Star Night Technologies (TASE: STNT), controlled by Moti Salimon, yesterday announced that it had obtained a letter of intent from an Indian defense company. Star Night will supply the company with night vision devices for the Indian Army for $4.8 million. Star Night’s turnover in January-September of 2004 was NIS 16 million. If the letter of intent becomes an actual order, it will give the company a substantial boost.
Under the agreement, Star Night will supply the Indian company with miniature night vision sights for rifles and testing systems. 80% of manufacturing will take place in Israel, and 20% in India.
”Two years after we began marketing in India, our efforts have borne fruit,” Salimon said yesterday. “I believe that this won’t be the end of the story for us. If all goes well with the current contract, I think we’ll get contracts from the Indian Army of the same size in subsequent years, too.
”Even without the current order, which won’t count in our orders backlog before the final contract is signed, our orders backlog stands at NIS 50 million. Adding this contract brings it to NIS 70 million, after we had only NIS 16 million in sales in the first nine months of the year. The agreement with the Indian Army is very important to us, because India has one of the world’s largest and rapidly developing armies I know of. Many companies are making prodigious efforts to penetrate this market, so it’s hard to get started, but if you can satisfy India, you’ll have a regular long-term revenue source.”
Salimon added that a delegation from the Indian Ministry of Defense had visited the company plant last week. He said that the delegation had gotten a positive impression of the plant and the company, and hoped to establish a long-term relationship with Star Night.
Following Star Night’s announcement, the Star Night share zoomed 10.5% in yesterday’s trading, boosting the company’s market cap to $10 million.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on December 23, 2004