Hi Guys,
I am not sure what all the drama is about here.
I have entered into and been a party to many, many agreements where the intent of the parties is spelled out after the use of the phrase, "it is contemplated that". This is usually because contracts and agreements in business are often dynamic things.
In addition, I have never presumed there would be less than two separate agreements between EEStor and ZMC for the simple reason that up to an unknown date where there is a discrete product to sell which meets ZMC's specifications, EEStor's interests are for total secrecy and yet ZMC's interests are to be able to attract funds, with which to honour their obligations under the technology agreement to fund EEStor's development work.
There had to be a break point in this divergence of interest somewhere, and that clearly comes at the time when ZMC have an EESU which meets their spec and they in turn honour their agreement for the final USD500k payment to EEStor.
Until that "break point" ZMC must have sufficient information to tell the market what the general performance parameters of the product are expected to be. Given the delays and the need for more capital, that understanding was revised by Dick in a presentation which was leaked by someone. The leak was arguably neither Dick's nor ZMC's fault but it did ensure that no subsequent allegations of insider trading could be alleged. However, having made the representations that he did, Dick is in theory "a little more on the hook" for what his claims to the Paradigm investors were.
To date I have no knowledge of any possible breach of the NDA by ZMC (albeit that I do not know the NDA's contents) and it seems ZMC have honoured their side of the agreement to date. From the passage of patents and meetings between the parties, I get the impression that EEStor are doing the same. But it is still "work in progress". The ball is in EEStor's court.
At the time of first delivery by EEStor, ZMC will have a "pre-production EESU" which I understand to be an EESU from the EEStor assembly line.
At that time, despite whatever the parties contemplated, a number of things must happen.
1. The performance criteria for the EESUs and cost will then need to be nailed down.
2. The nature of the NDA will change. The reason being that far more in the way of performance and safety information will need to be revealed to third party OEMs, who in turn will need to be bound by confidentiality and secrecy agreements with ZMC to back-to-back whatever they agree with EEStor.
3. The commercial transaction between EEStor and ZMC will then need to nail down the details for supply, terms of trade and support. Further, and performance, royalty, secrecy etc will accompany this.
Zenn would then enter the market to obtain fresh funds with which to trade.
Those who believe that the whole deal would have been nailed down at the outset are commercially naive.
The fact that we were only allowed access to limited information with which to do our pre-investment due diligence, should have been apparent at the outset and the tentative nature of company representations (based on not already having a working EESU or trading with same) is what made the investment in ZMC both speculative and high risk.
I have yet to see anything on theeestory.com site over the past six months that changes my opinion of investment risk. The waxing and waining of share prices is irrelevant.
So my attitude is to wish Kofman, Weir et al, all the best for a successful completion of the production line and look forward to publication of specs.
Should a commercial product never be available, or should it be trumped by product from others, I would lick my wounds and move on.
The fact that the EEStor could change the passage of history makes it more improbable than less. So we should refrain from negative and critical comments pending advice of what the outcome will be.
For ZMC investors, it may just mean we lose our shirts. So we look to Mr Kofman to use his best endeavours to shpherd ZMC through the next critical stages...
kind regards
ei
