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Research Frontiers Incorporated (REFR)

Q4 2012 Earnings Call· Thu, Mar 14, 2013

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Research Frontiers’ Investor Conference Call to discuss results during the 2012 Fourth Quarter and Full Year. During today’s presentation, all parties will be in a listen-only mode. (Operator Instructions) This conference is being recorded today. A replay of this conference call will be available starting at 12 PM on March 15, 2013 in the Investors section of Research Frontiers’ website at www.smartglass.com and will be available for replay for the next 60 days. Please note that some of the comments made today may contain forward-looking information. The words expect, anticipate, plans, forecast, and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Statements that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements that are made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions that are part of the Securities Litigation and Reform Act of 1995. These statements reflect the company’s current beliefs and a number of important factors could cause actual results for our future periods to differ materially from those expressed. Significant factors that could cause results to differ from those anticipated are described in our filings with the SEC. Research Frontiers undertakes no obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements to reflect new events or uncertainties. The company will be answering many of the questions that were e-mailed to it prior to the conference call either in their presentation or as part of the Q&A session at the end. (Operator Instructions) I would now like to turn the conference call over to Mr. Joseph Harary, President and Chief Executive Officer of Research Frontiers. Please go ahead sir.

Joseph Harary - President and Chief Executive Officer

Management

Thank you, Jamie, and welcome to Research Frontiers’ conference call to discuss our 2012 results and recent events. Joining me today is our CFO and Vice President of Business Development, Seth Van Voorhees and we are pleased you are taking the time to be with us today, and I thank you for your continuing support of Research Frontiers. I also thank all of you for e-mailing in your questions. This is going to allow us to cover more ground, and to the extent that Seth and I have an answer to your questions in the course of our presentation or if there are additional questions, there will be an opportunity at the end of the call to ask those questions. Today, I will outline for investors what our strategies have been for your company and in each of the four main industries using our SPD-Smart Technology, which are automotive, aircraft, architectural, and marine. I will discuss our achievements in these areas and we will also discuss how we plan to continue successfully growing our revenues from each of these markets. We will also talk about new markets and opportunities and then we will answer questions from participants in today’s call, but first it’s useful to go over our results of operations. I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Seth Van Voorhees to discuss these financial results in more detail. Seth?

Seth Van Voorhees - Chief Financial Officer and Vice President, Business Development

Management

Thank you, Joe. Good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining us on this call. As always, I will discuss the financial results in the approximate terms and cover some highlights from our fourth quarter and 2012 full year results. For more details, please see the financial statements along with the notes thereto. First, let me comment on our income statement. For the year, fee income increased from $846,000 in fiscal year 2011 to just under $2 million in fiscal year 2012, representing an absolute increase of $1.1 million year-over-year, and a relative increase of 131%. In terms of the nature of this fee income, 84% of our royalties come from the automotive market, 8% come from the architectural market, 6% from the aircraft market, and 2% of the royalties come from the marine market. On a quarter-over-quarter basis, fee income improved by 56% or almost $200,000 from the fourth quarter in fiscal year 2011 versus the same period in fiscal year 2012. And this fee income has been steadily growing since the second quarter of fiscal year 2012 topping out at $552,000 recorded in the fourth of 2012. As the consequence of this increased top line, our net loss improved by $1.1 million from a negative $4.1 million reported loss in fiscal year 2011 to a reported $3.1 million loss in fiscal year 2012. It still has a long way to go to achieve our breakeven goal. However, fiscal year 2012, we made significant progress in getting there. Now, let’s discuss our balance sheet. In fiscal year 2012, we have strengthened our balance sheet substantially, and in doing so, reduced the risk profile of our company making it more attractive to investing. Specifically, our current assets are up by about $10 million to $14.3 million as a result of…

