$48.9
Million Canon Investment Conference Call September 20, 2010
Terry
Copeland (TC):
Thank-you Tom. Good Morning, and welcome to the call. With me today is John Fallini, Altairnano’s Chief Financial
Officer.
The purpose
of today’s call is to discuss the $48.9 million dollar strategic investment in
Altair in the definitive agreement signed yesterday with Canon Investment
Holdings Ltd., a Hong Kong registered company.
Canon’s
wholly owned affiliate Zhuhai Yintong Energy Company Ltd., or YTE, has installed
battery capacity of 100 million amp hours that is dedicated to lithium ion power
batteries, energy storage batteries and general purpose batteries.
Altair’s
board of directors voted unanimously to approve the transaction which will
enable Altair to form an important strategic alliance that allows participation
in the rapidly expanding greater China market and creates the opportunity to
leverage Altair’s unique technology globally.
The primary
elements of the transaction include a share subscription agreement and a
conditional supply and technology license agreement. Based on the terms of the share subscription agreement Canon
has agreed to purchase approximately 125, 917,996 newly issued common shares of
Altair Nanotechnologies Inc. at a price of 38.82 cents per share providing $48.9
million dollars in proceeds to Altair to fund the contemplated establishment of
a lithium titanate manufacturing facility in China and the company’s working
capital requirements for operations in the United States.
Immediately
following the closing of the transaction Canon will have controlling ownership
of 51% of Altair’s fully diluted common stock.
No warrants, or other diluted securities, will be issued in connection
with the transaction. Under the
terms of the investor rights agreement after closing Canon will designate a
majority of the board of directors members consistent with their 51% board of
directors ownership. Al Yousuf LLC will continue to have representation on the
board of directors. Canon will also have anti-dilution rights that allow them to
offset the option to maintain the proportion of ownership in connection with
Altair’s future capital raises and they will have registration rights after
two years.
Commercial
transactions between Altairnano and YTE during the first two years following the
transaction closing will require approval from a committee of independent Altair
board members.
The majority
foreign ownership will impact certain of our existing contracts specifically
those with the Department of Defense. Altair
will complete our current responsibilities under those contracts by year end and
will not engage in further such contracts. All other customers under contract
will remain in force based on their original terms.
Change in
control of Altair’s common stock will require the approval of shareholders at
a special shareholders meeting of the company shareholders anticipated to be
scheduled in December of 2010.
The
directors and officers of the company, and Al Yousuf LLC, have entered into
share holder voting agreements in which they’ve agreed to vote all shares
owned by them in favor of the share subscription agreement at that special
shareholder meeting. Other
governmental and regulatory approvals will also be required prior to the closing
of the transaction. I’ll discuss
these requirements in more detail later in the call along with their anticipated
timing.
$48.9
million dollars of proceeds from the Canon investment will fund working capital
needs to achieve sales traction in our key markets.
Sales and marketing efforts will be expanded to target utility, OEM, and
transportation markets more effectively.
Access
to the greater China market through YTE’s incorporation of our lithium
titanate in their battery cells will spur revenue growth.
This funding will allow Altair to continue research and development
efforts with titanate materials, battery cells, modules and systems which is
important to maintain the company’s competitive position.
YTE has
indicated they may require significant volumes of lithium titanate in coming
years and Altair is contemplating a lithium titanate manufacturing facility in
China to support those requirements. We
anticipate such a facility to have excellent economies of scale enabling
substantial cost reduction that will be carried forward into all our battery
products.
Under the
conditional supply and technology license agreement Altair has agreed to sell to
YTE an ALTI ESS one megawatt system for a utility scale demonstration, battery
cells and our proprietary lithium titanate material to be used in the production
of battery cells in China. The
agreement provides up to 6.6 million dollars in revenues to Altair by the end of
2011 including an advance of $2 million for lithium titanate to be paid within 5
days from the time of signing.
Altair has
committed to ship 20 metric tons of this material prior to year end.
Purchases of 4.6 million dollars under the supply agreement are
conditional upon closing the transaction.
YTE has the
option to require repayment any portion of the 2 million dollar advance, if not
offset by shipped orders if the share subscription agreement is terminated by
Altair under certain conditions.
