They did it!

Truly, history was made this week.

I speak, of course, of REFR's first quarterly report in its 43 years of existence to actually shows a profit.

A minor detail, albeit one that may be tempering the excitement somewhat, is that roughly 85% of the revenue for the quarter (the exact figure can't be determined directly) came from the exit fee paid by NV Baekert to discontinue the obligations of their license agreement. Based on year vs. year comparisons the fee appears to have been on the order of $1 million, which rather soundly dwarfs the net income for the quarter of $156,655.

So the irony is, Baekert may have paid more to end their relationship with REFR, than Hitachi Chemical did to make their relationship closer.

It's not known whether there are other such "bombshells" in the offing. For all anyone knows Hitachi might have to pay to not renew their technology sharing agreement, which, to all appearances, has yet to produce a thing.

The practical bottom line is that REFR has been bought roughly another four months of life, which should take the prospect of the dreaded going concern clause for the next 10-K filing off the table.

So I guess we get to stick around another year and see if a new administration means REFR securing some kind of government stimulus grant, or getting slapped around by a less business-friendly SEC. Or, you know, just more meandering.