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8-K - Vu1 CORP | v1200344_8k.htm |
VU1
CORPORATION
BUSINESS
UPDATE CONFERENCE CALL TANSCRIPT
October
21, 2010
4:00
p.m. CT
Operator:
|
Good
afternoon ladies and gentlemen. My name is (Sean) and I will be
your conference operator today. At this time I would like to
welcome everyone to the Vu1 Third Quarter Business Update Conference
Call.
|
|
All
lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background
noise. After the speaker's remarks there will be a question and
answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this
time simply press star then the number one on your telephone
keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question you may
press the pound key.
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|
Michael
Polyviou, with Capital C Partners you may begin your
conference.
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(Michael):
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Thank
you, (Sean). We are joined on today's call by Duncan Troy,
Vu1's chairman; Philip Styles Vu1's president and chief executive officer
and Mr. Bill Hamlin, board member.
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Before
I hand over to the Vu1 team, I would like to remind everyone that today's
call is being recorded and that it may include forward-looking statements
including but not limited to Vu1's ability to obtain the necessary funding
required for its operations, the future demonstration and commercial
availability of its light bulb, timing for bulb production, manufacturing
capability of its facility, future interest of channel partners and
distributors, its strategic planning and business development plans,
future applications of the technology and the viability of pricing and
acceptance of its products in the
market.
|
These
forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties
that may cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the
forward-looking statements. The words may, would, will, expect, estimate,
anticipate, believe, intend and similar instructions in variations thereof are
intended to identify forward-looking statements.
Investors
are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of
future performance and involve risks and uncertainties. Many of which
are beyond the company's ability to control as well as the risk and the other
factors set forth in Vu1's December 31, 2009 10-K and other periodic filings
with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
|
And
with that I would like to hand the call over to Vu1's chairman, Duncan
Troy.
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Duncan
Troy:
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Thank
you, Michael. Good afternoon to everyone in the U.S. and good
evening to those of you joining us from Europe tonight. With me
on the call today is Phil Styles, Vu1's CEO and also Vu1's newest board
member, Bill Hamlin.
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It's
somewhat fitting that we're speaking today on what GE is observing as
World Lighting Appreciation Day. Some of you may also have seen
the comments made by Michael Petras, chief executive of GE Lighting last
week regarding the future of the lighting
industry.
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The
whole article and associated videos from the Financial Times on October
the 14th are well worth a look but I think Mr. Petras' comments in
particular bear repeating here.
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And
I quote, "The lighting industry is probably going to experience more
change in the next five years than it has in the last 50. Just
because we have been a lighting company for the last 100 years doesn’t
mean that we can be a light bulb company for the next 100
years. There is no guarantee or
entitlement."
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I
couldn't agree more both about the coming change and its potential impact
on the established order in the industry. Since our last call
some three months ago Vu1 has undergone a transformation and is moving
ever closer to the vision and ambition that we've long held for
it.
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Over
the course of the past three months we've enhanced our leadership team
both at the board and executive management levels, received UL
certification for our first product – commercial product based on Vu1's
ESL technology and exited the 2010 third quarter virtually debt
free.
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So
taking each of these items in turn obviously UL certification is what the
whole team has been working towards these past years. And it
was a momentous day for us when we received official confirmation from
Underwriters Laboratories.
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Turning
to the debt conversion as we transition to full scale manufacturing and
marketing mode we now have a far better structured balance sheet having
eliminated a little over $6 million in debt. We have sufficient
funding to meet our near-term
objectives.
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And
because of the strength in balance sheet we're also exploring a number of
short and long-term funding options. These funds will enable us
to focus on executing our business plan to capture market opportunity for
our unique (clean) lighting
technology.
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And
lastly a few words on the recent management changes. In the
past months we've welcomed three new highly experienced and talented board
members to Vu1. Greg Owens, a portfolio manager at SAM
Advisors. He also holds the title of senior vice president with
Smith Asset Management and he brings a wealth of finance expertise to our
board.
