Mr. Kavazanjian: Ultralife Batteries was formed in 1991. The Eastman Kodak Corporation in Rochester, New York, had been in the battery manufacturing business, and they exited the business the year before, closed it down and put it up for sale. Ultralife came out of that. The initial technology was non-rechargeable lithium manganese dioxide chemistry. Over the years the company developed a 9-volt battery based on that chemistry. Ultralife then bought a UK company and developed cylindrical cells, very much like the ones you see in the store ' round, AA, C, D -type cells. And then it developed a technology for making lithium polymer rechargeable cells. The company grew to develop battery products and assemblies based on those cells and on cells made by other companies. Ultralife went public in 1992, had two follow-on offerings and, in the past few years, some small private placements. That brings us to today. We did about $20 million in the last quarter and we're a profitable enterprise. In broad terms, we supply power solutions for diverse applications that need high-energy density, reliable, non- rechargeable and rechargeable power sources. We do that right now by leveraging our technology in lithium chemistries, both rechargeable and non-rechargeable.
TWST: What is the competitive landscape like?
Mr. Kavazanjian: On a competitive basis there are a large number of
companies in the consumer markets, companies like Duracell and Energizer
and Rayovac, Panasonic and Sanyo and Sony. We are targeted toward
military, commercial and industrial markets for our products. In those
marketplaces we face one main competitor in non-rechargeable batteries,
a company called Saft, that is right now a division of Alcatel in
France, although Alcatel recently signed an agreement to sell it to a
European private equity firm. In the military marketplace we also face
Eagle Picher in St. Louis. Those really are the only two companies that
we come up against in our target markets. Certainly our products come up
against substitutable products from the commodity consumer battery
companies, so we go to markets that can't be adequately served by them.
Tickers included in this excerpt: ULBI
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