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TWST: Shall we start with a quick introduction to LINOS (Frankfurt: 525650.F)?

Mr. Litfin: LINOS is working in the field of photonics. Photonics is the entire area of optical technologies ranging from the production of light with lasers or with other light sources, to the handling of light through lenses or optical systems, up to the detection of light with opto-electronics systems. Optical technologies enable us to use light as a tool for diagnosis, for measurement, and for all kinds of treatments of materials, drilling and marking. We are one of very few companies in the world that develop and produce complex optical systems for high-end applications. Since the company’s foundation in 1996, LINOS has established its position as one of the most important suppliers in the photonics industry with a number of outstanding features. LINOS has the potential to act as a single integrated supplier in the development and production of solutions for practically all the application areas in various market segments. Photonics has applications in many areas. LINOS is working in three fast growing business divisions: Information Technology and Communications; Health Care and Life Sciences; and Industrial Manufacturing. We have obtained a considerable share of individual markets and we are a clear market leader in significant areas. We have mastered to control all the critical operations throughout the photonics value-added chain and our substantial know-how makes us superior compared to the competition. There were the following important stages in our corporate development: The LINOS group started in 1996 with a small company, Spindler & Hoyer, which I took over in an MBO. From that point on, we followed a branch concept with the idea to collect specific know-how from different companies in the market in order to achieve the critical mass. In fact, as early as in 1996 we acquired a number of companies: Steeg and Reuter, Franke-Optics, and Gsanger Optoelectronics. With this collection of different know-how within the very field of photonics, it was necessary to reorganize the company. As a consequence, we refocused our sales activities from the product viewpoint to the market viewpoint, which means we changed our sales organization in order to address distinct market segments within our three strategic business divisions. Moreover, LINOS is engaged in co-operations with well-known research institutes for research and development projects and we enjoy an excellent reputation as an innovative company among both scientists and customers. Our focus is on B2B business. We cooperate with numerous world famous high-tech companies where we are both development partner and OEM supplier.

TWST: Can we put this all together and then look forward to the next couple of years? From an investor’s standpoint, how should one properly follow your company in terms of benchmarks and metrics? What can one reasonably expect to see you achieve?

Mr. Litfin: One big goal for us is to get more impact to the American market. The US market is as big the European market, but as of today we just have sales organizations over there, which is not sufficient. The success concept here in Europe is that our development engineers work with the customer. Therefore we have just started to setup a development group in the United States and we will also setup some prototype production because we need a fully functioning company to support the customer. This is significant. We are active in a rapidly growing market. It is expected to grow 20% on average per year -- not this year or last, but the average will be 20% per year because we can see how fields such as telecom, semiconductor, biophotonics, and how fields like machine vision will develop in the future. We are always involved in these markets. We have an excellent market potential and we are in, I would say, the strong growing customer areas. Third, we have a leading position in our field and we are one of the very strong suppliers. We are dealing with all the big blue chips of the world. They ask us to develop some project vision. And finally, at the moment we have a very, very low market cap. Therefore, whenever the Neuer Markt in Germany and the economy in general re-develops then there is a good chance that our market cap will increase and there will be good prospects of increasing values.