YTE has
developed a proprietary circular design battery with unique hollow structure for
rapid heat dissipation, to enable its performance and long life.
The plan to
maximize performance by incorporating our titanate into their cells and have
obtained required People’s Republic of China governmental approvals to
move forward with these lithium titanate batteries.
They intend to focus initially on the electric bus market in China which
they believe could require as much as 5000 metric tons of lithium titanate per
year.
The company
will work closely with YTE to develop and leverage the strength of each
respective company’s battery products which will serve to strengthen the
competitiveness of both companies in the global marketplace.
As part of
the supply agreement Altair grants to YTE the a license to use the company’s
battery technology to manufacture batteries during a term commencing on the
effective date and continuing as long as YTE purchases at least 60 tons of
lithium titanate annually.
The battery
technology license is exclusive for the greater China market as long as YTE
purchases at least a thousand tons of lithium titanate per year after 2010 and
is non-exclusive in the remainder of Asia, Australia and New Zealand with the
exception of the Middle East.
Closing
the transaction is subject to certain conditions including, as I mentioned
previously, shareholder approval, receipt of regulatory approval from the
Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, we refer to that as CFIUS,
and winding up certain defense contracts. A slide detailing significant in the company presentation
addressing the Canon investment that will be posted to our website at www.altairnano.com.
It’s
anticipated that the transaction will close before the end of January 2011.
In summary,
the Altair board of directors and management believe that the investment of
Canon in the company creates the opportunity to accelerate market development
with unique lithium titanate technology, provides near-term sales traction,
opens up access to potential China markets, and potential low-cost manufacturing
which will better position Altair competitively and offer the opportunity to
build synergy with YTE battery technology.
The strategic partnership with Canon/YTE represents an excellent
opportunity for the company’s success. We encourage all shareholders to participate at the special
shareholder’s meeting. Whether or
not you attend that meeting be sure to vote.
Your vote is very important. It’s anticipated that proxy materials will
be mailed in November of this year.
Now
we’d like to open up the call to questions.
Ron, please go ahead.
Operator
(OP):
Our first question from Marco Rodriguez with Stonegate Securities.
TC:
Hi Marco.
Marco:
Thanks for taking our questions. Hi.
I was wondering. I
apologize. I got on the call a little bit late.
I had some technical difficulties in terms of getting on so if you’ve
reviewed this already I apologize. But can you provide a little more colour or
reveal a
little
bit the relationship between Canon and Yintong
TC:
Canon is basically the parent, it’s holding company and Yintong is 100 percent
owned by Canon. The chairman of
Canon is Chairman Wei. He’s also the chairman of YTE.
Marco:
OK. So it’s not Canon’s business, per se, for Canon to go out and
invest in companies, for example.
TC:
No. I mean.
They’ve got this wonderful battery technology via YTE and they’re
trying to exploit that technology.
Marco.
OK, OK. And then I was wondering if you could provide a little bit of
background on the development of this transaction? How it came to be? Obviously in light of the ATM that you
guys have put in place I’m just wondering when this cam about and how it kind
of developed?
TC:
You know transactions of this type obviously don’t happen over night.
We’ve had initial contact with YTE some time ago but we really didn’t get
serious about these discussions really until about the same time that we put the
ATM in place. John if you can
remember the precise timing…?
John
Fallini (JF):
Three of four months ago, I think.
TC:
Yeah, it was about three or four months so it was about contiguous with
the ATM timing.
Marco:
Can you talk al little bit in regards to the discount that’s being, I
guess, given here to Yintong and Canon?
TC:
Uh, well I’m not sure…
Marco:
The reason for my question is I guess I’m trying to understand like in the
ATM, for example, one of the reasons for providing or doing that was to kind of
avoid dilution. And if I’ve done
my math right I’m looking at about a 43% discount?