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Bill
Hamlin a highly experienced retailer with an illustrious 30 year career at
Home Depot, as well as, some impressive entrepreneurial
credentials. He was named as founder of the highly successful
PGA Tour Super Store Retail
concept.
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As
mentioned earlier Bill is with us on the call today and we look forward to
hearing from him shortly. And Phil Styles, formerly our VP of
manufacturing and COO who was appointed to the role of president and CEO
earlier this month.
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Phil's
career spans more than 25 years including 15 years in senior management
roles and leading international business with a particular focus on
technical and production engineering. And naturally he is very
familiar with the requirements of successfully taking a product from
concept to large scale markets.
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And
over the coming weeks and months as we ramp up the full scale commercial
production Phil will be spending more time in the U.S. based out of our
new New York headquarters beginning in October – sorry November and
meeting with perspective new customers and
partners.
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At
this point I'd like to thank the whole Vu1 team and our many supporters
who had the patience and persistence that has allowed us to get to this
important point in our development. All-in-all it's been a
remarkable quarter, and one that has left us exceptionally well positioned
for and excited about the future. I'm looking forward to
working closely with Phil and the rest of the team here at Vu1 as we begin
to deliver on Vu1's promise and to create a meaningful shareholder value
in the months ahead.
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And
with that I'd like to hand the call over to Phil our president and
CEO. Phil?
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Philip
Styles:
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OK,
thank you, Duncan and good afternoon and good evening to
everyone. As Duncan mentioned on the call with us today is Bill
Hamlin who in a few minutes will share a few of his thoughts and
observations on Vu1 and its technology, why he's excited about this
opportunity and also provide some insight into our sales and marketing
strategy.
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As
Duncan's already mentioned it's been a truly remarkable quarter for
Vu1.
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While
we've seen a lot of progress in recent months, it's the accumulation of
much hard work over many years and some very impressive engineering
achievements. I would personally like to thank those who
supported us through the years and our Czech subsidiary Sendio who's team
of 38 staff overcame some very complex technical issues in our early
prototypes, bringing us to this exciting place with a working UL certified
light bulb based on our ESL technology which we believe has the power to
change the lighting world as we know
it.
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Our
decision to locate our development and manufacturing in the Czech Republic
is evidently paying off. Our ability to acquire skilled team of
engineers operating in a readymade manufacturing facility without having
to build this from a greens field site has given us Vu1 a significant
advantage in developing it's technology and being able to bring it to the
market on a timely basis to capture this
opportunity.
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At
our Czech facility we will have capacity to manufacture up to 6.8 million
bulbs per year by the end of 2011. We have planned future
expansion capacity on the same site including two additional production
lines, one with an estimated 10 million bulb annual capacity and one with
a further estimated 20 million bulb capacity all of which puts us in a
strong position as we initiate commercial
production.
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I
guess today that we have a number of new people on the call who perhaps
are not so familiar with our technology. So let me spend a few
minutes to familiarize you with our ESL lighting technology and some of
its key competitive
differentiators.
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Quite
simply put, ESL is what makes Vu1 such an exciting story. ESL
is a new lighting technology platform. It uses a new technique
to create light, based on the technology underlying cathode ray tubes or
non flat screen TVs by accelerating electrons to stimulate phosphor on the
inner surface of the bulb.
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It
creates light that's virtually identical in quality to traditional
incandescent light bulbs, but perhaps the most important thing is that
it's highly energy efficient and non toxic. Looking at some of
the other so called green or energy efficient light choices, CFL and LED,
these are limited solutions in many applications because neither of them
is a true comparable alternative to the old fashioned incandescent light
bulb.
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We
believe our R30 light bulb is. CFLs are the twisted spiral shaped bulbs
and they lack the light quality and functionality we know customers
desire. Surprisingly only lately has the general public been
aware that CFLs contain mercury which is highly toxic and requires special
disposal procedures which varies state by
state.
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Now,
turning to LEDs. The recessed ceiling can market, Vu1's initial
target market presents the challenge of a very high temperature
environment created by this enclosed space. As such LEDs have
heavy heat dissipation designed into the bulb to allow them to (inaudible)
in the enclosed environment.
