LYTS Company Profile

We are a customer-centric company that positions itself as a value-added, trusted partner in developing superior image solutions through our lighting, graphics, and technology capabilities. Our products and services include digital signage, screen graphics, and structural graphics capabilities, a wide variety of high quality indoor and outdoor lighting products, lighting control systems, and related professional services including engineering, installation, and project management. We also provide graphics and lighting products on a stand-alone basis. Our company is the leading provider of corporate visual image solutions to the petroleum / convenience store industry. We use this leadership position to penetrate national retailers and multi-site retailers, including quick service and casual restaurants, retail chain stores and automobile dealerships, located primarily in the United States as well as internationally. We seek to expand our market share in the traditional commercial / industrial lighting market by combining our LED product innovation and lighting control solutions utilizing the latest technology along with a strong emphasis on high service levels and market focused solutions. Our solutions are targeted at both renovation and new construction markets. We design and develop most aspects of the solid-state LED lighting, from the electronic circuit board, to the software to drive and control the LEDs, to the structure of the LED product. We also provide a variety of lighting control solutions which allow our customers to reduce energy and maintenance costs. In addition to designing and producing screen graphics and structural graphics, we design and produce most aspects of our digital signage offering where customers are provided a turnkey solution that includes design, software, hardware content development, implementation, service and support.

We believe that national retailers and other companies in the markets we serve are increasingly seeking single-source suppliers with the project management skills and service expertise necessary to execute a comprehensive visual image program. The integration of our graphics, lighting, and technology coupled with our professional services capabilities allows our customers to outsource to us the development of an entire visual image program from the planning and design stage through installation. Our approach is to combine our lighting products and custom graphics applications utilizing the latest technology along with our professional service capabilities to create complete customer-focused visual image solutions. We also offer our lighting products and graphics elements on a stand-alone basis to service our existing image solutions customers, to establish a presence in a new market or to create a relationship with a new customer. We believe that our ability to combine lighting, graphics, and technology coupled with professional services into a comprehensive visual image solution differentiates us from our competitors who offer only stand-alone products for lighting or graphics and who lack professional services offerings. During the past several years, we have continued to enhance our ability to provide comprehensive corporate visual image solutions by adding additional graphics capabilities such as digital signage and media content management, wireless lighting control systems, new and innovative LED lighting products and professional services through acquisitions and internal development.

Our focus on product development and innovation creates products that are essential components of our customers’ corporate visual image strategy. We develop and manufacture lighting including solid-state LED lighting, lighting control systems, and graphics and distribute them through an extensive multi-channel distribution network that allows us to effectively service our target markets. Representative customers include BP, Chevron Texaco, 7-Eleven, ExxonMobil, Shell, Burger King, Dairy Queen, Taco Bell, Wendy’s, Best Buy, CVS Caremark, Phillips 66, Target Stores, Wal-Mart Stores, Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Nissan, and Toyota. We service our customers at the corporate, franchise and local levels.

We also focus on the elimination of non-value added activities throughout our organization through the LSI Business System, a Lean Management System utilizing kaizen events and lean tools to drive continuous improvement in our processes. The LSI Business System improves shareholder value by increasing customer satisfaction and eliminating waste, both of which will improve the bottom line. We are committed to this company-wide initiative through employee education and training with the ultimate goal to make it part of the corporate culture and way of thinking of all employees.

Single Source Comprehensive Visual Image Solution Provider. We believe that we are the only company serving our target markets that combines significant graphics capabilities, lighting products and installation implementation capabilities to create comprehensive image solutions. We believe that our position as a single-source provider creates a competitive advantage over competitors who can only address either the lighting or the graphics component of a customer’s corporate visual image program. Using our broad visual image solutions capabilities, our customers can maintain complete control over the creation of their visual image programs while avoiding the added complexity of coordinating separate lighting and graphics suppliers and service providers. We can use high technology software to produce computer-generated virtual prototypes of a customer’s new or improved retail site image. We believe that these capabilities are unique to our target markets and they allow our customers to make educated, cost-effective decisions quickly.

Proven Ability to Penetrate Target Markets. We have grown our business by establishing a leadership position in many of the markets we serve, including petroleum / convenience stores, automobile dealerships and specialty retailers. Although our relationship with our customers may begin with the need for a single product or service, we leverage our broad product and service offering to identify additional products and solutions. We promote the combination of graphics, lighting, and technology, along with image element offerings, and services to create comprehensive solutions for our customers.

Focus on Product Innovation. We believe that our ability to successfully identify, develop and patent new products has allowed us to expand our market opportunity and enhance our market position. Our product innovation initiatives are designed to increase the value of our product offering by addressing the needs of our customers and target markets through retrofit enhancements to existing products or the development of new products. New product development includes developing an expanding portfolio of technology patents related to the design of LED based products. We believe our product innovation process creates value for our customers by producing products that offer energy efficiency, low maintenance requirements and long-term operating performance at competitive prices based upon the latest technologies available.

Strong Relationships with our Customers. We have used our innovative products and high-quality services to develop close, long-standing relationships with a large number of our customers. Many of our customers are recognized among the leaders in their respective markets, including customers such as Wal-Mart, BP, Phillips 66, Exxon Mobil, Carmax, Chevron, CVS Caremark, Stop & Shop, and Burger King. Their use of our products and services raises the visibility of our capabilities and facilitates the acceptance of our products and services in their markets. Within each of these markets, our ability to be a single source provider of image solutions often creates repeat business opportunities through corporate reimaging programs. We have served some of our customers since our inception in 1976.

Well-capitalized Balance Sheet. As part of our long-term operating strategy, we believe the Company maintains a conservative capital structure. With a strong equity base, we are able to preserve operating flexibility in times of industry expansion and contraction. In the current business environment, a strong balance sheet demonstrates financial viability to our existing and targeted customers. In addition, a strong balance sheet enables us to invest in the company through research and development and allows the Company to invest in capital projects that support the Company’s growth.

Aggressive Use of Our Marketing Center. The capabilities of our Image Center, Innovation Center, Inspiration Center and, I-Zone Marketing Center provide us with a distinct competitive advantage to demonstrate the effectiveness of integrating graphics, lighting, and technology into a complete corporate visual image program. These four centers, which demonstrate the depth and breadth of our product and service offerings, have become an effective component of our sales process.

Maintain our Vertically Integrated Business Model. We consider our Company to be a vertically integrated manufacturer rather than just a product assembler. We focus on developing lighting and graphics products coupled with technology, and outsource certain non-core processes and product components as necessary.

Commitment to Continuous Improvement. We are committed to a philosophy of continuous improvement through the LSI’s Business System which is a Lean Management System utilizing Kaizen events and lean tools to identify and eliminate waste and increase customer satisfaction with the ultimate goal to improve shareholder value.