“GT Advanced Technologies Inc. stock is going over to the pink sheets after shares plummeted in the wake of the company’s bankruptcy filing earlier this month,” Michelle Jones reports for Seeking Alpha. “The new stock ticker symbol will be (OTCPK:GTATQ) at the over-the-counter market.”
“Thursday’s move comes as no surprise, as the Apple Inc. supplier’s stock plunged below $1 a share and shows no signs of returning above that level. GT said today that it will not fight the NASDAQ’s decision to remove its shares from the exchange,” Jones reports. “The suspension on the NASDAQ was effective today at the opening of the markets.”
“The judge [Henry Boroff] said that the deal between GT Advanced and Apple was a bit strange and certainly complex. He basically said that it seems as if Apple is guilty of continuing to change the specs on the sapphire glass it wanted from GT, making it difficult for the company to comply with Apple’s many demands,” Jones reports. “GT wants to shut down its sapphire manufacturing facility because of the cash burn at the facility, which it said was because of Apple’s demands.”
Read more in the full article here.
Related articles:
GT Advanced confidentiality hearing with Apple delayed – October 16, 2014
GT Advanced bankruptcy judge challenges Apple’s penchant for secrecy – October 15, 2014
Apple, GT Advanced in secret session with bankruptcy judge – October 9, 2014
Apple supplier GT Advanced: Confidentiality pact rules out bankruptcy explanation – October 9, 2014
Apple ‘surprised’ by GT Advanced’s bankruptcy filing – October 8, 2014
Shattered sapphire dreams at GT Advanced – October 8, 2014
Apple’s withholding of $139 million payment led to GT Advanced bankruptcy filing – October 7, 2014
GT Advanced CEO sold 9,000 shares the day before Apple’s iPhone 6/Plus event – October 7, 2014
Law firms launch investigations into possible violations of federal securities laws by GT Advanced – October 7, 2014
Analyst: Apple may take possession of sapphire furnaces from GT Advanced – October 7, 2014
Apple to provide debtor in possession financing to GT Advanced? – October 7, 2014
Investors stunned over GT Advanced bankruptcy filing – October 7, 2014
GT Advanced files for chapter 11 bankruptcy court protection – October 6, 2014
Apple and GT Advanced rampup sapphire production in Mesa – August 11, 2014
GT Advanced expects sales of sapphire production tools to boost profit; shares surge – August 5, 2014
Apple and GT Advanced open second sapphire plant in Salem, Massachusetts – June 19, 2014
Apple patents method for embedding sapphire displays in LiquidMetal device chassis – May 27, 2014
There you go: Apple should just be nicer to it’s business partners and ignore quality contra; for it” customers and become like the rest of the corporate world-presto zingo
*DING* The constant DRUMMING for Apple to become corrupt, customer abusing and deadly mediocre like the vast numbers of biznizz bozoz the drove the world economy into the ground in 2007. No thank you! Carry on Apple!
He basically said that it seems as if Apple…. FACTS PLEASE! We’re technicians, not grubby rumor mongering rag readers.
MDN isn’t a rag??!
So biggest mistake was going to a US company for their sapphire.
Any Chinese supplier would be more than happy to meet Apple’s “many demands”.
Not necessarily so, if Apple had asked or told the US company that the sapphire was for war, torture or crimes against humanity devices then I’m sure GT Advanced Technologies would have been up to meeting those demands as it would have been the patriotic act thing to do.
Jackass roadkill strikes again…
This comes across to me as GT Advavanced Technology did realise a company putting up over 1/2 billion dollars would be so demanding. That said I think Apple is going to end up on the hook for a lot of this and may even have to pump more money in to fix it.
Ship those sapphire machines to China. Done.
GT= Flim Flam
Uh, maybe Apple will buy all assets and manufacture it itself. Door shuts on rest of the world for supply of Sapphire. Boo-yah.
There is more than one Sapphire source on earth.
What this looks like is Apple agreed to buy a given product with given specs in volume on a given date.
But then Apple’s engineering came up with additional changes, which may or may not be able to be achieved quickly.
If the new specs represent changes that go beyond the core physical properties of thin aluminum oxide, then it may never be possible to comply with Apple’s changes.
That may have been the case. But I would still fault GT for not immediately going back to Apple and saying that this was not what we originally agreed to and we will need more funding to go forward. GT didn’t do that. Which begs the question as no why they didn’t.
I think that may be the core of the argument. Made more complicated by the fact Apple was piling in money to support the process.
This is R&D – trying to make product work for applications.
In Apple’s eyes the sapphire product would need to work in real world situations. So if the product was too weak to stand up to the abuse in a phone scenario then that is a big problem.
Apple go to these lengths and often will abandon the path when it appears it is not feasible yet.
We all assume that the sapphire product was already up to the requirements Apple needed. We also assume that Apple knows all the answers right away. That clearly is not the case. They learn from their experiences and sometimes change the specifications because they realize they need a higher quality product.
GTAT problem is that they ran out of money. Maybe if they needed more they should have asked Apple for it because the specifications had changed.
Any time you make changes to specs, you have to make changes to delivery times. It’s almost a renegotiation of terms.
However with that said, maybe GTAT said, “we are the experts, and this is how you do it.” Apple’s samples, came back and weren’t what they they were told they would be. IE: Not flexible enough, not thin enough, etc. So Apple offered some ideas maybe compromised on their request to make it easier. However GTAT still wasn’t able to deliver.
Being that Apple relaxed their request, the terms of delivery wouldn’t change. But if Apple tightened their specs, then the terms of delivery certainly could change.
At some point though, Apple had to abandon the notion that sapphire displays were not going to work in 2014. Until GTAT can get their act together, they won’t get the final payment.
Then everything fell apart.
GTAT is trying to make Apple the bad guy, but in fact GTAT doesn’t have the knowhow to meet Apple’s needs, even though they said they did.
I can believe that GTAT contracted with Apple for something they thought they could deliver, but when the deadlines hit the result wasn’t there. I was ready to give them the benefit of the doubt if they needed a bailout. But their surprise BK filing tells me they knew a long time ago that they couldn’t perform. I think at some point this turned into a naked con job by GTAT. Their actions and complaints since their announcements reinforce that assessment.
*SUSPENSE*
‘Has GT AD gone off its meds? Has it become suicidal? Can anyone save it??? Will its friend Suzy come back from her Moroccan vacation in time to talk GT AD off the ledge? Or will we be treated to a swift and gory leap into oblivion? Tune in tomorrow for more of ‘The Edge Of Sapphire’.’
Zeke, I think you nailed it. I am in full agreement.