Representatives of Dyadic International (DYAI.OB) were quite upset when I called the company "A Stock to Avoid." The company has now released audited financial statements for 2007 and 2008. The lack of such statements was one of the several reasons I said to avoid the company. Should I retract my article?
Mark Emalfarb, Dyadic International‘s CEO sent me an email this morning with attached audited financial statements for 2007 and 2008, saying,
I hope that you will act responsibly as journalists and publish a retraction to your article "A Stock To Avoid” which Tom Konrad admits below that he “did not do any in-depth research” before publishing his article.
May I suggest that you have the courtesy of speaking with someone in the know and get the facts next time!
I have no intention of retracting the article, because the company has not been able to find any factual errors, which I would be happy to correct if there were any.
In that article, I looked into the company, and found just enough information to know that I was not interested in investing. To Mr. Emalfarb, I respond that he got what he (or his representative) asked for. The only reason I looked into the company in the first place was because someone at the company had, unasked, added me to the company’s email list for press releases. I presume they hoped for free publicity. Perhaps they should have checked that I actually liked their business before adding me to their list. I have written numerous articles which are skeptical about cellulosic ethanol over the years. A little research of their own (typing "cellulosic ethanol" into AltEnergyStocks.com’s search engine, for instance) would have saved them the embarrassment. For Mr. Emalfarb and curious readers here is a sampling of what they would have found:
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Cellulosic Ethanol vs. Cellulosic Electricity (January 2008)
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Cellulosic Ethanol vs. Cellulosic Beef (July 2007)
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Cellulosic Ethanol and Advanced Biofuels (June 2009)
The company proudly links to an interview with Renewable Energy Magazine, on their website. I can only conclude that they object not to my lack of in-depth research (since the interviewer did less) but that I did not do any in-depth research and did not have anything nice to say. Unlike John Petersen, I was not very well brought up: When I can’t say something nice, I sometimes shoot my mouth off anyway.
Because I’m skeptical of the whole cellulosic ethanol industry, I have no intention of doing the in-depth research Mr. Emalfarb claims to want. No one is paying for the time that I could otherwise spend researching better investment prospects. For readers willing to devote their own time, I suggest that they first read my previous short article and acquaint themselves with my other reasons for avoiding the company, and then read the recently released audited annual reports, which are available here [pdf.]
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