“A story that Apple tried for three weeks to suppress is now part of the public record,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Fortune. “When Apple’s chief supplier of sapphire filed for bankruptcy three weeks ago, included in the court documents was a sealed affidavit offered by Daniel Squiller, the COO of GT Advanced Technologies. It was sealed, according to GT’s lawyers, because it contained details covered by an Apple non-disclosure agreement that was going to cost GT $50 million for each violation.”
“On Tuesday, after three weeks of legal wrangling, Squiller filed a revised declaration that is probably as close as we’re going to get to a definitive account of where the deal went south,” P.E.D. reports. “His summary: ‘The key to making the transaction profitable for both sides was the production of a sufficient number of 262kg boules of sapphire crystal meeting the specifications required by Apple. GTAT has sold over 500 sapphire furnaces to Asian customers that produce 115kg boules. Most sapphire manufacturers using non-GTAT furnaces produce boules of less than 100kg in size. Production of sapphire at 262kg would provide for scale, that if accomplished, would be profitable to both Apple and GTAT. Unfortunately, the production of 262kg boules of sapphire could not be accomplished within the time frames the parties had agreed, and was more expensive than anticipated. These problems and difficulties resulted in a liquidity crisis at GTAT, which led to the commencement of these chapter 11 cases.'”
P.E.D. reports, “The juicy stuff, however, is in the details.”
Tons more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “BD” for the heads up.]
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