SEC Company Response from Hyperscale Data, Inc. (GPUS, GPUS-PD) (CIK 0000896493) (GPUS) — Dec 3, 2009
Hyperscale Data, Inc. (GPUS, GPUS-PD) (CIK 0000896493)
Date: Dec. 3, 2009 · CIK: 0000896493 · Accession: 0001144204-09-063030
AI Filing Summary & Sentiment
File numbers found in text: 001-12711
Referenced dates: November 12, 2009
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CORRESP
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filename1.htm
December
3, 2009
Via
Edgar
United
States Securities and Exchange Commission
450 Fifth
Street N.W.
Washington,
DC 20549
Attention: Jeffrey
Jaramillo, Accounting Branch Chief
Mail
Stop 3030
Re:
Digital
Power Corporation
Form 10-K
for the Fiscal Year Ended December 31, 2008
Filed March 30, 2009
File No.
001-12711
Dear Mr.
Jaramillo:
Please
find below responses to additional comments raised by the Staff of the Division
of Corporation Finance of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission
(the “Staff”) in their letter dated November 12, 2009 regarding the Staff’s
review of the letter filed by Digital Power Corporation (the “Company”, “we”,
“us” or “our”) on October 29, 2009 in response to the Staff’s original comments
(the “Original Response Letter”). Our responses follow your numbered
comments, and all capitalized terms used, but not defined, herein shall have the
meanings ascribed to them in the Original Response Letter.
Form 10-K for the period
ending December 31, 2008
Note 6: Commitments and
Contingent Liabilities, page F-18
1.
Comment.
We
note from your response to our prior comment 3 that your lease for the
Gresham facility entitles the Landlord to compensation for any diminution
of its interest that might have taken place during the course of the
tenancy and that Anite claims that the work to be performed in the list of
dilapidations should be undertaken by DPL as part of its liabilities under
the Sublease. Also, we note that you have not recorded a
liability provision in accordance with SFAS No. 5. In this
regard, please tell us how you considered SFAS No. 143 and FIN 47 in
determining whether you were required to recognize an asset retirement
obligation in connection with the Gresham lease for all periods presented
in your financial statements.
Jeffrey
Jaramillo, Accounting Branch Chief
United
States Securities and Exchange Commission
December
3, 2009
Page 2
Response.
We
did consider SFAS No. 143 and FIN 47 in determining whether we were
required to recognize an asset retirement obligation in connection with
the DPL Sublease for the periods presented in our financial
statements. An asset retirement obligation is a legal
obligation that is incurred as a result of the acquisition, construction,
development and normal operation of a tangible long-lived
asset. For example, an obligation to return a leased asset to
its original condition (if it has been modified by the lessee) should be
accounted for pursuant to the requirements of SFAS No. 143; as such, if an
improvement to leased property has been recognized as an asset on a
lessee’s balance sheet (leasehold improvements), any obligation to remove
said improvement should generally be accounted for as an asset retirement
obligation. In addition, FIN 47 defines a conditional asset
retirement obligation as a legal obligation to perform an asset retirement
activity in which the timing and/or method of settlement may be
conditional on a future event. The liability recognition of
SFAS No. 143 and FIN 47 is based on fair value measurement, as opposed to
SFAS No. 5, which requires an entity to consider uncertainty in its
determination of whether to recognize a
liability.
With
respect to the DPL Sublease, although the Landlord may be entitled to
compensation, upon expiration of said Sublease and surrender of the
building, for any diminution of its interest that may have taken place
during the course of the tenancy, we believe that there was no material
diminution of interest during the term of the DPL Sublease. It
should be emphasized that Anite received a list of dilapidations with
respect to its Lease with the Landlord that dates back to
1976. Virtually all of said list refers to the requirement to
restore the building to its original configuration in 1976, which was
largely a warehouse, and to matters of repair that arise principally from
the failure of Anite’s previous sublessees to meet their repairing
obligations. Furthermore, Anite and its previous sublessees
made significant modifications (improvements) to the facility during the
course of the previous subleases, whereby virtually all of the Landlord’s
claims in respect of the costs of removal of fittings and equipment relate
to those that were put in place by Anite’s previous
sublessees.
As
discussed in the Original Response Letter, the building today has the same
configuration that it had when DPL commenced the Sublease in
1995. In addition, DPL has made virtually no
modifications/improvements to the building; the leasehold improvements
that DPL has made to date are minor, such as interior decoration to
include new carpets and the addition of a limited number of partitions to
optimize office accommodation. Furthermore, DPL has made
ongoing repairs to the building that we believe materially comply with the
covenants of the Lease to maintain the building in good repair during the
Lease term. As DPL’s obligations can only relate to the
condition of the building that existed in 1995, we believe that Anite’s
claim with respect to the dilapidations is substantially without
foundation.
Jeffrey
Jaramillo, Accounting Branch Chief
United
States Securities and Exchange Commission
December
3, 2009
Page 3
Although
there may be costs associated with the removal of the leasehold improvements
that DPL has made to the building to date, which, if the Sublease is terminated,
will have to be removed, we estimate such costs to be de minimis (less than
$30,000). Assuming that DPL accepts the Landlords’ offer of a new
lease for fifteen years, DPL’s removal of any leasehold improvements made during
the term of the Sublease will be deferred until the expiration of the new lease,
and we estimate the fair value of the liability for such asset retirement
activities to be de minimis (less than $12,000). Accordingly, we did
not record an asset retirement obligation in accordance with the provisions of
SFAS No. 143 and FIN 47.
Note
7: Shareholders’ Equity, page F-18
2.
Comment.
