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Welcome to Orbital's web-site, and to
the "From the CEO" newsletter.
 I
would like to provide you feedback from our recent Annual General
Meeting, and to touch base on other key developments in these challenging
financial times.
This was my first AGM as CEO and Managing Director
of Orbital, and I was particularly encouraged by the questions and
feedback from shareholders, both during the formal AGM proceedings,
and after the AGM as we had some casual time with tea and biscuits.
The general feedback from the AGM is that the shareholders who attended
understood and supported our new strategy. Understandably shareholders
were also very interested to understand the challenges Orbital could
face resulting from the current worldwide financial turmoil.
Several questions and statements made at the
AGM centred around shareholders who have paid more than $3.00 per
share and have watched their investments diminish over time. I have
also watched this and believe that we can learn from Orbital's experience
in this area. As a part of the AGM presentation, I provided my view
of Orbital's past; the positives, the negatives, the undelivered
promises, and my view of how and why Orbital got to where we are
today. This was well received and there were many follow-on questions
related to the past and how we can learn from this as we move forward.
What have we learnt? The automotive business potential was not realized.
Customers had alternatives and the commercialization strategy was
lacking. The non-auto business for Orbital is successful. This was
built on a good fuel system technology and a commercialization strategy
centred around Synerject. Going forward, we will build on what has
been and is successful.
There were many questions related to Alternative
Fuels from the shareholders at the AGM (CNG, LNG, Ethanol, and other
applications). One shareholder had direct experience with some of
the work we have been doing with transport and LNG (liquid natural
gas) injection systems. This is a business that we currently support
with engineering and are closely evaluating the potential of moving
into systems supply to compliment our Orbital Gas Products strategy.
In summary, the shareholders I spoke to want
a "change" from what they have seen over the last 15 or
so years. Shareholders want to feel confident that the Orbital team
will deliver on what we promise. They want to see growth, profits,
and positive results. We have a solid plan and will use this as
our foundation for growth into alternative fuels and other aligned
business opportunities.
The Chairman and my speeches, and the presentation
material can be found on our web-site at: http://www.orbitalcorp.com.au/orbital/investorinformation/news.htm
We are seeing continued effects of the current
global financial situation on both our technical services order
book and product sales based on Synerject's EMS systems and our
own FlexDI products especially in the key North American recreational
product market. To counter this, we are exploring new channels and
implementing new methods to increase our technical service order
book pipeline, and we will be controlling costs. My goal is to insure
that Orbital is well positioned to accelerate growth when stability
returns to the financial market.
Many of you have written to me through our
website with various comments and questions related to the price
of our stock. Like many other stocks in the market today, the near
term price fluctuations with Orbital stock do not reflect fundamental
changes in the business. The business is as strong as it was when
I joined the company mid year. I get questions such as "the
stock fell a significant percent overnight in the US, what happened
to the company?" The response was easy because the stock rose
more than it fell the next day on the market. In a volatile market,
this can be expected. My focus is on growing the business and building
a long term future. As we grow and improve the bottom line, long
term this should be reflected in the share price. Note that I do
read all the messages that come in and respond as I have available
time.
I plan to provide you with another update
of our key activities towards the end of the calendar year.
Regards
Terry Stinson
Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director
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