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This
translates into a very much higher cost product. Additionally
LEDs struggled with light quality and they vary tremendously from brand to
brand. Those LEDs capable of producing good light quality in
recessed ceiling can applications are exceptionally
expensive.
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LED
manufactures also claim their bulbs can last 50,000 hours and they ask
consumers to consider this fact when they're looking at such a high
price. We believe what the customer is truly looking for is a
cost effective alternative over the LED by both considering price and
light quality.
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Vu1s
ESL bulbs are in a very strong competitive position. We are
confident we have a very strong position against the other main competing
lighting technologies. Vu1s ESL lighting technology is a
superior, cost effective solution for addressing our initial target
market, the 800 million recessed ceiling can fixtures in the
U.S.
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We
provide the best combination of safety non toxic incandescent light
quality, performance and affordability of any energy efficient lighting
technology that's on the market at present. Now I want to focus
on our UL certified R30 light bulb.
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As
we announced earlier this month we have received UL certification for our
R30 light bulb, our direct replacement for the 65 watt incandescent flood
bulb. In recent years not only has the industry shifted to more
energy efficient lighting solutions in an effort to conserve electricity,
but governments across the world have or are in the process of phasing it
out.
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Specifically
here in the U.S., legislation has passed intended to phase out the use of
the incandescent light bulb beginning in 2012 with a full phase out in
2014. So from a consumer preference and timing perspective
we're exactly where we need to be because our bulb is virtually
indistinguishable from the traditional incandescent lamp it
replaces.
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And
unlike CFLs it is mercury free. ESL bulbs provide natural like
quality, energy efficiency and a long bulb life of up to 10,000
hours. While the R30 has taken center stage because it's our
first commercial product, I will also want to highlight some of the other
products that are in various stages of development and
testing.
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Firstly,
the R40, which is a larger bulb compared to the R30, and is used in more
commercial than domestic applications in the U.S.A., specifically for use
in hotels, office buildings and similar
locations.
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We
are currently anticipating a third quarter 2011 launch of the R40
product. Next, and one of the key elements of our program, is
the classic Edison A type bulb. The bulb you screw into the
lamp in your home.
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We
initially planned to introduce this later. But due to the
interest shown by a number of prospective customers while demonstrating
our A type concept bulb. We decided to bring this schedule
forward and are now anticipating a launch in the fourth quarter of 2011,
targeting both the U.S. and European
markets.
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And
finally the R25 or in Europe as it's called is the R80, we will be looking
to bring this product onto the market in early 2012 specifically for the
European region. Additionally we are now in concept development
phase for addressing other key lighting applications such
as the linear, two piece and
fixtures.
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All
in all we have a very promising pipeline allowing us to diversify future
revenue opportunities not just by product but also by application and
geography. Turning now to a few operational and housekeeping
matters as Duncan indicated from November onwards I will be based in our
New York headquarters and focusing on meeting perspective customers and
partners.
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I’ll
also be working closely with various partners we’ve engaged on a number of
fronts. Earlier this year we engaged the New York based investor relations
and financial communications firm Capital C Partners which has been
helping us shape and communicate our story to the investment
community.
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They’re
also on hand to answer investor questions and should be our first point of
contact if you do need anything from us. We’ve also engaged a
media and marketing firm called Haberman for helping feed the media
landscape with news about ESL technology, laying the groundwork for media
awareness prior to rolling out ESL bulbs to the
masses.
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And
we’re also working with a branding and design firm IMAGEMME
on a substantial upgrade and redesign of Vu1corporate Web
site. Our current Web site does not do justice to Vu1 or its
technology and we’re looking forward to having our new site up and running
early next month.
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As
we announced earlier this month in order to accelerate the introduction
and adoption of our products into the hardware, home improvement and club
mass market retail channels, we’ve engaged Integrated Sales Solutions, a
specialist sales and marketing consulting business cofounded by
one of our board members Bill
Hamlin.
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Now
that we have a certified light bulb we’re excited to finally be able to
put a plan into action to build brand awareness in demand for Vu1 and our
ground breaking ESL technology. I’d now like to hand the call
over to Bill Hamlin the newest member of Vu1’s board of
directors.
