Research Frontiers Incorporated (NASDAQ:REFR) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Joe Harary: When they decide to introduce the products, that’s when you’ll start to see revenues kick in. And I understand there’s also a lot of licensees have to achieve a minimum royalty before you see additional income and they would have to exceed the minimum royalty for the year before you start having accretive new income. So just to use numbers if somebody had a $100,000 minimum royalty, that means and a 10% royalty, let’s say, for Automotive, you only see new revenue come in after they’ve achieved the $1 million in sales of product which would generate $100,000 in royalty income. Then the next dollar after that generates another, additional revenue.

Unidentified Analyst: Okay. Thank you.

Joe Harary: Thanks a lot, Art.

Operator: All right. [Operator Instructions] And we have a question from David Paradiso. Your line is open.

Unidentified Analyst: Hi Joe.

Joe Harary: Hi Dave.

Unidentified Analyst: I’ve been a shareholder for 29 years now and still waiting. And given that the price of the stock is where it is, I’m concerned once again about delisting. Can you talk about the timing of when Reefer could be delisted and ramifications and all that?

Joe Harary: Sure. So first of all, I don’t expect it to happen. And I don’t think we’re going to have to do what our two competitors did with a 60:1 reverse stock split just to get their stock over $1 and one of them has already drifted down and got another delisting notice. But typically, the NASDAQ rules require that if you trade below the $1 for a certain period of time, then you have 180 days to come into compliance and trade above the $1. And if that doesn’t happen, typically, there’s another six-month period that’s granted, and usually, what companies have done is do things like Woodview and Crown did, which is reverse stock splits to try to get their stock above $1. I don’t expect that to happen. I think we’re kind of in a period where there hasn’t been any news, and I’m pretty confident that there will be good news well within the timeframe I just mentioned. So I’m not at all even thinking about it.

Unidentified Analyst: Okay. Thank you.

Joe Harary: Thanks a lot, Dave.

Operator: And our next question comes from David Forrester [ph].

Unidentified Analyst: Actually, it’s Michael Forrester [ph], if you can here me.

Joe Harary: It’s Michael Forrester. How are you doing Michael?

Operator: I apologize sir. Michael Forrester.

Unidentified Analyst: In regard to — we had two suppliers of the film. Gauzy for one and Hitachi, which I think sold off its interest. Is there a problem in getting people to adapt the SPD technology because of a lack of multiple suppliers?

Joe Harary: No. And there’s more to the Hitachi story, which I think people will be pleased with when they hear about it. But no, we haven’t encountered that. What the automakers, especially where they like to have multiple suppliers have been focusing on is on multiple sources of lamination. So do they have a glass laminator that — which is the person that — the company that sets the price for the automaker for things like sunroofs, it’s having multiples in that part of the supply chain that has been important, and we have basically the who’s of the auto glass industry license. So the automakers seem very comfortable with everything. And this recent North American project, we went through a good list of potential licensees to supply the project and they were all companies that the automaker would welcome working with. So it’s been fine.

Unidentified Analyst: Well, you brought up at the beginning of the problems in Israel right now. And I’m just — it strikes me that if it’s realistically that Gauzy is the only producer of volume of film, there’s a limit on what else can currently produce and maybe haven’t hit the limit yet, but is that a barrier? Do you get that feedback from potential customers?