GREENVILLE, S.C., Dec. 14, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Scio Diamond Technology Corporation (OTC-BB: SCIO.OB) today recapped the company's presentation at the LDMicro small cap growth stock conference in Los Angeles last week. The recap is for the benefit of shareholders and interested parties unable to attend the event, and is intended to conform to Regulation FD disclosure requirements. LDMicro is a premier small cap stock conference in which over 100 companies presented to several hundred institutional and private investors. Scio Diamond Chief Executive Officer Joseph Lancia presented on the afternoon of Wednesday December 7 to a standing-room-only audience.
Mr. Lancia began with a brief corporate history, noting that the predecessor company Apollo Diamond invested over $40 million over two decades to develop Scio's diamond growing technology. He noted that Scio produces real diamonds—they are not "artificial" or "stimulants"—using an advanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) process that is superior to the most prevalent alternative method, High Temperature High Pressure (HTHP). CVD enables much finer control over key properties of the diamonds, including color. Scio's technology is protected by 13 patents, with another 40 pending, as well as important trade secrets.
Lancia then outlined the market opportunities for Scio, in both gemstones and industrial applications. The rough diamond market is about $13 billion in annual sales, the majority being in industrial. Scio is in the midst of negotiating a number of distribution deals, in both gemstone and industrial applications, for the production volumes it expects to achieve this year.
Finally, Lancia outlined the company's development plan. He explained the economics of individual reactors used to grow diamonds, noting that the return on the capital cost of a reactor can be several hundred percent, based on current market prices and cost estimates. The company intends to raise additional capital to purchase production reactors and fund R&D and other business development. Lancia offered specific milestones the company expects to achieve over the next few months as it ramps into production.
"We appreciate the opportunity offered by LDMicro to allow us to tell our story to a much broader audience of sophisticated investors," said Lancia. "As a newly public company transitioning from R&D to development, we believe we have an exciting story that investors will want to hear. We intend to make additional conference appearances in order for potential investors to evaluate the investment merits of our business."
The company expects its next investment conference appearance to be at the ICR Xchange conference in Miami, Florida, on January 12, 2012. ICR Xchange is one of the largest consumer-oriented investment conferences, with two hundred companies presenting to over one thousand institutional investors.
For more information, the company's presentation is available at the "Download Center" section of the company's website: http://www.sciodiamond.com/?download=4
About SCIO Diamond
Scio Diamond employs a patent-protected chemical deposition process to produce high-quality, single-crystal diamonds in a controlled laboratory setting, with such diamonds referred to as "lab-grown" or cultivated diamonds. The diamonds have the identical chemical, physical and optical properties as any diamond found in the earth, and the company's highly controlled manufacturing process enables it to produce very high-quality, high-purity, high volume, single-crystal colorless, near colorless and fancy colored diamonds.
Scio's technology permits it to produce lab-grown diamond in size, color, and quality combinations that are rare, if at all present in nature. Diamonds are now being offered in limited quantities as jewelry and in the technology arena as the material operating system of the future.
Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including the Company's beliefs about its business prospects and future results of operations. Some factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include economic and operational risks, changes in anticipated earnings, continuation of current contracts, and other factors detailed in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Forms 10-KSB and 10-QSB. The Company forecasts provided above are dynamic and therefore refer only to this release date. The Company does not undertake to update any forecasts that it may make available to the investing public.