Lets imagine that it's Jan 2013.

You enjoy taking a gamble, so you take a punt on some Technology Intellectual Property(IP), that you discovered  by chance, owned by a struggling solar company on its last legs.  (that's pretty risky) 

You have a germ of understanding of what this IP potentially can do. It could possibly change the way that integrated circuits (IC) are made for ever by offering significant advantages over current IC  made using Silicon CMOS. Besides the advantages of silicon and Moore's law is coming to an end . (Invest only in what you understand - yet more risk)

That company has no viable means to commercialise its IP (POET).  IP that currently only exists in a University Science Laboratory that's vulnerable to flooding but run by a professor in optoelectronic science, a genius even but typically one who sadly has not a clue on how to commercialise his ground breaking inventions and wants to retire. (and I still took the risk - strewth)

The IP is valued by experts in the field at 5-10 Billion dollars.  (A valuation that excites you enough to commit more to the risk that this company represents- mmhhh! greed creeping in here motives are changing) .

(thought Bubble)

Lets take stock at this point and let's try to think that given the parless state of this  company what actions are needed to turn it into a viable commercial project:

1.  actions equired to:
1. produce, viable commercial POET products
2. obtain the means of mass manufacturing POET.
3. obtain the right personnel to build a viable commercial company with significant R&D facilities.
4. obtain modern machines to manufacture POET products
5. build a supply chain to market your offerings world wide.
6. Attract suitably qualified and experienced management team along with a board of directors with real world experience of the IC electro-photonic business environment.
7. Attract 40 or so suitably qualified and experienced engineers to develop and make POET.

1. Who is the right CEO to run this project?
2. How much funding is required?
3. How long is this going to take?

Conclusion:  

I am taking one hell of a risk  here particularly given the board of Directors are still left with some shady characters from the OPEL days, and led by a Money Markets man with hardly the right qualifications or experience technically to take on the point 1 action lists. 

Lets move forward on to 2015

Ajit Monacha (AM) and Suresh Venkatesan (SV) are recruited and the board is strengthened with industry achievers and a new strategy aimed at producing a  limited product, the AOC) aimed at the burgeoning data centre market..  Peter Coppetti (PC) the money man has created a pool of funds to launch the project and leaves.  We now have a plan, personalities and funding answering points 2 and 3 above, but still no real answer on time - though by September 2015 soon was bandied around - whatever that meant. 

Another thought Bubble

They thought that the Anadigics acquisition and with perhaps a backer lined up was going to work.  Well sods law it didn't they were out bid and  the backer probably withdrew . But by 2016 plan B acquiring  DL and BB was quickly resolved.  The Arch Glum would have us believe that this was a disaster, but in reality the 4th terminal Thyrsitor problem would have in any case emerged at some point in plan A and we would by then not have had a plan B because the pot was empty.

Let's move on 2 more years

Here we are back to today so lets get back to the nub of the POMM/GLUMM problem Scary raises .

 Wheras the SP now sits where it was five years ago at 0.29 or thereabout is disappointing, moaning about what is an inevitability in a development project seems indulgent and misplaced.  In reality SP has for significant periods since 2013 sat in higher average ranges in the 1 .40 to 1.60 region even topping at one time at 2.86.  That says to me that says that SP has the capacity to come back.  Why would it do that? - Because the underlying worth of the company has increased significantly and it indeed has because the  actions at point 1 above are now largely completed completed.

As investors in this risky punt, is not the vagaries of  SP variation that should concern us but that the company building necessities  of my list above have been completed. and we are still targeting late 2018 for income from the first POET product the AOC,  The truth is that no one could really answer points 2 to 4 in 2013 but today with knowledge we can get nearer the mark enough to say that this investment is considerably de risked by the actions of current management.  They should therefore be duly rewarded sufficiently.

There is an undeniable order to making this project work and that is to get the tech done, transfer it from Lab to fab, make the products in a commercial viable environment and sell them to the market.  Any going backwards or iteration of the lab to fab will inevitably cost time and money to the extent that rather than go for a risky PO management have opted for delay and to seek JV as a solution, which given the momentum they have created in DenseLight and BB acquisitions is bearable, if a little disappointing, but surely not worthy of the degree of the 'Sky is falling' in rant of the Arch Glum on one of his rare visits here.  The argument has moved on and his intervention has caused an unwelcome rerun of what is well past and does not need iteration and leads to unworthy attacks on FJ the principle contributor to this board.

 The realistic and transparent manner the facts of the status of the company were delivered at the AGM reveal that whilst there is a glitch on the GaAs development all other avenues are going ahead. Genius cannot be rushed and the glitch is just one of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune we realistically have to face in a development project. 

Scary and others blaming management for serendipity is the futile exercise of armchair analysts far removed from the coalface of engineering a realistic 'bleeding edge' technology solution.  

 I conclude that management have done an enormous amount to take this project forward and have faced and over come inevitable difficulties successfully.  A realistic appraisal should see that, the stop gap solution of InP will allow the genuine POET products we originally invested in are safe and delay may yet be overcome by joint venture funds and facilities. Yes we are not the wealthy people today that our dreams imagined back in 2013 but there is a real prospect of achievement ahead.

Its Scary isn't it.

sula