TC:
I haven’t done the math on today’s share price but I’m sure
that’s…
JF:
One of the things when you look at, if you’re saying, you know, the
price that Canon is paying for the shares relative to yesterday’s closing
price Yes, it’s about that kind of a discount. If you look at one of the
things that the board considered was similar kinds of transactions, and they
look at a longer period of time, what’s the average price of the stock of that
company over a 60 day period? And when you look at it from that standpoint the
transactions that were comparable basically all had warrants associated with
them and the price that Canon is paying, if you look at the 60 day period
average stock price is very close to the 60 day price average.
A little bit less, but very close…
TC:
I think the 60 day average is in the 44-45 cent range and, as John says,
there are no warrants associated with this.
So if you look at comparables that’s actually pretty dog gone
competitive.
Marco:
Is it over the 60 day
vwap
or is it just a straight stock price?
TC:
Just straight.
Marco:
And then I was a little unclear with regards to the $48.9 million in proceeds
you’re receiving. Is that to
specifically build a plant in China?
TC:
No, what we’ve said was… that, you know, we’ve… number one, let
me take a step back and let’s look at the China market. Right now YTE has in place a battery facility with a capacity
of about a hundred million amp hours. That’s
world-scale by any stretch of the imagination. They have agreements from
governmental authorities there to use lithium titanate batteries in certain
markets that have been designated over there.
Specifically busses, initially and when they look at the size of those
markets and that potential they’re talking about the need of, potentially, of
5000 metric tons a year versus what we’re making today is 100 metric tons
here. By any stretch of even
partial success you need a hell of a lot more capacity than we have.
And it only makes sense to do that locally in China. We’ve talked on
many occasions about wanting to have regional manufacturing capabilities.
If we’re going to serve the Chinese market, particularly at this kind
of magnitude, you need a plant there. And
so clearly we’re going to be looking at scaling a plant in China for that
opportunity. That’s going to do a
couple of things for us. First of
all it’s going to give us tremendous economies of scale. Again, right now our
capacity here in the US is 100 metric tons.
You’re talking 10, 20, 30, 40 times that size.
So that’s going to allow us to reduce our costs on the LTO which will
naturally flow through to the remainder of our battery product.
This is a significant opportunity. So,
yes, clearly we’re going to be looking at building the plant in China and the
proceeds are also going to go towards what I said earlier – our own
development activities, our ongoing operations… Yes, all of the above.
JF:
Let me see if I can expand on that a little bit. The $48.9 million
dollars. Basically, it, during the
course of the negotiations, it became clear that Canon wanted to have a majority
ownership control of the company – 51%. So, when you look at how many shares
we have outstanding, outstanding warrants and options, it’s a simple math
calculation to figure out here’s how many shares they would need to purchase,
times the price, is what equaled the 48.9 million dollars.
I know you haven’t had access to the documents for very long.
We just filed the 8K an hour or so ago. But when you go through those
documents you’ll see there’s nothing that says we have to use that $48.9
million dollars to build the plant in China.
Yes, we are looking very seriously at that, but there’s nothing that
says some portion of that may be funded with equity, some portion of it might be
debt financed. Those are a lot of
the details that are going to be worked out over the next X number of months
working closely with YTE on what makes the best sense.
Marco:
So, of that 48 million, or 49 million, you in essence, if I’m
understanding you correctly, will use zero of it to build that plant?
JF:
Well, there will most likely be some portion of it. What’s not fixed or
determined at this point is how much of that $48.9 million would specifically be
used to construct that plant.
TC: The fact is we don’t know how what it’s gonna cost to
build a plant. We haven’t looked at that.
We just know that it makes sense to do so based on the tremendous
opportunity there. What’s really
exciting about this is the only way you’re really going to gain traction in
China is if you’re tied in with a Chinese company that has the right ties
within China and YTE clearly has that and we want to take advantage of that and
we want to accelerate that.
Marco:
OK. Alright. So, once you have a
better assessment as far as how much it would cost to build that plant, is that
when you would then make a decision on how much of that money was then earmarked
for extra sales and marketing, R&D type efforts that are kind of, separate,
if you will, from the China venture?
TC:
Yeah. This is all part of developing an ongoing business plan.
And we will be working very closely.
As we said, YTE, or Cannon will have the majority board representation
based on their 51 percent ownership. The
very first board meeting that we’re going to have we’re going to be
reviewing the budget for the following year.
