Member Info for Lindon

Yes buddy... exactly. But its not up to CAR, they have done nothing wrong! They are simply the inventors & suppliers of the FLT. They gave Atmel, who have all the major OEM close business contacts via their other businesses the permissions to get those customers through the door! Atmel have done that! They have marketed it to infinity, they have got numerous OEM's in house & working on XSense design programmes, they have fully supported & funded Carclo. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but the competions ability to cut selling prices by around 50% would have been almost impossible to predict & it is ONLY that which has caused the lack of adoption. Its VERY doubtful that anymore production operating costs can be stripped out. A subtractive photolitho printing process IS an expensive process, there is NO way of getting around that, the costs depend entirely on the amount of wastage... & YEILDS are massively important to the production costs. Achieving commercially saleable high yeilds are what the validation exercise was all about. They will have got that aspect as far as it can possibly go in order to be commercially viable. That is why I say the only other way of reducing the overall cost of the exercise is to shorten the inefficient shipping supply chain. Atmel ARE investigating ways that can be done.

Sorry, typo... Pension deficit is £6.5m!

Hi Hughsie,.. I think 'fair value' based on last November's half year results for TP, LED, & PE. Turnover, Operating Profit & margin formula for each, less costs £1.6m, tax £500k, debt £18.5m, pension deficit £1.6m... is around 100p maybe even less... down to a rock bottom 80p. Simply a basic sp price point where ALL 'potential' for FLT in sensors, printed electronics & photovoltaic etc. etc... is taken out of the equation & where the company stands on pure numbers as of a moment in time. Revenue reported as earned from XSense (£2.3m) is also of course money they had already received from Atmel via the $10m prepayment. (about £7.4m) The £2.3m is simply an accounting conversion from the liability 'pot' to the revenue 'pot'. They said they expected to beat that & no doubt they have... assuming say around £3m this quarter... will mean over £5m will have been unwound. So not exactly 'new' money earned, but no bad thing all the same! Upside? Anyone's guess! The 'potential' is enormous BUT a win is only a win if its won, no power on earth can force an OEM to buy if they consider its too expensive & only if more wins are achieved will we know. The downside? Obviously £20-£25m write offs & that is why its necessary to try to get a view on true 'fair value' as it stands at the moment IMO. IF a point somewhere around what the market considers to be fair value is reached, then I think you can expect the buyers to start piling in & I think that is where the market is driving this to at the moment. There will simply be no point in going short unless write downs are factored in. All this is ONLY my opinion of course. I'm certainly no expert. Wish I was!

Going down, but if not tomorrow... then sometime next week the sp should reach fair value.

... nothing new... the words remain the same.

Doubt Corning would, films & printing aren't their thing. But apart from the prepayment Atmel funded Carclo's move to the new premises & the production set up costs in return for the 10yr exclusivity agreement. Also of course capex'd their own Colorado facilities. The over talk is only speculation tho. The individual broker meetings are probably just routine meets. That agreement with Armel actually gives Carclo that 'someone bigger' behind the scenes, that was of course the whole idea. Unfortunately the ability of existing supply chain ODM's such as O-Film,. to fight off the disruption that XSense has caused to the TS market by reducing ITO selling prices by around 50%... was underestimated. Atmel have one of their normal presentations scheduled for tomorrow which will be web cast... nothing serious ever seems to be announced at these events but no doubt we'll get some more hype. Wedbush 2014 Transformational Technologies Management Access Conference May 13, 2014 8:00 AM ET Speaker: Steve Skaggs, SVP & CFO Location: Le Parker Meridien Hotel 119 West 56th Street New York, New York, NY 10009 US Contact: Peter Schuman 408-437-2026 Listen to webcast

Stock Market & Financial Investment News News Breaks 04:55 EDT ATML, ATML Atmel management to meet with Needham Meeting to be held in New York on May 13 hosted by Needham. 09:52 EDT ATML Atmel management to meet with FBR Capital Meetings to be held in Princeton/Trenton/Philadelphia/Baltimore on May 14 hosted by FBR Capital.

