Solar Firm Matinee Energy is Full of Hot Air

Comments (0) By Ray Stern Thursday, Apr 12 2012

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Lee then notes that Matinee Energy has closed its "corporate office" in Henderson. It's unclear whether he means Knight's home or the mailbox at a virtual office in Henderson that Matinee used for a time.

"We moved to New York and San Francisco," Lee claims. The Tucson location "is a satellite office, actually."

Matinee Energy's prominent Tucson office

Matinee's marketing officer Karrie Welborn and spokesman David Lee

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Lee declines to reveal the addresses of the New York or San Francisco locations. His excuse is that the company doesn't want people to "burn gas" going to the new locations.

Matinee owns and operates 15 solar plants in Europe and Asia, Lee maintains. But he won't disclose the locations of those facilities, either.

"We don't want to give people too much information and send people out [to those facilities]," he says. "Let's not get too deep into it."

Asked why not, Lee gets up and writes on a board: "sustainable competitive advantages."

He lectures, "All the secrets, we put them out there — what advantage do we have? If you're going to have everything discussed, we are taking clothes off, [are] naked, and saying, 'Hey, come and get me.' We don't want to do that."

If the company revealed its partners, he says, other solar companies would try to steal the partners — or a partner might try to compete with Matinee.

Lee is asked whether the Pannos brothers still have a role in the company.

"Based upon records, none — no," he says. As mentioned, the most current corporate records on file in Nevada and Arizona still show Michael Pannos as a "director" of the firm.

When New Times persists in asking questions, Lee angrily terminates the meeting.