We’ll work closely with them between now and then to put those plans
together and to put that budget together but, just like any other business,
we’re gonna have an annual budget that has to be approved by the board of
directors.
OP:
Our next question comes from Bill Warrior from Steifel Nicholas
TC:
Hey Bill. Bill? You there?
Bill:
…is going to be a portion for working capital. Because
I guess the main question is, given the amount of, you know, your operating cash
burn and, yes it has gone down significantly over the last 12 to 15 months, but
the question is how long does that sort of financing serve you?
TC:
You sort of broke up in the first part of your question but I think the
gist of it is “How long will this financing carry us?” is that basically
what you were saying?
Bill:
Yes, that’s exactly right.
TC:
I can’t give you a specific number of months because, we don’t know.
We have to obviously, work up the new business plan to meet the
requirements of the new board. We
are also, as we’ve said in the past, moving steadily closer to closing our
business in Hawaii and our larger customer down in Latin America.
Those will contribute significantly towards our cash issues and ongoing.
What this transaction is going to do, again, I go back to economies of
scale, lowering costs. That’s going to enable more orders faster.
And we have to understand, frankly, what those are going to look like in
China because we really don’t have the details around those, and then we have
to factor in what are those lower costs going to enable us to do elsewhere in
the world? We’ll be doing all
that over the next few months so it’s impossible for me to give you a straight
answer on where does this 48.9 million dollars take us.
Bill:
OK. Fair enough. Your
general thoughts on strategy and supply chain going forward. What does this really going to mean? Should we possibly think of YTE as possibly being an
outsourced cell producer, right now you’re outsourcing cell production in
Korea. Should we think about them
producing LTO in China, making cells and then shipping them over to where you
need to assemble them?
TC:
Our plan is to produce the LTO in China under Altair’s flag.
In terms of contract manufacturing YTE has developed their own battery
design. They refer to it as an anular battery.
It’s unique. I’ve never seen anything like it. They’ve got world-wide patents now or patent applications.
Their first goal, frankly, is to incorporate LTO into that battery. I
will tell you they’re currently using iron phosphate in there.
They believe that LTO will give them some significant advantages. They
acknowledge that we’re the worldwide leaders in LTO.
That’s why they have such a strong interest in our technology and they
want to put it in their battery design first.
Does that preclude them from ultimately putting it into our prismatic
design or building that? No. But I
don’t think that’s their first objective.
They want to get their own… They built this entire manufacturing
facility around this anular battery and they want to bring that up on LTO first.
JF:
To add to that: There is nothing in the agreement that precludes us from
continuing with our existing cell contract manufacturers or others if we choose
to as long as they’re manufacturing the cells for us for our use in sales to
third parties, there’s nothing in this agreement with Canon/YTE that
negatively impacts that…
TC:
With one minor point that we would not got to somebody else in
China to invest.
JF:
Correct.
Bill:
OK What of the.. Where is YTE right now what markets they serve?
Sounds like pretty significant capacity.
Perhaps 300 million megawatt hours or so?
Sounds like mass transportation
might be the initial target entry point for your technology but, have they done
work on good scale and are they developing sort of leads over there?
TC:
YTE has a wide range of market resources. They’ve
developed partnerships with many leading enterprises in what they would call the
Chinese new energy industry as well as some notable global companies.
I’m going to do my best at trying to pronounce some of these, but,
forgive me…
They’ve got strategic partnership agreements with FAW, Xiamen King Long, Chongquing Hengtong Bus, Guangtong Bus Company, Baoli International Energy, German Electric Car on the electric vehicle front. They have strategic partnerships agreements with China Huaneng, Guandong Mingyang WindPower, Sichaun HuiRong Energy, GD Power, and Shanghai Yeufeng on the energy storage front. I know that they have had significant discussions with the major Chinese utility. So they’re working all those very very hard.
I believe that their initial thrust is going to be at busses.
Things in China are done a bit differently than here in the US and it’s
sometimes a difficult for us to get our arms around.
Over there the government really will dictate who’s going to what
industry. Who’s going to build
what for whom. And then in happens.
