Word: arco
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Atlantic Richfield Vice President Robert Chambers, who feels that the oil company holds some winning cards and that the pot must be hiked. The bet: a $25 million futuristic long shot on Inventor Stanford Ovshinsky, 57, the president, founder and principal stockholder of Energy Conversion Devices of Troy, Mich. Arco, which initially gave ECD $3.3 million in funding last May, now believes the company's research hi new ways of converting sunlight into electricity has bright potential. Says Chambers: "The funding is our way of expressing confidence...
...Arco's smart managers seem to be making quite a gamble. Ovshinsky is a self-taught physicist without a college degree. ECD, which he founded in 1960, has never had a commercial success, has had only one profitable year (1964) and last year lost $3.4 million (on revenues of $1.6 million, largely from Arco funding for the solar project). The company's over-the-counter stock price has fluctuated sharply. One high came in 1968, after Ovshinsky said in a highly publicized news conference that his research would "transform" the electronics industry...
Though some of the deals are long dormant and none has yet paid off, Arco seems enthusiastic. Claims Ovshinsky: "Since May, all the essential steps for ovonic solar cells have been production-proven, and they have shown themselves to be far superior to anything else...