GE: Even We Can't Bring SPD to Life

Today I'm going to go back to near the beginning of what is considered "recorded history" for REFR. Since no PR's exist on the REFR website prior to their 1991 production of SPD into a film form, conventional shareholder "wisdom" is that the first quarter-century of the company's existence consisted of Saxe and company "working hard" to perfect SPD, sometime during which somebody took them public. Yes, you'd swear that company management had practically nothing to do with the company going public, and certainly didn't make any indications about their state of progress to investors in their IPO, to listen to the current party line of the promoters.

But at any rate, 1994 came along and REFR hooked its biggest fish ever, as no less a company than General Electric became a licensee. Needless to say, the stock took off on this obvious validation. Then, just as some started asking the right questions, such as, what exactly has GE committed to, REFR followed up with a beaut of a PR: "Research Frontiers Denies Knowledge of Possible General Electric Buyout" . Shockingly (I know!) this only served to feed rumors of such a buyout, and shoot the stock higher, if only momentarily.

Soon, cooler heads prevailed, and as investigations went on, it soon came out that GE's role was strictly as a contract manufacturer. In other words, GE would make SPD film to REFR's specifications, when, and only when, one of REFR's licensees put in an order.

This never happened, of course, and REFR never brought up GE ever again, except when publishing an enumeration of its licensees.

Today's promoters of REFR completely hate it when GE is brought up. GE is still officially listed as a licensee (though some sources say the license will finally expire later this year), so in theory, there's no reason why REFR shouldn't be able to turn to them to alleviate the problem of "supply capacity" they keep complaining about.

Of course, that is because the truth is, the problem is not, and has never been, the ability to produce in quantities large enough to meet demand. That whole business is a red herring to distract from the fact that, at the price at which SPD film products can be sold, demand for them is negligible.

Worse, it gives the company's critics easy ammunition, in the form of the argument, "well if GE couldn't do anything with it, why should we think anyone else can?"

Finally, it leads one to the easy conclusion that current "big-name" licensees, such as Hitachi, DuPont and Air Products, have essentially the same kind of relationship with REFR, and will do nothing of their own accord with SPD until prompted to do so by REFR. This is not diminished in any way by the fact that Hitachi (actually Hitachi Chemical, a very small subsidiary of the giant conglomerate), a licensee since 1999, has, so far, proven to have been at least one year from picking up the SPD film production "slack" when SPD Inc. went under.

What, exactly, was Hitachi doing with their license from 1999-2004? That's a question that only ever seems to get answered with a question, such as, "who's paying you to ask these questions?"

And so it goes at the stock circles the drain...