Cash remains scarce at StockerYale

StockerYale is still low on cash, despite the sale of shares at a discount price and the awarding of stock options to raise capital, according to the company’s quarterly statement filed last week with the Securities and Exchange Commission

The Salem-based provider of optical equipment and solutions had a cash balance of $1.6 million on March 31 at the end of the quarter. That figure is equivalent to the net loss the company posted during that quarter.

StockerYale has often been short of cash, and has often been able to find financing to stay in business, despite continuing losses, but – as the company warns in the risk factor part of the statement – the borrowing has not always been on favorable terms.

The company sold 2 million shares on Jan. 26 to Smithfield Fiduciary LLC, which is managed by Highbridge Capital Management LLC, for $2.3 million, or $1.15 a share. The stock opened that day at $1.57 per share and closed at $1.43 a share.

In addition, the company granted Smithfield an option to purchase another million shares at exercise price of $1.72. Those options are worth nearly $1.3 million, according to the filing. The company plans to use the Smithfield cash for “general corporate purposes, including to invest in its information technology infrastructure and to accelerate operation improvements.”

The company has been increasing its workforce, so it now has 204 employees, a number that should increase slightly during the current quarter because of a sales re-engineering program and research and development. There was no breakdown of employee distribution between the company’s Salem and Canadian facilities.

On May 10, when the company named Sylvain Rioux as the new R&D director, he was assigned to the laser business unit in Montreal. – BOB SANDERS