Atmel Meeting Announcements; May 28th, Craig-Hallum 11th Annual Institutional Investor Conference. June 4th, Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2014 Global Technology Conference Atmel have also just announced 2 other broker meetings, one with with Nedham brockers one with FBR Capital brokers. This flurry of broker meetings had led to speculation in the states that Atmel are in the process of either getting bought out or acquiring another company. Given Carclo's low market cap + £20-25m capex + £18-20m debt + $10m loan & uncertainty that they can recover the situation... an Atmel buy out at a reasonable price for Carclo's coated film sensor business would surly be a very tempting proposition for the institutional investors.

You can be very sure that any unnecessary 'hands on' production costs will have been stripped out by both companies. There will be no further 'fat' to strip in that respect. IMO the answer to reducing overall coat lies in reducing that inefficient supply chain. We will have to wait & see what happens with Corning... as it stands at the moment the price of the sensor component side of the collaboration may still prove to be a brick wall to success.

... alternatives to the larger one. XSense is produced by a photolithography process, its an expensive process but WAS price competitive with the other solutions. It is not now. Its MUCH more expensive in comparison. HP... even if Carclo/ Atmel reduced their profit margin to the bone & HP were given an 'inducement' would have had to pay far more than any of the other solutions. Price differentials of that order are a very real problem for the OEM's selling into a market that's mega competitive with the public demanding best value & outweigh best quality at moment. The rest of the market has caught up with Apple & other brands are now seen as just as good. We need another iPod /iPad type device revolution. Flexible, thinner, lighter is the way to go to achieve that but it also has a knock on effect to the design of all other components that make up a device. Not easy & it will take time.

XSense is superior to ALL other solutions but in different ways. The three silver solutions silver Halide, silver mesh & silver nanowire suffer from haze ((reflection) no matter what size the lines. Cambrios ClearOhm silver nanowire is the best... it can be produced down to 2 microns but still has haze issues in the larger form factors. Rolith is working on a sub micron solution but still can only claim 'reduced' haze not zero haze & cannot yet produce it roll to roll, only in 1mtr x 300mm. Silver is though a better conductor than copper & is equally flexible. Levono 20" Flex AIO (all in one) released last Autumn had Cambrios nanowire & the quality of the display has been panned by the tech test sites. Its the only product in the mainstream known to have nanowire. Samsung released a silver mesh in an AIO nearly two years ago, again it has been panned. Both companies have not seemed eager to repeat their experiences in the mainstream market as yet. Silver halide is reckoned to be only suitable for large public information type touch screens. Traditional ITO on glass has much poorer resistance figures & is unsuitable for large form factors & ALSO has noticeable haze issues above 13".... & lets less light through than silver or copper, also the splurging onto glass process make it a very expensive solution & why the industry is turning to alternatives. ITO on film until recently suffered from both poor conductivity & letting 13% less light through than even ITO on glass. Recent reports suggest that both issues have been improved but iv'e not seen figures to say how much. It is however a much cheaper solution, also for the ITO on glass ODM's to convert to without much in the way of new production equipment cost. It CAN be flexed slightly but that causes the ohm figures to rise & unlike copper they don't return to normal when straghtned out. Probably ok for a pre- made slightly curved mobile. OGS (One Glass Solution) as opposed to traditional GFF (glass + 2 ITO) does away with one layer of glass in the stack so makes for a thinner, lighter device but is expensive to assemble, has poor SNR ( Signal to Noise Ratio) in lager form factors which appears as visual interference on the display. It can also give less than perfect reponse to touch gestures. Apple use OGS in iPads, which is why iPads have slower responses to the likes of the Omni 10. Even between 9 & 10 inches ITO's poor resistance starts to slow things down. They use On- Cell in iPhones. On-Cell is a solution that does away with a separate grid & is embedded in the LCD layer. Its expense accounts for a part of the premium cost of iPhone. Its only suitable for screen up to 5" due to a poor SNR. That's why Apple have been reluctant to bring out a larger mobile up til now. Reports suggest Apple may introduce two versions of IPhone 6... one under 5" & a few months later one up to 6" and they are investigating

If you took the sensor completely out of the equasion & use the figures at the time of last Novembers half time report then the rest of the company is probably worth around 90p. LED lighting & the supercar bits are only niche markets & the rest of CAR is a high volume plastic moulding business with tiny margins. EDS has no value, the AKI marker is under clinical sample trials can & it take years before anything is brought to market.

