This is a time when shareholders will want to let off much steam...

This is a time when shareholders will want to let off much steam if they haven't already done so for many past months. However, at risk of copping flack myself, I do think that the Chairman and CEO should not be made the scapegoats. They have worked tirelessly for several years to set up a genuine business structure, solved many technical problems to achieve a production line manufacturing capability, and generated a world wide market network for a range of new scientific products. It was all done on low budgets and it got within a whisker of success.

So what was the real problem? It was that previous management was a bunch of lemons, had no business sense of how or where to market PLT's unique products, or an understanding of the importance of large scale manufacturing. That CEO supposed that every SUS would be individually hand made so that the high cost required its multi use with all the attendant negative issues. The revenue was minimal and he could not comprehend what to do next except to repeatedly ask shareholders for more funds so that the share price fell over time from $6 to 4c. At that point the CEO resigned and left Robert Hunter largely on his own as chairman with some wonderful devices and intellectual property, and virtually nothing else. Hunter endlessly toured the potential funding sources who just laughed at the name Polartechnics. They had already heard all about PLT's successes or lack thereof. It was from this big negative new beginning in early 2006 that Hunter convinced Ben Dillon to take up the CEO position at a very small salary and thus to build a workable business structure with a wide but realistic outlook. At AGM's and privately, I quizzed him and other staff on their understanding of doing business in China, and on solving technical problems, and I was impressed at their knowledge and rational outlook (I have some expertise in science). The real stumbling block was never actually getting over the adequate funding problem that beleaguered PLT since 2006 while they were trying to get a grip on the world market.

I do not believe that there was incompetence or dishonesty or deliberate misleading of shareholders by the directors. If PLT had had access to just another $8 -10M to carry the company over another nine months, the large projected revenues may well have eventuated. It should be noted that when a company is tooled up and about to launch its products it has the greatest staff complement and demand on funding commitments. If Ben Dillon had been offered the job five years earlier PLT would be a household name today. Considering the potential of the company this saga will be one of the saddest failures in corporate history.

Whatever we may feel as a result of loss I think we should maintain a sense of balance.

Juke

[I have no connection with the directors or staff of PLT]