Joseph Harary - President and Chief Executive Officer

Management

Thanks, Seth, and thank you once again for participating in today’s call. As Seth has indicated, we had positive triple-digit growth in revenues, which generally strengthened our balance sheet and increased institutional ownership in our company, all strategic goals for Research Frontiers. We also had new product launches in several industries, which I will talk about in more detail. The first was the major launch of the Mercedes SL. This just became available in Europe at the end of March and in the U.S. on May 2. It’s usually with German premium automakers that the cars are first introduced in Europe and then in the United States one to two months later and then in Asia and the rest of world with right hand drive countries usually in getting their cars last. So, that’s a typical rollout schedule and that was probably here. Also in June of this year BMW debut at the Paris Motor Show their Active Tourer Concept with the Cool Shade. The Cool Shade is what they refer to the all SPD glass roof that was on that vehicle. That car just appeared again last week at the Geneva Auto Show that we attended. Another major development was Vision System’s factory in France was opened up in 2012 and the plans for the U.S. facility which is a duplicate of that facility is schedule for the first half of 2013. Now the idea behind the U.S. factory is to be able to service U.S. customers of Vision Systems such as HondaJet and also have dollar denominated production and also better logistics to service their North American customers. Another event that happened in 2012 was the preliminary launch of the museum market. Here we’re protecting priceless art work using SPD-SmartGlass and also the expansion of the automotive aftermarket…

Seth Van Voorhees - Chief Financial Officer and Vice President, Business Development

Management

Thanks Joe. Obviously, this is a hard question, I mean, at its poor, we can’t control the stock price, is the market does that. I can tell you that we are – we are disappointed in the recent stock price performance with declines. We are disappointed for a number of reasons, the basic of which is that many of our – most of the management have significant personal stakes in this company. In last year, we reported as in aggregate management and Directors own approximately 15% to 16% of the stock in this company which is both a significant personal as well as professional investment. So, we believe strongly in the value of this company and very much wants to see strong stock price performance from both personal and professional bases. I think the best thing that we can do in terms of the stock price though is some of the things that I have stressed on this call is that number one is that we need to go from being a cash burning entity to a breakeven level. We made some improvement between in the last year in achieving that goal, but we still believe to go to achieving it in full. So, in terms of my personal view in terms of the stock market will best appreciate and value Research Frontiers as a company is when we can get to a breakeven in profitable basis and we hope to do that as quickly as we can. And until then, we are going to continue to try to do everything that we can to make Research Frontiers an attractive investment whether it’s – we were talking about improving liquidity, improving transparency and communication with our investors and getting our message out to potential new investors as well. And with that, I’m certainly open to any suggestions that any shareholders might have that we have not considered up-to-date. Thank you very much, Joe.

Joseph Harary - President and Chief Executive Officer

Management

Thanks Seth. Another question we got was what attributes are in process regarding a potential takeover the company or acquisition of other companies. This question might have been triggered by a recent renewal of our shareholder lifespan in February. First of all, let me just say there is no pending acquisitions being entertained by us or for us and this was simply I think a factor of that for the last – each of our last two shareholders right plans lasted for 10 years and our Board thought it would be in the best interest of the company and its shareholders to have this protection continue in place. So, renewed it for another 10 years, but it’s not in response to any overtures that were made to buy the company. Speaking personally and to echo what Seth said earlier I think our stock price is substantially undervalued and I think that almost everyone of our shareholders would agree with me on this. And as Seth indicated we are very open to suggestions on how to change the supply and demand dynamics for our stock. Moving to some other questions, do we expect additional announcements concerning additional luxury vehicle models? Yes. Am I still optimistic from our October 12th presentation that SPD will be another production vehicle behind the SL and SLK by July 1, 2013? Yes. Can we comment on recent articles that describe a special events being held in the automotive industry to launch a new S-Class and also comment on reports that the S-Class will use Research Frontiers’ SPD-SmartGlass technology. I’m some unlimited because we have NDAs in place with all the world’s major auto companies, but we can’t say anything definitive until they say something. However, I can’t say that the automotive press usually get things right…

Operator

Operator

At this time we’ll begin the question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions) And our first question comes from Frank Gildner from Raymond James. Please go ahead with your question.

