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HGR up to $0.16 after closing yesterday at 13.5 cents.Here is Speculator.s article:



Bouncing bullets and busting heads
10/05/2005
A Perth company has given up trees to take aim at evil-doers with high-tech ammunition and quickfire drug-testing.

Here’s a technology company that will generate market interest in coming months with projects to enhance small arms ammunition and drug detection. It has a new device to nail drug abusers for all substances known to party animals.

Harrington Group (ASX code: HGR) has been radically restructured in the past year from a struggling Perth-based investor in pine plantations to an emerging force in weapons solutions for the military and law enforcement. The driver behind this transformation is Peter Boonan, a former Victorian policeman in the ’70s who went on to make paper millions in the ’80s property boom. He took a financial haircut at the end of the ’80s, with rising interest rates driving down property values and bank foreclosures destroying over-geared property developers and speculators.

He moved to the US for a new start, living in New York then California, where he founded in 1991 Material Systems Inc (MSI). The company develops and makes advanced materials and electro-ceramics for US defence suppliers. Today, he controls 75% of MSI’s parent, MDM Group Inc, which is capitalised at $US40m ($52.9m) on the US over-the-counter market.

After the 2001 terrorist attacks, Boonan decided to return with his family to his wife’s birthplace of Perth. Hence our remote west coast capital’s unexpected involvement in homeland security ­weapons development and drug detection. Harrington Group became the vehicle after it sold assets, cancelled and consolidated shares, changed directors, raised $3m in placements and issued 80 million shares to acquire MDM Technologies from the publicly traded MDM Group, of Santa Clara, California.

With the purchase came patents and all worldwide intellectual property rights for the commercialisation of electric ­munitions technology known as ShockRounds. The Boonan-controlled MDM Group now controls almost 50% of Harrington’s 128 million shares, which have traded in the past 12 months between 26¢ and 9¢. At June 30, it had net cash of $2.5m. It incurred a loss of $595,797 for the year when it spent $343,971 on a development program for its ShockRounds technology.

This is aimed at producing electric rubber bullets to control unruly crowds beyond the range of those chucking rocks and Molotov cocktails. Boonan says this market is worth $US500m a year. Rubber bullets now have a range of about 36.5m, but a man can throw a Molotov cocktail 45m, says Boonan. His prototype is smaller and has a range up to 90m. Successful tests in Arizona in June with standard police-issue 37mm smooth-bore firearms have been claimed. The prototype has a device that delivers an electric shock on impact.

Better, he claims standard rubber bullets in the US sell for $US18 to $US30 each, while the cost of making an enhanced bullet is likely to be less than $US5. Boonan says Harrington is negotiating with a multinational to begin production in Singapore towards the end of the first quarter of calendar 2006. Confirmation should send the shares soaring.

Last week, Harrington announced it would acquire, subject to due ­diligence, a 40% interest in Sun Biomedical Laboratories Inc of New Jersey in exchange for 12 million Harrington Group shares. Sun holds world patents and approvals from America’s Federal Drug Administration for devices to mass-test drug users. With a subject’s saliva in the bowl of the device, it detects use of cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamines or heroin. Harrington has an option to acquire the remaining 60% of Sun by next June 30 through a further shares issue.

Bought: 20,000 Harrington Group @ 12¢ $2436