The Annual Distort

REFR also published its annual report yesterday. As with much of what REFR says, it's great comedy if you take it the right way.

"The SPD industry came of age in 2004", the letter to the shareholders begins. So apparently "coming of age" involves taking in even less revenue than the pathetic year before. But then they talk about "momentum building to the rebirth of the new SPD industry". Aren't those kind of contradictory concepts?

In the next paragraph, the letter describes the state of production of the major production licensees. Some are said to be in "advanced testing", others "even in fine-tuning". I guess we have to take as given the implication that fine-tuning is a later stage than advanced testing.

After some hand-waving about how much work they're doing to help the licensees get to a mass production stage, they reference the Setra and Rescue displays from DaimlerChrysler, and how they are "typical" of automotive interest in SPD. Indeed, so great a "success" were those two installations that the product supplier folded within a year. Except that the letter to the shareholders doesn't mention that part. Ever.

But they do mention InspecTech, and how they have "either installed or engineered" windows for various aircraft models. Of course, not only is a breakdown of "installed" vs. "just engineered" unavailable, and not only is there no indication as to just what "engineered" entails (figuring out the size of the window might well qualify), but the claim and list of model has been on the Inspectech website for years.

Oh, and the trade shows. Yes, SPD is always getting taken to trade shows. From the press releases it seems the SPD "industry" spend as much on travel as it does anything else. Las Vegas, Florida, Germany, Switzerland... these guys really get around. With all the worldwide exposure SPD was getting you might think there'd be some pretty good demand for the stuff built up, but of course you'd be wrong.

They run down the Licensee Class of 2004, thank the shareholders for their continued patience (your money is very important to us, please stay on the hook), talk about their ever-present optimism, and that's about it.

They're working hard, they're losing money, but they're optimistic. That's the gist of the shareholder letter in one line. Wow, sure makes me want to buy their stock.

Can't wait for next year's excuses. If they're still around to make them, that is.