... there is an even better way! Corning are moving their glass making business to Korea. Given the recent Atmel collaboration I wouldn't be surprised if Corning become the de facto outlet under licence to do what the ODM's presently do. Even better!!!! .

gocarclo, it IS only a matter of price & not quality. But to sell it they have had to reduce the margins to not much above costs of producing it. I believe that has been the inducement which persuaded HP to buy it. The quality was obviously not a problem. That has come about due to the Asians 50% price reductions & that is expected to continue into at least 2015. But Carclo/Atmel continuing to sell at cost is not a sustainable buisness plan or proposition. So what's the answer? How can they cut costs in order to compete on a level playing field PRICE but where XSense quality makes the difference? I believe the answer lies in the supply chain. The following extract is from Atmel's yr end call: "One of the things that we're doing currently today, just to share with you, we're doing the manufacturing of that today. There are a number of people who would like to partner with us, with this business, on the manufacturing side, obviously deferring -- different ways to go about the business in different ways to participate in that" What the Atmel CEO is talking about here... in his usual convoluted way... is licensing out the production of the sensor to an ODM (module assembler). Consider OUR supply chain for an HP tablet: CAR put the rolls of film through the printing process. They crate up the rolls & ship them to America. (ATML) They turn the rolls into sensors, crate up the finished sensors & ship them to an Asia. ODM (module assembler) They do the lamination work & turn it into a finished touch module. They crate up those modules & ship them offf to... in this case the American OEM (HP) They gather all the bits from their suppliers & turn it into a finished Tablet. They then crate up the tablets & ship them to the retailers. Consider the normal supply chain: HP gives the ODM an order... the ODM prints, senrorises & laminates the tablet & ships it to HP who build into the tablet & ship it to the retailers. You immediately see the difference in the inefficient shipping AND VERY COSTLY supply chain charges for HP for a sensor from a sensor only manufacturer! The alternative & far cheaper way is for Atmel to licence an ODM to do their sensor work for them with Carclo shipping the coated film direct to the ODM. An extract from the 1Q14 call in answer to a question referring to what the CEO said on the yr end call: "With respect to alternatives to monetizing, that's the kind of thing that you don't discuss really in an earnings call but it's something you do when you announce really after the fact. But we are looking at alternative ways to make sure we can maximize the return to our investors with respect to this particular business". I think they are on the case.

Yes, I think you can believe them. Carclo gave out the reasons for it. Why would you not believe them? They told it as it is, namely the 'competition' is cheaper & any wins Atmel have got... or do eventually get... will have poor profit margins. That is why the sp is where it is.

... Meanwhile, Japan-based Fujifilm has been reducing the price of its metal mesh touch sensors, which are shipped mainly to touch panel makers, such as Taiwan-based Young Fast and China-based Eely, for their production catering to first-tier vendors including NEC and Dell. In the future, the Japan-based maker may become a strong competitor of O-film vying for Samsung's orders. ITO film makers, such as Japan-based Nitto Denko, have cut their ITO film prices down from an average of CNY300 per square meter originally to only CNY200 recently, with films' resistance values having also been reduced from 150-200Ohm/square to 100Ohm/square. The improvements have enabled ITO films specifically for 13- to 15.6-inch notebook touch panels and the films are already available in the market. Although GFF technology is still unable to match metal mesh technology in the 13- to 15.6-inch large-size touch panel segment in terms of material costs, limited metal mesh-based touch panel supplies and GFF technology's high yield rate thanks to its relatively mature manufacturing process may turn some downstream vendors to adopt GFF technology instead. For the medium-size segment, where ITO films' resistance is almost not an issue, GFF technology has advantages over metal mesh technology in terms of material costs, hindering metal mesh's expansion into the medium-size segment.