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For
those that are not familiar with Bill’s backgrounds he was former
Executive V. P. of merchandising and marketing and group president of the
Home Depot.
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During
his tenure at the Home Depot his influence and strategic planning,
marketing, and advertising, distribution, logistics and worldwide sourcing
is acknowledged to have helped shaped the Home Depot into the retail giant
it is today.
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As
Duncan already mentioned Bill also founded the PGA Tour Superstore which
comprises 10 big box concepts stores of more than 60,000 square feet of
golfing merchandise. We’re delighted to have Bill on the team,
and with that – I’ll hand the call over to Bill.
Bill?
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Bill
Hamlin:
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Thanks
Phil and hello to those of you on the call, listen after listening to my
two partners I hope you won’t mind my Midwestern slash Atlanta accent,
(let me see) I’m delighted to join on today’s call to be on Vu1’s
board.
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Because
we’re at the start of something very special here, the FT article Duncan
referenced earlier covers market trends regarding energy efficiency that
I’ve been watching for some time. Vu1 is perfectly positioned
to take advantage of an industry that is poised for massive regulatory and
consumer driven change.
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I
believe the ESL R30 bulb will fill the void when the incandescent bulb is
phased out nationally in 2012. However even more importantly I
think the R30 has tremendous competitive advantages when compared with
CFL’s and LED both already in significant
markets.
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Vu1
ESL R30 meets consumers underlying desire to be environmentally
responsible and energy efficient, while not wanting to have to compromise
in doing so.
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The
ISS team is thrilled to be actively working with Vu1, their relationship
with Vu1 goes back several years with an initial project engagement
primarily focused in the area of market research sales channel
strategy.
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However
with a certified bulb in hand ISS now has been engaged to introduce the
R30 bulb to the U. S. market. One of the first tasks we
initiated was a retail analysis. We wanted to know how ESL would stack up
compared to other existing energy efficient lighting
technologies.
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The
results confirm my initial view of Vu1, the ESL R30 surpassed anything
I’ve seen before, Vu1 is in a lighting sweet spot, and not wanting to
waste any time we immediately refined our approach to focus on big box
retailers.
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ISS
has already secured introductions with key personnel at our priority
targets, with a working certified bulb, we’re able to walk in to these
meetings and demonstrate the advantages of the R30
bulb.
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While
it’s important to note that it takes a series of meetings to secure a
formal agreement, I would expect Vu1 to be in a position to announce
multiple channel partner alliances in the coming
months.
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Vu1’s
first order was a leading Northwest Electrical distributor was a
relatively small order and part of its initial strategy to seize the
market. Going forward the target customers will place
substantially larger orders and as Vu1’s manufacturing team gears up for
an increased demand, the team at ISS will work with Vu1 to develop a
number of logistics solutions.
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And
finally if you go to the ISS Web site www.integratedsales.org you’ll find
an interesting white paper entitled marketing green products, getting the
gray out. We’ll – you’ll see this report supports ISS’s belief
that Vu1 has a unique opportunity to capture mass market demand through
large retailers.
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An
energy efficient non-toxic light bulb that is priced competitively is
exactly the product offering the consumers are demanding, spurring large
retailers to seek product partners to help fill their shelves and meet
their burgeoning demand.
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In
the course of more than 30 years as a retailer, I’ve seen a number of new
innovative products. The potential for Vu1’s unique lighting technologies
surpasses anything I’ve seen before. As such I’m very excited
to be working with Phil, Duncan and the rest of the board and management
team to help capture the sizable market opportunity before Vu1 and
ultimately to change the face of the lighting industry. With that I’d like
to hand the call back over to Duncan.
Duncan?
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Duncan
Troy:
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Thanks
Bill, well as you’ve heard there’s a lot of progress here and the team is
now focused on execution of its commercialization plan for our R30 bulb
and delivering orders and revenues by the end of this
quarter.