Frank Gildner - Raymond James

Analyst

Joe, this is Frank Gildner. I had a question that follows on the revenue reports from the last quarter, I haven’t got a chance to look at these numbers yet, but I ask Seth, because in the report that I saw the revenues were down, when I thought they would be up since Mercedes introduced the SLK, and I guess, the S model to begin with, but I asked them what Mercedes paid in royalties and he said Mercedes don’t pay any royalties, the royalties come from the window producer.

Joseph Harary

Analyst

So, we get our primary royalty for the glass manufacturer although in the case of Mercedes, there is a relatively small royalty compared to the others that we get for each car based on our electronic patent. So, we do get something from the directly from Mercedes in that area, but as far as the lion’s share and what shareholders are focused on is the royalty from the sale of the glass products.

Frank Gildner - Raymond James

Analyst

Well, just one question that, because I have heard you say that you get your maximum effect when you go to the end manufacturer. And in this case, the end manufacturer is not Mercedes, but is it the glass manufacturer in England?

Joseph Harary

Analyst

But in this case, it’s tokens and that’s why we are collecting the royalty, which is the highest value added before the retail purchase.

Frank Gildner - Raymond James

Analyst

So, that’s going to be the case with the window production for buildings and for anything that comes in the United States, it’s going to be on the glass side rather than the individual Mercedes, I think Lincoln would be natural for this year in the United States since their connection in the luxury area, and what they have done with some of their new models, but they won’t be paying, it will be the glass manufacturer that supplies forward?

Joseph Harary

Analyst

Lincoln doesn’t have to be the licensee unless they want to use our electronics and use wire for that.

Frank Gildner - Raymond James

Analyst

Okay. Yeah, I understand the licensing fee that they don’t pay the royalty which is where you get your biggest bank from is what I thought?

Joseph Harary

Analyst

But Frank, just maybe for the benefit of other people on the call, I think that it’s important to understand that well, Lincoln doesn’t have to be a licensee. We have licensed 75% in the world’s automotive glass production. So, they can pickup the phone that any of their existing suppliers and get SPD Smart Glass.

Frank Gildner - Raymond James

Analyst

Well, the difference is it’s not a retail end it’s a commodity end if you are talking about the glass that way and it’s that affects the way differently than what I thought it was before. I am glad you cleared that up for me. Thank you.

Joseph Harary

Analyst

Yeah, there will be some markets where you are getting a royalty based on the sales of the consumer. If someone, for example, sells windows for the residential market, we are getting the royalty based on what the homeowner will pay for the windows to the licensee in the B2B area, which is typically the vehicle markets, the odds, the aircraft, and the automotive, it’s usually B2B and that’s what you are getting it from. But even in that area, we try to collect the royalty from the highest value-added part of the supply chain.

Frank Gildner - Raymond James

Analyst

Okay, good. Thank you.

Joseph Harary

Analyst

Thanks a lot.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) And our next question comes from Stephen Ohlemacher, who is a Private Investor. Please go ahead with your question.

Stephen Ohlemacher - Private Investor

Analyst

Yeah, good afternoon. I am impressed with the latest postings on whom we have been signing and the numbers that are growing up. A couple of questions, which it only take a minute, but first of all, the Russians, the new people that we have signed on according to what I really know we have already had a lot of success with using this glass. I am curious as to how they were using it prior to having a license?

Joseph Harary

Analyst

Sure. Let me address that first.

Stephen Ohlemacher - Private Investor

Analyst

Okay.