Metal mesh technology has entered mass production at some China-based touch panel makers, such as O-film, since the second half of 2013. It helped O-film become the largest notebook touch panel supplier in the world in the fourth quarter of 2013, thanks to its pricing advantages. Lenovo was one of the early adopters of metal mesh touch panels for its notebooks. Following its sucess in the notebook market, O-film is looking to expand into the 8- to 10-inch medium-size segment in 2014. But Digitimes Research believes the metal mesh sector will have to step up efforts defending its stronghold at the 13- to 15.6-inch segment against traditional GFF applications starting from the second quarter of 2014, as ITO films' pricing has been dropping and resistance issues have also been improving. ITO film's high resistance has prevented GFF touch panels from entering the 13-inch and above segment, while costs of OGS touch panels are too high. The major drawback of metal mesh touch panels is that users are able to see the internal touch sensor on screen, but such an issue is not much of a problem for larger-size applications and therefore the technology has been considered the most suitable solution for large-size applications, such as touchscreen notebooks and all-in-one PCs. China-based makers, such as O-film, started mass producing related touch panels in the second half of 2013 and have been gradually expanding their shares in the notebook touch panel market. However, Taiwan players, such as TPK, which originally expected demand for OGS-based notebook touch panels to pick up, have suffered losses and reduced the related capacity to minimize the damage. Having resolved the problem with touch sensor visibility of metal mesh technology, O-film is looking to expand into the 8- to 10-inch tablet touch panel market in 2014 and enter Samsung Electronics' supply chain. However, initially, O-film will mainly supply touch panels for Intel-based white-box tablets.

O-Film are the Chinese company referred to in Carclo's last RNS. (Fuijifim is the Japanese company they referred to) TJen-Chieh Yang, DIGITIMES Research, Taipei [Thursday 8 May 2014] Thin-film type touch panels are expected to make up 77.5% of the makers' shipments as of second-quarter 2014 as China handset vendors put in increased orders for the technology to meet entry-level and mid-range smartphone demand in China during 2014, Digitimes Research estimates in its latest quarterly data report on China's touch panel industry. The demand will push China-based O-Film's handset touch panel shipments to around 35 million units in the second quarter as a result, added Digitimes Research. Digitimes Research also expects the makers' shipments of 11-inch and below size touch panels for use in tablet products to increase 7.9% in the second quarter due to increased demand from Samsung Electronics, Lenovo and various white-box vendors.

Samsung Electronics is putting in weaker-than-expected handset component orders to the supply chain as competition from other vendors, most notably in the China market, intensifies. The company has been focused on expanding its handset product mix in the first quarter of 2014 to further compete in the market but as competition from other vendors intensifies Samsung is reevaluating its market outlook, which will affect orders to upstream supply chains. Supply chains were running on tight supply in the first quarter to meet Samsung demand and were expected to do so in the following quarter but Samsung has now slowed down its orders, stating to supply chains that it has conservative shipment outlooks for the second quarter of 2014. Samsung's decrease in orders are expected to be mostly for low-priced smartphones. LG resumes cooperation with Taiwan-based handset ODMs, say sources Daniel Shen, Taipei; Steve Shen, DIGITIMES [Tuesday 6 May 2014] LG Electronics has resumed its cooperation with Taiwan-based handset ODMs by releasing orders for entry-level Android 3G smartphones to Arima Communications, according to industry sources. Initial orders will total two million units with shipments to begin in the third quarter of 2014. The 3G smartphones will be launched in Southeast Asia, Latin America and other emerging markets, said the sources. LG shipped a total of 12.3 million smartphones in the first quarter of 2014, led by strong sales of the Nexus 5, LG G2 and 4G LTE models. LG plans to launch its new flagship model, the LG G3, as well as its entry-level to mid-range L III-series products, in the second quarter, and may see its quarterly shipments hit a record high of 15 million units in the quarter, the sources estimated. LG's smartphone shipments reached 47.7 million units in 2013 and are expected to top 60 million units in 2014, indicated the sources. To sustain its shipment growth, LG may also release orders for 4G LTE models and Windows phones to Taiwan-based ODMs in the future, the sources added.

Just checked back to when it was 420p following last years Berlin show. I make this the fourth time its been called 'oversold' after a large drop. That ignores the drops the previous year from over 500p. Each & every time posters have said they didnt see it coming & each & everytime have claimed it represented a superb buying opportunity & all the premium in the sp for 'potential' has been discounted. IMO... only if it drops to less than 100p can it be truly said that position has been reached.