Ann: FYI Resumes Control of HPA Project, page-143

IMO there is lots of misinformation on this thread. The situation as I see it (and I may be incorrect as I'm just an investor like others on here):

- Roly did extremely well to entice Alcoa with the original deal. From memory Alcoa was to spend $200 million plus for 70% of the Project. This is serious money and as @Blythefan wrote a couple of days ago it was surprising that FYI's HPA intellectual property could be worth that much. IMO Alcoa has finally decided that it's not worth that much and has therefore pulled out. So in a sense Roly was the victim of his own success in negotiating the original very favourable deal for FYI (and not so favourable for Alcoa). I also surmise that maybe HPA demand is not as strong as initially envisaged, hence the recent independent study commissioned by Alcoa/FYI to determine global HPA demand (you would think that if customers were banging down the door this study would not have been required).
- The huge FYI share surge in anticipation of the original Alcoa agreement meant that FYI was priced to perfection. It is always very, very risky to buy into stocks when they are priced to perfection as in this situation the risk hugely out ways the potential reward. It is critical that investors analyse the market cap of the co and decide whether it is reasonable based on a company's assets before investing. In my experience investors (esp. inexperienced investors) almost always significantly underestimate the risk associated with investments and then wonder why they lose their capital when things don't go as planned. I learned the hard way myself when I started investing and often lost capital by underestimating the risk in my share investments.
- As for FYI's future, it's an interesting one. They do presumably have some good IP now which has been honed by their work with Alcoa, so there may be some interest from other development partners, possibly Asian technology co's etc. Having said this, I see a difficult road ahead and I sold my last small parcel when Alcoa bailed. I say this since the key issue with HPA (and what Aloca was going to solve) is the high capital cost of HPA plants (+$200 mio). There are lots of HPA's wannabes and they nearly all have this key stumbling block - where is the money going to come from to develop the plant??

GLTA & DYOR