Member Info for Nanonano

Well we can say they're solvent and debt free.

A better outcome is likely if there are two or more bidders seriously interested in acquiring the company.

I don't think figures for LG QNED production are available publicly. It's fairly easy to find figures for OLED production, which is quite low, and is immaterial to any legal action as LG OLED's don't use QD's. We do know they've producing them since 2021, so about four years of production.

They do occupy a significant section of the global TV's market, I believe circa 25-20m sets per year and an even larger chunk of the premium market, second only to Samsung until last year, where they lost that place to TCL- the Chinese OEM's have been aggressively chipping away at Korean OEM market share.

If I speculated that QNED represented about 10% of TV sales for LG, that would equate to 10-12m units, plus any QD screens supplied for premium laptops. The figures may add up to about a quarter of the sets sold by Samsung, so that may or may not give some indication of what any settlement may be e.g. $35-40m.

Unless something goes awry with the sale of the company, any production at scale is unlikely to impact shareholders, as the company will be owned by someone else by the time it arrives (if at all).

The dispute with Nanosys was in relation to cadmium based dots.

https://www.nanocotechnologies.com/nanoco-settles-patent-infringement-lawsuit-with-nanosys-inc-for-quantum-dot-technology/

I don't recall the company ever saying the return in cash would be in the form of a dividend. I do recall them saying it could be, but they also said it could be via a range of options, and that a decision would be made once they had the cash.

For many if not most PI's, the tender offer would have meant selling at a loss at the time it was announced. How much of that was by design permitting LOAM to sell a large percentage of their remaining shares is debatable, but there was more than a whiff of back slapping going on.

I do think with the present Chairman and CEO, things would have been handled very differently, but we'll never know.

That LG is an infringer has been a subject of speculation on here from the introduction of QNED, and was revisited once we knew the supplier of Apple’s MacBook Pro screen.

However noone outside the company could possibly know exactly when or if Nanoco might undertake legal action.

The needle has only moved a bit with this news, so I’m not going to be jumping for joy just yet.

This was ten years ago

https://www.nanocotechnologies.com/lg-electronics-partners-with-dow/

It does beg the question why this happens so often. Samsung, Hisense, TCL, AUO Innosys, LG, Apple- all have worked with Nanoco to some extent, and at least three got to the point of expecting a volume supply only to drop the product late in the day and then return with another supplier of materials.

Is it money, the location of the business, quality of products or something else?

Whatever the reason, the persistent infringement of these very large corporations has severely hampered Nanoco's ability to form any kind of sustainable business, and they've lost many personnel, many of whom have signed on with competitors.

Link for information on QNED evo, which according to LG does not use QD’s.

https://www.tomsguide.com/tvs/lgs-qned-tv-lineup-is-getting-a-big-shake-up-for-2025-no-more-quantum-dots

Standard QNED it’s seems still does. Not sure what the benefit is, perhaps to avoid further litigation/infringement, or perhaps it’s simply nonsense.

You’ve posted sales figures for LG OLED, which has no relevance as they do not contain QD’s.

You’re so busy writing you’re not reading what I posted before you reply.

Find some sales figures for LG QNED and QD enhanced laptop displays if you can find them, as they are relevant, but LG OLED’s are not.

Simply pointing out that LG OLED’s do not contain QD’s.

QNED and some f9 their laptop displays do contain QD’s, although their latest QNED sets are reportedly using a different nano cell technology, which may be a red herring,

However sales volumes of QNED is much lower than LG OLED, but with the introduction of QD miniled laptop displays, perhaps significant enough to start litigation, assuming any attempts to agree a license have failed.

Nanoco worked with them for some time and LG were expected to release line of QD LCD tV’s with their dots in some ten years or so ago.

However I don’t believe that LG OLED’s incorporate quantum dots at all, they work very differently to Samsungs QD OLED technology, so I expect any infringement will relate to mini led screens sold under the QNED brand, and laptop screens being supplied to Apple, amongst any others using these.

Https://tinyurl.com/bdhyz86m

They would not be drawn on a question like that.

MicroLED is potentially 2 years away, and assumes a great many things, as many factors are in flux.

I wonder if the CDX process would have been initiated if more cash had been held back from the settlement?

Nanoco no longer have a large financial company they can turn to in order to raise cash. PI's will not have the moolah to fund a company going forward that needs £6m+ just to break even in reduced form, so they need a wealthier benefactor.

Far from sure how this is going to pan out.

I’ll wager there have been other disappointments which have not been made public. AMS-osram lost the Apple supply contract for micro led, which was reported to implement QD’s , and I strongly suspect Nanoco would have been a likely candidate for supply had that gone through to production. It does signify that even a larger supplier like that can get dropped at late stage as AMS Osram had to write off a significant chunk of cash in the abandoned production facility, circa 700m euro according to reports. https://optics.org/news/15/4/48

There is the £46m valuation, plus of course cash.

STMicro exiting changed the game significantly. It was bad enough them cancelling the second supply, when they cancelled both Gen 1 and Gen 2 materials, that was a much greater shock, so a strategic review was certainly necessary IMO.

Regarding a sale, the company can't force that through, there are either interested parties or there aren't.

I'd agree that the use of words like 'expect' and 'potential' indicate that at present there isn't anyone expressing firm interest.

Well there may be a few more people at Nanoco job hunting if they don’t secure some business very soon. They’ve burnt through another £5m since July, and by the end of FY25 they’ll be down to £13m assuming no further upsets, although I wouldn’t be surprised to see a slight rise in cash burn by then. Therefore without some significant changes although they will be okay into FY26, not so sure about FY27, especially if some of the R&D gets dropped.

An acceptable offer for the operational company would change the game, but what will be acceptable?

The company themselves have stated medium term revenue, which I would say realistically reads as 2027 or beyond.

If it gets to that, they would need to recommission manufacturing facilities if making dots in house, which means more cash and time.

Witless back from walkabout.

I would be interested to know what the commercial potential is of those ten projects mentioned, because I’ve heard this rhetoric before from the company, the last time there were eight companies with multiple sensor materials in development. Then just a few months later it transpired of those eight only two were of potential commercial significance, and the main one of those dropped the contracts altogether just a few months later.

Prior to that under Edelman’s tenure, all the display OEM’s wanted Nanoco’s dots, with thirteen companies engaged, all of which came to nought.

At present they’re only bringing in enough to cover a little over a months worth of expenditure, and costs are likely to rise this year with the changes made in the budget. With additional R&D programs they make bring that up a bit, but supply contracts still seem elusive.