Joseph Harary

Analyst

In the case of tinted, tinted was a distributor for AGP, our licensee in this area. So, they basically open up the Russian market and we are buying laminated panels from AGP. They found that would be more efficient for them to actually manufacture it in Russia directly. So, that’s behind them. In the case of ABB nanotech, they have a strong presence in the liquid crystal window market and liquid crystal windows are fabricated very similar to an SPD window. There is an other side film, in their case, its liquid crystal, in our case, it’s an SPD film, but things like thus far as electrical connections, controllers, lamination techniques are all regular. So, it’s a lot of these companies fixed the ground running basically and they also have a strong customer base in Russia which has helped because these markets are premium glass markets. So, the ability to serve their existing customer base that they are used to dealing with that are offering them a better product certainly helps us.

Stephen Ohlemacher - Private Investor

Analyst

Oh I see okay. So, they were a sub-track?

Joseph Harary

Analyst

Nobody was infringing in Russia was it that they were part of AGC wasn’t selling SPD and since it was but as a distributor an authorized distributor.

Stephen Ohlemacher - Private Investor

Analyst

Okay thank you. The other question I have on new these new investors that the pocket people that we see coming on board, they getting their stock purchases from what I would like to call a company store rather than on an open market. And I am wondering about the stock bonuses and things that management and employees have been receiving, if that is coming out of the so called companies are also wouldn’t be time possibly to the stockholders to receive a small dividend or stock dividend of some sort just as maybe a good faith gesture?

Joseph Harary

Analyst

Well, certainly something we’ve done three times in the past stock dividends for shareholders and certainly things we will consider in the future. The thing about our stock dividend is you want to do it when your stock is at a higher level. And we certainly would consider it, but it’s not up to me, it’s up to the entire Board to do that. As far as your comment about them getting stock from the company store, they actually have had fairly substantial and probably bigger purchases in the open market and a lot of cases then they have got directly from the company and that was part of the strategy. If you looked at trading volume after our August offerings through Craig-Hallum where a lot of these investors came into the company as investors, you saw us fairly substantial buying activity following up that and we are very pleased that we were able to deliver on their expectations and that they bought more of the company stock. We take the trust of all of our shareholders very seriously and when you see that kind of buying activity coming from sophisticated institutional investors, it’s a nice development and it’s a nice validation.

Stephen Ohlemacher - Private Investor

Analyst

Yes, yeah I was more than happy to see this guy coming is Mr. Douglas.

Joseph Harary

Analyst

He has a very good track record and he sees a lot of potential for the company obviously which is why he has taken such a large position.

Stephen Ohlemacher - Private Investor

Analyst

Okay. And one last short one on your last annual report I know you don’t list all your licensees on there?

Joseph Harary

Analyst

Yeah, there is a list on our website of all of them. But with 41 now and growing it’s becoming really hard to look them all in one place and constantly update it. So, the best place is to go to our website and speaking of our website we mentioned in the last conference call that we are undergoing a substantial redesign of our website we are very excited about it and sometime between now and the Annual Meeting I think our shareholders will be very excited about it as well.

Stephen Ohlemacher - Private Investor

Analyst

Okay. Thanks a lot and take care of that cold.

Joseph Harary

Analyst

Thank you very much. I have been in four countries in four days last week, so a lot of it is just lack of sleep. Thank you.

Stephen Ohlemacher - Private Investor

Analyst

Okay. Thanks a lot.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Our next question comes from Todd Wiseman, Private Investor. Please go ahead with your question.

Todd Wiseman - Private Investor

Analyst

Hi I had a couple of questions. My first question was I noticed that you have various patents with buyer even this month kind of keep rolling. And I was wondering (indiscernible) particularly with these patents that have expired or will be expiring in near term?

Joseph Harary

Analyst

Alright, that’s a very good question. A company that’s been around as long as we have of course is going to have a number of patents at any given time car expiring. The ones that have expired or not significant to us, it’s I guess the corollary question is when do our significant patents expire and not till 2022, 2023, 2024 to what we consider the important patents in our technology begin to expire. We also have - very focused and sustained R&D effort so we do have new inventions coming online and new plans coming online all the time, and that’s a way to extend the revenue stream from our patent portfolio. So, I think we are very well-protected. We have about just under 300 patents and a similar number of patent applications pending around the world, but it’s a fairly substantial patent portfolio and the fact that we have attracted Fortune 100 companies, I think is a good validation that these are valuable. And as we see the revenues grow, I think that’s further validation that we are beginning to monetize these patents. So, I think we are well-protected by this. It’s a very good question and I appreciate you are asking it.