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Before
we move to a Q&A, I would like to address one question we’ve been
getting a great deal from investors namely whether we are considering
listing our shares on a different exchange. I’ll answer that
now as I’m sure someone’s planning to ask the question on today’s
call.
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Te
short answer is yes, but at the appropriate time, although we don’t
currently qualify for NASDAQ’s listing standards we anticipate that the
successful execution of our 2011 operating plan would bring us into line
with them in the future.
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So
for now we’re focused on executing the plan but we’ll obviously update you
all on this matter at an appropriate juncture. So in summary we
now have a product that is fully certified, a sales and marketing plan in
place so consumers will soon see our bulbs on store shelves and we have
the development pipeline of exciting products based on our unique ESL
lighting platform technology.
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According
to some recent industry forecasts, and this is quite a statistic, the
global lighting market is expected to expand to about – by eight percent
per year to reach 111 billion by 2015. As Bill said earlier
this is only the start, we believe our ESL technology will enable us to be
a major force in the lighting industry. So now, I’d like to
open the call up to questions and I will pass back to the operator to
coordinate that.
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Operator:
|
At
this time, I’d like to remind everyone that in order to ask a question
please press star then the number one on your telephone
keypad. We’ll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A
roster. And your first question comes from the line of (James
Nichol) your line is now open.
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Phil
Styles:
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Hello
(James).
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(James
Nichol):
|
Thank
you very much for having this conference call. A couple
questions on the R30 bulb. Are you able to discuss what the
lumen output is the watts consumed and whether it’s fully dimmable able at
this point?
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Duncan
Troy:
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We
can certainly answer some of those questions so let me pass you across to
Phil to give you the answer.
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Philip
Styles:
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Good
afternoon (James).
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(James
Nichol):
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Good
afternoon.
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Philip
Styles:
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Just
to give you a few indications when our product comes on to market we are
aiming for the product to be up to 600 lumens. The overall
consumption of the product be at about 19 1/2 watts. As for as
the dimmability is concerned because of the technology that we’re using in
our product we haven’t come across a dimmer yet that doesn’t work with our
product so it will be dimmable.
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(James
Nichol):
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Excellent
thank you.
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Duncan
Troy:
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(James)
you said you have a couple of
questions.
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(James
Nichol):
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Well
there was actually three right there that I
…
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Duncan
Troy:
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Well
three rolled into one OK.
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(James
Nichol):
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All
right.
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Duncan
Troy:
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Thank
you.
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(James
Nichol):
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Excuse
me maybe I – could I follow-up from
that.
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Duncan
Troy:
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Yes.
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Philip
Styles:
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Yes.
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(James
Nichol):
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So
the market you currently have your order are you going to be announcing at
some point what the size of that order is up in the power company up in
the North West?
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Operator:
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Your
next question comes from the line of (Gary Palmer) your line is now
open.
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Duncan
Troy:
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(Gary)
good evening.
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(Gary
Palmer):
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Oh,
hello. Yes, my question is about the current bulb that’s going
into production and I was wondering if there was any follow-up on the
miniaturization of the electronics involved. And then my other
question would be does the voltage wire a filament to (excite) the
electrons.
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Duncan
Troy:
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Phil
you want to hog the questions tonight so I’ll pass that back over to
you.
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Philip
Styles:
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OK
regarding the miniaturization we are – we’re currently on the version four
of the product and each version is getting more smaller and slimmer in its
design. The concept of our bulb we don’t use a filament as
such its based around a cathode that actually emits electrons
onto the phosphor case.
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(Gary
Palmer):
|
OK
that answers my questions thank you very
much.
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Duncan
Troy:
|
Thank
you.
|
Philip
Styles:
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Thank
you.
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Operator:
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And
your next question comes from the line of (Peter Edwards) you line is now
open.
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Duncan
Troy:
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Good
evening (Peter).
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(Peter
Edwards):
|
Good
evening gentlemen. Firstly, may I thank you all as a
shareholder for the enormous amount of work you put into reach this stage
and congratulate you on getting your certification for your
bulb. My question is that you’ve got a 65-watt bulb will you be
able to increase this to a 150-watt bulb, 500-watt bulb is there a limit
to as how far you can go with this
technology.
|
Duncan
Troy:
|
Thank
you for your kind words (Peter) and again I’ll pass it across to
Phil.