We
note your responses to our prior comments 5 and 6. In this
regard, please provide us with all of the terms associated with the 70,000
and 100,000 options issued to Telkoor’s employees and other non-employees,
respectively. Also, please tell us how you estimated the
service period used to recognize compensation expense separately for each
issuance of options to Telkoor’s employees and other
non-employees. Additionally, if the measurement date of the
options is the date that the counterparty’s performance is complete,
please explain why you would issue such options to Telkoor’s employees and
other non-employee consultants before the counterparty’s performance is
complete. Please provide us with a detail description of the
types of services that will be or have been performed by Telkoor’s
employees and the other non-employee consultants in consideration for the
issuance of the abovementioned options. Furthermore, please
provide us with the adjustments made during the years associated with the
re-measurements and forfeitures of the unvested options as further
discussed in your responses to our prior comments 5 and 6, supported with
the financial statement accounts used to record such adjustments, for each
year since the grant date. Finally, please provide us with the
journal entries used to account for these options at the grant date,
supported with your rationale used in this
accounting.
Jeffrey
Jaramillo, Accounting Branch Chief
United
States Securities and Exchange Commission
December
3, 2009
Page 4
Response.
The
Company granted stock options to Telkoor employees who were or are
consultants to the Company (“Telkoor employees”) and to another
non-employee consultant, as
follows:
Date
of grant
Number of
options
Exercise
price
Share
price on
date
of grant
Vesting
terms (1)
Contractual
life
Service
period
Telkoor
employees (2)
February,
2005
70,000
options
$1.19
$1.19
4
years: 25% per year –
cliff vesting
10
years
4
years
Non-employee
consultant (3)
March,
2006
100,000
options
$1.16
$1.16
4
years: 25% per year –
cliff
vesting
10
years
4
years
(1)
There
is no specific economic penalty for
nonperformance.
(2)
Telkoor,
the Company’s largest shareholder, is engaged in developing, marketing and
selling power supplies and power systems for the commercial and military
markets. The Company is a key distributor of Telkoor’s
products, and Telkoor is a subcontractor and a strategic supplier of power
supplies to the Company. In 2005, the Company granted 70,000
options to a few senior Telkoor employees who are responsible for (1)
providing timely product delivery to the Company, as a major customer
account of Telkoor, and (2) providing sales and marketing, as well as
technical product support to the Company on an ongoing
basis. The Company granted the foregoing options to these
senior employees in consideration of consulting services to be provided to
the Company in connection with the Company’s relationship with
Telkoor.
(3)
The
Company hired a consultant, a former Chief Executive Officer of the
Company with vast experience in the power supplies industry, to provide
advisory services with respect to business development and other strategic
issues to the Company’s Chief Executive Officer over a four-year period,
in consideration for annual fees and 100,000 options that vest
over a four-year period. The advisory services include, among
other things, the review of material contracts, the evaluation of
potential business opportunities and attendance at meetings with potential
customers.
Jeffrey
Jaramillo, Accounting Branch Chief
United
States Securities and Exchange Commission
December
3, 2009
Page
5
The table
below provides (1) a breakdown of compensation expense recorded, due to
re-measurement and forfeitures, with respect to Telkoor employees and the other
non-employee consultant and (2) the number of forfeited and expired options for
the years ended December 31, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008:
2005
2006
2007
2008
Total
Number
of forfeited and expired unexercised options
-
-
10,000
(1)
40,000
(2)
Telkoor
employees
Compensation
expense
$8,000
$25,000
$27,000
$1,000
Compensation
expense with respect to forfeited
options
-
-
-$5,000
-$8,000
Total
$8,000
$25,000
$22,000
-$7,000
$48,000
Number
of forfeited options
-
-
-
-
Non-
employee consultant
Compensation
expense
-
$27,000
$32,000
-$5,000
Compensation
expense with respect to forfeited
options
-
-
-
-
Total
-
$27,000
$32,000
-$5,000
$54,000
Total
$8,000
$52,000
$54,000
-$12,000
$102,000
(1)
5,000
of the 10,000 options were forfeited options that were unvested as of the
termination date.
(2)
10,000
of the 40,000 options were forfeited options that were unvested as of the
termination date.
EITF
96-18 requires that the fair value of unvested equity instruments issued
to nonemployees be measured at the earlier of (1) the date at which a
commitment for performance by the counterparty to earn the equity
instruments is reached (a “performance commitment”) and (2) the date at
which the counterparty’s performance is complete. No
performance commitment exists for the foregoing options because there is
no large disincentive or economic penalty for nonperformance by the
counterparty. Therefore, the measurement date of the foregoing
options is the date on which the counterparty’s performance is complete,
and the counterparty is deemed to have completed performance once it
renders the services required of it under the arrangement such that it is
able to keep or exercise the award.
Jeffrey
Jaramillo, Accounting Branch Chief
United
States Securities and Exchange Commission
December
3, 2009
Page 6
The
foregoing options vest ratably over a four-year service term (on a cliff-basis
per year); thus, the counterparty’s performance is completed over four years,
with four measurement dates, as follows: 25% of the options vest following
completion of the first year of service, as the counterparty is not entitled to
said options until the end of the first year (cliff award), after which the
remaining 75% of the unvested options are re-measured at their then current fair
values at each interim financial reporting date and compensation cost is
adjusted for the changes in those fair values over the remaining service period;
another 25% of the options vest following completion of the second year of
service (cliff award), as the counterparty is not entitled to said options until
the end of the second year, after which the remaining 50% of the unvested
options are re-measured at their then current fair values at each interim
financial reporting date and compensation cost is adjusted for the changes in
those fair values over the remaining service period; and so forth.