And they have the authorizations from the government authority for
lithium titanate in the bus market. And, I confess, I don’t understand the
overall Chinese business model, business slash political model, because
they’re integrated over there much more so than here.
I don’t understand it fully. But
they clearly have markets for these batteries already. They wouldn’t have
built this world scale capacity as fast as they did if that were not already in
place.
OP:
Our next question comes from the line of Alex Burger with Hudson Bay.
TC:
Hi Alek.
Alex:
(Very quiet) Hi.
How have you confirmed that Canon has the cash to purchase these
securities and has obtained the required Chinese government approval to spend
such a significant amount of cash and specifically do you know the source of
capital?
My second
question is: Did the company shop the transaction to other buyers to assure it
was getting the best deal and, if so, how many other purchasers did the company
negotiate over what period of time?
TC:
Yes, we’re confident that Canon has the financial wherewithal to do
this deal. We’ve done the
appropriate due diligence as anyone would require under these circumstances.
I will tell you that Canon has major investments in other industry –
particularly steel, and real estate, so the financial wherewithal is not in
question at all at this point in time. I’m
sorry, what was the second part of your question?
Alex:
The first part of that question was “What was the source of capital?
And second, have they obtained the required Chinese government approval to spend
such a significant amount of cash?
TC:
They will be working on those final approvals but do not anticipate it
being a problem. As I said they are
well tied in to the needed government authority for executing these kinds of
transactions.
OP:
Our next question comes from the line of Craig Irwin with Webwish
Securities.
David:
This is actually David in for Craig.
TC:
Hi David.
David:
Hi. Quick question. Just
wondering if you can tell us when you expect to see the 2 million hit the
balance sheet? Will it be in the September quarter here?
TC:
The 2 million was expected within 5 days of the signing which was yesterday.
David:
So, I guess the answer then would be “Yes”?
TC:
Yes.
David:
OK. And then when do you
expect to start recognizing revenue on the one megawatt system?
TC:
The one megawatt will be a conditional sale and it’s conditional on a
couple of things. First it’s
conditional on the closing of the transaction so nothing would happen before
close which would mean that any revenue recognized would be in 2011.
David:
OK, 2011. And you right now you expect to close the deal before the end
of January of 2011? That’s what I read, right?
TC:
Yes. That’s correct.
David:
Those are me questions. Thank-you.
OP:
Our next question comes from Mike McWalters with Wells Fargo Advisers.
Mike:
Hi Terry, and John. I wanted
to ask you regarding the reverse stock split.
If the stock’s over a dollar during the month of November are you still
going to go ahead and do the reverse stock split?
JF:
It’s something that we will evaluate as we get closer to November 15th.
The major concern that the board has is that they don’t want to allow
the stock to be delisted from NASDAQ. And
so it has been authorized to go forward. The
only consideration will be where is our stock price as we get closer to that
November 15th date.
TC:
It will be revisited one more time before we actually pull the trigger
but I can’t say, if we’re above a dollar, I can’t say yes or no at this
point. You know…
Mike:
That’s why I asked. It was
in the press release that it would be implemented on November the 15th.
TC:
That is the current game plan
Mike:
OK. Is there also an
opportunity for a competing offer?
TC:
Yes.
Mike:
There is. So someone else could come in and say, you know what, I’ll
give you 100 million for 49 percent. You’d be able to look at that?
TC:
Can I take your name and number please? (chuckling)
Mike:
I’ll take that as a yes.
TC:
Of course. You always leave
room for superior proposal opportunities. Absolutely.
OP:
Our next question comes from Elliot Hinman with S&H Finance.
Eliot:
Hi Terry, good-morning. I want to
continue the business of the reverse stock split because, and everybody who’s
asked a question so far should be as concerned about this as myself because you
guys all represent stock holders. You
know, we’ve all been very very supportive with our money and our mouths, over
the years. Last week, or the week
before, you guys filed I guess they were 9Ks, or 8Ks, whichever K that is,
protecting your salaries in the case of these sort of deals.
The only ones out there who seem not to be protected at this point are
the stockholders and you’re asking us to vote yes and so forth and so on.