Todd Wiseman - Private Investor

Analyst

Sure. Second one, you said earlier in the call that you hadn’t had yet missed any opportunities on sort of target market OEM type cars?

Joseph Harary

Analyst

Right.

Todd Wiseman - Private Investor

Analyst

And I wanted to ask you about the E-Class from Mercedes that was I think refreshed or introduced in January, did you see that as something that had potential or not so much?

Joseph Harary

Analyst

We were told by Mercedes ahead of time that the E-Class that the refresh that they were doing was somewhat more of a cosmetic refresh, things like that the lights and things like that as opposed to wiring and structural and electrical more subset of electrical changes. The E-Class that I loved to be on is the 2016 one, because that’s the one that gets redesigned in a more major way, but in terms of what’s come out of the Mercedes pipeline, we haven’t missed any opportunities, but we are looking forward to a lot of very significant ones coming up.

Todd Wiseman - Private Investor

Analyst

Okay. One other quick question, I noticed your receivables were up at the end of last quarter, if you could speak to that?

Joseph Harary

Analyst

Yes, economic activity is also up, and I think that goes part and parcel. For example, if we typically will bill Pilkington quarterly, it’s usually after the end of the quarter that we build them, but we have to reflect as the receivables as of the end of the quarter. So, as you see increasing receivables a lot of those just due to the fact that you have to wait till the end of the quarter to know what you are billing people, and that’s what we do.

Todd Wiseman - Private Investor

Analyst

Okay, thank you very much.

Joseph Harary

Analyst

Thanks.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions)

Joseph Harary - President and Chief Executive Officer

Management

Well, I think what I’d like to do if there are no other questions is make just some very brief closing remarks. First of all, thanks again everyone for participating in today’s call. It’s nice to be able to end the year with such strength in so many different areas that we focused on. We have always felt that if you could end the year better than you started it, it’s always a good business strategy. And as I mentioned, we did that on a number of fronts from our solidified balance sheet, new product introductions, growing revenues, and new licensees and also new blood in our stock. So, all of these things have been very good for us, and has made up the stronger company. I want people to remember that SPD-SmartGlass is the best selling smart window in the world. And this year, we have begun to see the success as products have entered the automotive market, the architectural market, the aircraft and marine industries, and we have done this by taking ordinary windows and sun roofs and making them smart. And four of the world’s major automakers representing about 85% of the worldwide production of premium cars have introduced concept cars or serial production vehicles using our SPD-SmartGlass. And in addition to that, HondaJet and Bombardier have publicly shown SPD windows on their next aircraft that are being introduced. Airbus has been flying SPD windows on the every A380s, but they have delivered to Qantas since October 12, 2008, but I want to leave you with a thought. And this goes to the whole idea of visibility and awareness. Right now, today, March 14, thousands of times a day and over a million times a year people press a button and experience this cool magic that was brought to them by Research Frontiers and SPD-SmartGlass Technology. And each time they do this and each time they show it to their friends or share a video of the product using our technology, awareness of the technology grows, but not only this awareness growing, revenues are growing as well. Use of our technology is growing in each of the four main industries and we also are seeing success as we move into additional markets such as the museum market and the automotive (indiscernible). I am confident in our future and the strength in the germination which with we are moving forward, but none of this would have been possible without the support and trust of our fellow shareholders. And through this, I thank you all and I thank you for participating in today’s conference call. And I look forward very much to sharing additional good news with you as it progresses. Thanks again everyone.

Operator

Operator

And ladies and gentlemen, we do thank you for attending today’s conference call. It has now concluded. You may now disconnect your telephone lines.