Ryan K: Well, gentlemen, please understand. My, well, awards don’t pay bills, okay? And the details that are required in this, okay? I believe are going to begin to make themselves known to you with what looks like, at least on paper a very competent operations executive who is, CFO. I don’t know anything about the purchasing person other than he’s a year late. So — and the fact that — part of my frustration, to be absolutely honest is that, I don’t see a 10-K still online. So I don’t know what — where the details are, okay? The only news that I heard that is better than I had expected was that we only spent $150,000 on legal fees. But the confidence right now to get this thing settled, okay? And get that off our plates, okay?
I cannot overstate the concern that I have about that as a red herring, because of the lack of information, I am following the case on the website for — on the legal website and all I am looking at right now is we are about to go into discovery. The judge has said, we have made every pre-trial motion that we can possibly make and they have been denied, all of them. And so now it’s put up or shut up and we are now going to get into the process of discovery, which is a financial rattle. The cost of discovery is astronomical. They can beat us. BASF can beat us with legal fees. So gentlemen, enough. Step up, take charge, make it happen. Please, no more excuses. No more excuses. Thank you.
Jess Jankowski: Yeah. Thanks, Ryan.
Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. I have a follow-up from the line of James Lieberman with Revere Securities. Your line is open. Mr. Lieberman, your line is open. Are you muted.
James Lieberman: I am sorry. Thank you very much. I appreciate the concerns and comments of the previous caller and I understand that there are concerns and challenges that the company has to deal with. I do agree with Jess that when you transition from a company that’s managing on a shoestring to a company that grew from about a yearly $9 million to $12 million to a $40 million company, there are a lot of transitions that need to be done. And historically, if you look at any of the various models out there when companies go above $20 million and go up to $50 million, there are other challenges. This company’s had to deal with all of those kind of all at once, moving from a shoestring to a more evolved and broader management undertaking.
That all is pretty understandable and natural and it sometimes sinks companies, but I think Nanophase is showing some resilience and understands what the challenges are. So, yes, time will tell how it plays out, but I am much more encouraged by what I am seeing in spite of — the some of the near-term disappointments and I think that I am all in, basically. I want to thank you all for your efforts. Regards.
Jess Jankowski: Thank you, Jim.
Operator: Thank you. One moment please for our next question. I have a follow-up from Mr. Barry Blank with J.H. Darbie. Your line is open.
Barry Blank: Hi. We have talked about the past and the past is the past. What are we going to do to make it better? Maybe you want to put some major shareholders on the Board. I certainly know Mr. Whitmore was on, and I mean, he has representation and thank god for him, because he’s been wonderful to the company. But I have been in the brokerage business for — I have got 50 years now and I have positions in over 30 microcap stocks, people. This is the hardest company in all 30 to be able to make contact. I flew to Illinois to visit you. I have over 40 clients with it. All I’d like to know is, number one, of course, I want to see improvement, but I would like to know if you could open up the lines of communication? I mean I don’t think it’s too much to ask.
I know I will never take up much of your time and I would never call you unless it’s something that some client wanted to know that was not inside information. I would never ask for inside information. But the communications has been so poor, it has been not existent and I’d like to see a change and maybe we get some representation from shareholders on the Board.
Jess Jankowski: That’s a good feedback. I understand your frustration with the communication and we will try to do something a little more active with it. Regarding on the Board, that’s something we could either talk about at our Board level, which we have a meeting coming up after tomorrow’s shareholder meeting or additionally, you also have the right to request to add if that’s something that you are interested in for the next meeting, which is something we haven’t seen much of and I certainly don’t want to have frustrated shareholders, obviously, but it’s something to think about.
Barry Blank: Jess, we are all on the same team. The shareholders are not the enemy. Shareholders are your friends. They can be behind you in that sort of thing. I stopped recommending the stock, because I don’t have any information. Also the performance has been poor, but even if the performance was good, I have, as I said before, the least rapport with this company of anyone that I have a position or any company I have a position and that’s all I want to say.
Jess Jankowski: Yeah. Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question please. And I have a follow-up from the line of Ryan K with RKA. Your line is now open.
Ryan K: In rebuttal to Mr. Lieberman’s comment about this has not been done before onsets. This has been done thousands of times before at thousands of successful companies that have scale. Product is different, the mix is different. You guys aren’t doing anything, okay, that hasn’t been done. The problem has been is that, there has been an unbelievable reluctance to get anybody, okay, with enough experience and to be able to peek around the corner. And the fact that some people have accepted the excuse that, well, this has never been done before, is poppycock. The answers are out there. The people who know how to solve these problems are out there, okay? This has been done before. The commitment to finding those people and bringing those people on in a timely fashion before the problems hit the fan has been the reluctance.
So I could not more vehemently disagree with Mr. Lieberman and his assessment that this has not been done before and that you guys have responded heroically. Thank you.
Operator: Thank you.
Jess Jankowski: Okay.
Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Tony Rubin [ph], private investor. Your line is open.
Unidentified Analyst: Yeah. Hi. Good morning or afternoon, I guess or I am — I actually said I wasn’t going to call in today, but I just felt compelled after the, I guess, the gentleman who commented previously to share a perspective that, yes, I think, the company has had significant operational issues over a significant period of time and that’s been frustrating to me, and obviously, to all of us. However, having sat in some of those chairs and understanding the balance sheet, I understand that you were cash limited. And to be honest, I am very pleased with what sounds like a very positive and elegant solution in that shareholder’s rights offering, which will be fair to current shareholders and provide additional working capital in addition to, perhaps, belatedly, those key hires.