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Phillip
Styles:
|
OK
good evening (Peter). First of all, currently we are targeting
the bulb to be running at 19 1/2 watts 600 lumen but as our technology
develops then of course it will become more and more efficient and we will
probably be targeting a higher output but at a lower
wattage. But these are progressive so we could be talking two
to three years down the line.
|
(Peter
Edwards):
|
Thank
you very much indeed.
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Duncan
Troy:
|
OK
thank you.
|
Philip
Styles:
|
Thanks
(Peter).
|
Operator:
|
Once
again, in order to ask a question please press star then the number one on
your telephone keypad. We’ll pause for just a moment to compile
the roster once again. And there are no further questions at
this time. I turn the call over to Mr. Duncan
Troy.
|
Duncan
Troy:
|
Thank
you very much well once again, I’d like to thank you all for joining us
today on the call and you’re continuing interest in and support of
Vu1. We are extremely excited about the future and look forward
to updating you all on the continuing progress and success on our next
call. So again, were there any other questions
operator?
|
Operator:
|
As
a matter of fact, sir there is another question on the line from Mr.
(James Kelly) your line is now
open.
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Duncan
Troy:
|
Hello.
|
(James
Kelly):
|
First
of all I will have to say congratulations I’ve been following the company
for a couple years now and I’m very impressed with the progress you’ve
made it’s just been remarkable to watch. My question this
evening is about your financing obviously, that’s going to be
important. Up to this point Vu1 is funded operations through
the issuance of convertible notes. Last month 100 percent of
Vu1s outstanding convertible notes were converted to common stock, which
was owned by Full Spectrum and SAM. Clearly, Vu1 will need
additional financing particularly now that Vu1 is entering its initial
manufacturing phase. Mr. (Sellers) stated during the last
conference call that interest in Vu1 had increased dramatically and that
you were actively evaluating a variety of long-term planning solutions I
think is how he put it to support the company’s growth, which I understand
– which I understood was considered for continuing the financing of the
company. So going forward do you have any new source
…
|
Operator:
|
I
beg your pardon your next question comes from the line of – pardon the
delay Mr. (Jack) (inaudible) your line is now
open.
|
Duncan
Troy:
|
I’m
sorry I think we lost a question there half way
through.
|
Operator:
|
Sorry
about the technical difficulty there. Would you like to take
the next question?
|
Male:
|
Duncan
I take it if you could answer this question that you did receive before it
was cut off.
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Duncan
Troy:
|
Yes,
sure the part of our funding strategy was the restructuring the balance
sheet and getting UL certification. You know with those two now
done you know we’ll continually evaluate the huge variety of long term and
shorter-term funding opportunities that we now have. It’s
completely changed the landscape of the business. So you know
whilst we’re mindful of our shareholders commitments to date and you know
corresponding need to protect their interest and so forth the number of
opportunities that have opened up since those two events has a you know
enabled us really to take a step backwards and have a look at a broader
range of financing options. You’re correct in saying yes; we’ll
need more financing at some stage. I think now the options are
much greater for us and we’ll be able to hopefully deliver better options
to our shareholders.
|
Bill
Hamlin:
|
This
is Bill along those lines again, I mean state the importance of the UL
approval and you know what it’s opened up for us and obviously, short-term
we’re you know we’re looking to raise about $5 million. And
since we had the UL approval I mean we’re now have a much broader variety
of options relative to raising those funds at this
point.
|
Duncan
Troy:
|
Correct.
|
Operator:
|
There
are no further questions at this time I turn the call back over to Mr.
Troy.
|
Troy
Duncan:
|
Well
thank you again everybody for taking the time to join us on the call
tonight. So I think we’ll wind up proceedings here and look
forward to coming back to you on our next call hopefully in about three
months time. So thank you very much everybody for participating
and good night.
|
Operator:
|
This
concludes today’s conference call you may now
disconnect.
|
END