Dynasil Corporation of America (DYSL)

Dynasil Corporation of America was a small technology company based in Newton, Massachusetts. Through several subsidiaries it made precision optical components and materials, optical coatings and filters, and specialty crystals, and it carried out contract research and development, much of it funded by US government agencies. It also had a biomedical arm working to commercialize technologies that came out of its research operations.

The company began as a maker of synthetic fused silica, an ultra-pure glass used in optics, and expanded over the decades by buying businesses such as Optometrics, EMF and the UK crystal maker Hilger Crystals. A major step was the 2008 purchase of Radiation Monitoring Devices, a Watertown, Massachusetts research firm that became its contract research segment and a source of new products in radiation detection.

Dynasil's common stock traded on the Nasdaq market under the symbol DYSL. The company was small, with modest revenue and a thinly traded stock, and it faced periods of losses and covenant issues with its lenders. Management argued that the expense of being a public reporting company was large relative to the size of the business.

In 2019 the board proposed a 1-for-8,000 reverse stock split followed immediately by an 8,000-for-1 forward split. Stockholders approved it on August 7, 2019. Holders of fewer than 8,000 shares were cashed out at $1.15 per share, while larger holders kept their stock. The company filed Form 25 on August 19, 2019 to remove its shares from Nasdaq, with the listing ending around August 29, 2019, and then moved to suspend its SEC reporting obligations.

Dynasil said it expected to save more than $900,000 a year by ceasing to be a reporting company and wanted to concentrate on growing its businesses. After the delisting the shares could only be quoted on the OTC market if dealers chose to do so, and the company no longer filed regular reports with the SEC.