong belief the company is undervalued. If the company were to take 1% of the market (there is the potential for vastly more) then the annual revenues could be, at a conservative estimate, hundreds of millions if not billions. Such a company would be given and deserve a very large valuation. The first Pellegrino report was not fully aware of the likelihood of the technology to come to fruition, whereas there is substantially increased confidence now. Also, the breakdown of Moore's law is several years closer and there is significant concern in the engineering and technology fraternity on this point; it is given witness, with written evidence, by others on this excellent forum. As a consequence some believe the valuation may be above $10 billion. They are increasingly likely to be correct. If so, this company has the potential to undertake a truly remarkable journey upwards over the next 2 years.

I predict 2 announcements that will make the share price leap upwards:

• A partnership announcement.
• 3 successive increases in revenue in the quarterly accounts or a gigantic first one.

Other announcements will be more modest in their effect e.g. new CEO, milestones etc. they are probably factored into the current rises in share price already.

DNWL