It sounds like a decent deal. It
sounds like maybe the only deal that could have saved the company. But, as this
thing climbs towards 70 and 80 this talk of 10-for-one to me is ludicrous and
it’s basically a total detriment to the stock holders.
Now, if we’re going to start talking about reverse stock splits we need
to take this ten-for-one off of the table.
We need to start talking about 3-for-one, or four-for-one, or two-for-one
because you don’t need ten-for-one to get over a dollar.
And the fact that the delisting is probably with this deal on the table
you could push this out further with NASDAQ.
I think you could probably make a case with them where they would
probably give you an extension. But
for us, to take a ten-for-one beating, or a one-for-ten beating it’s poison,
it’s literally poison, and enough is enough with that. OK?
You guys protected yourselves, now you need to protect us.
And everybody again who’s listening, and is asking questions, ought to
be very very well aware of those filings last week. I’m not trying to agitate
anything here Terry, but this 10-for-one, or one-for-ten talk has got to stop.
TC:
Eliot I think if you go back and review the language you’ll see that it
said “Up to a 10-to-one split”. Nobody has ever said that it would be
ten-to-one. It said “Up to”.
That means it can be anything from 2-to-one to ten-to-one. Excuse me, 3-to-one to ten-to-one. So, I think you make some
very good points, as always and you can be assured that we’re considering all
those implications, and the board will be considering those, when the final
number is chosen but nobody has ever said that it must be a ten-to-one.
We’ve always given the range 3-to-one to 10-to-one.
OP:
Our next question comes from the line of Warren Stevens private investor.
Warren:
Yes I heard something about… I read somewhere… how would the price of
the LTO be determined that would be sold YTE?
TC:
How would the price of the LTO be determined based on how we feel we
should sell it. I mean we sell these, we have a good understanding of what our
costs are and you take that into account, and the broadness of this opportunity,
you roll that up and set a price.
JF:
And if I can add just a thought to that in looking at pricing any product
you look at what will the market bear, what are our costs, what is the
competitive alternatives that are out there and what’s the price that will
maximize the contribution for the company?
That price is going to change over time. It’s certainly going to be impacted as our volume increases
and we have greater control on our costs driving them down. But our intent is to
make a profit on everything that we sell.
Warren:
Yeah but we were told that YTE was intending to, there were certain
conditions around how much LTO they would buy and I guess it brings up the issue
of if there were a possibility that the price wasn’t at a level they would buy
that amount that that then cascades into a number of other issues where the
relationship is not going forward essentially.
TC:
The conditions of purchase are really more associated with closing the
deal than anything else. It’s
not... We’re going to have to,
depending on the volume of the orders that they want to take ultimately when we
start talking about these world class volumes obviously we’ll have significant
price negotiations at that point. We haven’t set the price for those large
volumes yet. That’s to come. But the conditions that are discussed in the 8K
or what not really revolve mostly around just getting shareholder approval and
getting the deal closed.
Warren:
OK. I thought I heard something about a separate board to determine the
issues or something like that?
TC:
Oh. Oh. Oh. OK. I gotcha.
Any transactions that happen between YTE and Altairnano will have to be
approved by the independent directors of the board.
It’s because they would be considered a related party, a related party
transaction, and so you really need that independent authority to approve the
deal that it’s essentially an arms length transaction even though you’re
related parties.
OP:
Our next question comes from David Munsen, shareholder.
David:
Yes you mentioned earlier in your call your situations with Hawaii, and South
America, and Proterra? And as we
approach a proxy and decisions on the deal before us can you bring us up to date
on where your business is with the three things I’ve just mentioned?
TC:
As I said, Proterra everybody is well aware of. We’ve made that announcement.
We’ve
begun shipping against those orders already.
That’s going well. Hawaii
is also moving along. I was
actually out there last week with HNEI. We’ve
got a couple of more pieces of information that need to be filled in before we
can actually sign the contract but that’s imminent, I think. And with the
Latin American proposal that too is also moving forward nicely. I’ll be going down there later this week to meet with their
leadership hopefully to really push that over the edge.
It doesn’t mean signing a contract this week but it would be a very
positive step towards getting that accomplished. We still expect that to happen
in the near term.
