where did we go wrong?, page-8

Well 3500 You are right on the dividend and balance sheet, but I recall that the investment theme in 2013 is that we are buying into a growth company and did you say that you have about 1% equity interest in the company? So...if Zicom does not grow its PE revenue in the long term, or its business model fail to convince investors that those 10m cash injected start-up projects will grow in the long term, then there may be better allocation of capital.

Looking longer term, forget about those numbers for a second, focus on the people, Zicom's management and its employees, you know that ultimately you are betting on GL Sim and its second son's ability to turn this company around.

GL Sim is very experienced in running the old Zicom, the deck machinary part, I trust him; while his younger son, in Sysmac Auto, has the desire to develop advanced biomed equipments————It is not hard to understand why he wants to do this by checking his background profile, and it is no surprise GL Sim will support his son given biomed is indeed a good industry (not saying everyone will succeed). Now the problem is, non of the two are specialized in biomed, Zicom have a bunch of engineers, automation engineers, so they need to find someone with skills and knowlege in biomed, convince them to partner with Sysmac, sell the ideas and let Sysmac help them develop the tools (so the company can make some money too); this is fine, let specialized people do specialized things, but I see more succuss stories from companies with managers owning core expertise in the business, in this regard, I'd personaly prefer a biomed equipment specialist to lead Zicom's new business division (sourcing spec. equipment manufacturers aren't that hard), the scarce resouce is not spec equipment manufacturer, but rather really good biomed innovators.

Well I hope one day we would look like ASML Holding NV (ASML)