OP:
Our next question comes from the line of Howard Selter with Manhattan
Enterprise.
Howard:
I wanted to follow up on an excellent question from earlier and find out
did the company shop the transaction to other buyers to assure it was getting
the best deal? If so how many other purchasers did the company negotiate with
and over what period of time?
TC:
We have been in an exclusivity relationship with YTE, with Canon, since
these negotiations became serious, so we haven’t spoken to anybody else in
there as I indicated earlier. We
are able to accept any proposal deemed superior by the board to move forward so
if those come in we’re free to consider them.
OP:
Our next question comes from Michael Yesendo, private investor.
Michael:
Hey Terry. How you doing?
TC:
Good-morning Michael. Or good afternoon.
Michael:
So I just, it
sounds like a good transaction. So
congratulations.
Just
multiplying out that the… you’re selling 6.6 million of the LTO point 20
tons, that’s about three thirty a ton. Does that that, multiplied time 5000
metric tons to come out at 6.6 million?
TC:
No. No. The 6.6 million was
not strictly for the LTO. That was
for the LTO, and the other opportunity of the ALTI ESS plus cells.
We haven’t broken down the prices.
Michael:
OK. So the best we have is 40 times bigger than some piece of that 6.6
million to try to figure out what how much that 5000 tons is worth?
That’s what I think other guys were trying to get at with the price per
tonnage. Ballpark what kind of
dollars is that going to convert into?
TC:
We haven’t really talked about pricing for LTO.
If you want to ballpark you might go look at what other published prices
are for similar materials on the open market.
I don’t think you’ll find much on LTO but if you looked at other
similar materials for instance you’d at least get some directional guidance there. And
yes, I am avoiding giving a specific price.
I’m sorry. We can’t
disclose that from a competitive perspective.
OP:
Our next question comes from Warren Stevens, private investor.
Warren:
Yeah. One follow-up here. Does this transaction essentially qualify as a change
of control event with respect to employment agreements and vesting of options
and things like that?
TC:
Yes it does. I mean clearly
all of a sudden you’re going to have a 51% shareholder. It speaks for itself.
OP:
Our next question comes from Peter…
TC:
Operator this will be our last question. We got to move on here.
I’m sorry who was the it from?
OP:
It’s from Peter Cardillo, Avilon Partners.
Peter:
Hello?
TC:
Hi Peter.
Peter:
I just want to say that I welcome this news. This is good news. However,
some of the other investors have already cleared up some of the investors have
already cleared up some of the questions that I wanted to ask. The other thing I
wanted to add to the fact that I too believe that the stock split is probably
not going to be necessary. You
know. This is basically 100 percent
dilution for shareholders at this point. Although as I said I think this is good
news, I think this gives us a fighting chance and I think we’re going to be
very successful with this. However I think that the board should seriously not
consider doing a reverse split at this time. I think that the stock can go over a dollar.
There’s no reason why they will not give you an extension.
And I think there are plenty of companies out there that have in excess
of 233 million shares and they know that if it does work it’s
going to work whether you have 30 million shares or 200 million shares.
TC:
Well, again, we certainly appreciate the input. There are a lot of
factors that go into that final decision of A) Whether or not to do the reverse
split and B) OK at what ratio do you trigger that and all those things will
continue to be reviewed and considered between now and November 15th.
Everybody,
folks, we’d sure like to thank you for your time this morning and your
questions and generally your participation with Altair.
We’re very excited about this transaction moving forward.
I think it just opens up tremendous worlds for us. The Chinese market is
absolutely exploding over there and if some of you have ever had the opportunity
within the last twelve months to get over there you would see what I mean.
This is really a tremendous moment, I think, for Altairnano.
We’re really excited to move this thing forward.
Once again I would encourage everybody when the shareholder vote comes
around, to vote for this transaction and to vote positively.
Thank-you all so much for your time and consideration, and enjoy the rest
of your day.
OP:
Ladies and gentlemen thank-you for your participation in today’s conference.
This concludes the program. You may
all disconnect. Everyone have a
great day.
TC:
Bye-bye!