RE: suspicious free fallIChing: If I was linked to the Board, how would I be able to justify the following?
-The Board hired a ceo who lives 4000km away from the head office and did not require him to move to where the hq is located. Please, can you name me ONE OTHER successful company where the ceo is not living within the community where the hq is located? Just ONE. I have spoken to headhunters who specialize in finance, accounting and the ems sector and they could not believe it. There are so many synergies from a ceo networking in the community and being available to staff. The ceo of IEC obviously has maximized the benefits of this strategy even to the extent of finding audit and legal firms that offer much lower fees. Since the ATQ Board has nothing to brag about, perhaps they should look at the playbook of LB and IEC for some guidance. The differences are so obvious.
-not only did the Board not require the ceo to move to where the hq is located, to my understanding, the ceo is on travel status the moment he steps out of his house until he returns. So we as shareholders are not only paying a ceo salary similar to that of the salary paid to the ceo of IEC (which grew market cap in 7 years by 70 times) we are paying for weekly flights, taxis, plush accomodation miles away from the company hq, car rentals etc.
-not only that, I have been trying to get a copy of the Travel Policy. A forensic auditor friend told me that this is often a sensitive spot and tests to see if the interests of the Board and top management are aligned with their duties. I have not been able to obtain it. Loyalty points can represent a further saving of about 14% according to the GM of a major hotel. So since the firm is paying for all of those expenses does it not make sense that the discounts on future travel/stays/rentals should go to reduce the cost of future company travel costs? If you could get an automatic 14% discount that would benefit your company would you refuse it?
-with respect to the most recent egregious dilution tied to the $1.5 million loan provided by the new majority owners whereby they got more than 18 million warrants convertible to stock at $0.08/share, why did the Board allow this to happen when I understand the Board and the top management knew well in advance that such funds were needed. Why did they not set aside funds to avoid this dilution? Why was there no shareholders meeting to review the proposal? Did the fact that the main beneficiary, RH, is also the majority shareholder on the Board represent an obvious conflict? That is the worst play I have seen and if it is not corrected shortly at or before the release of q3, I think we should all write the OSC and the TSX and ask that they investigate what really took place. Those warrants should be cancelled forthwith. Talk about abuse.
For the above reasons, and a few more, I could never be associated with such a Board. But as shareholders we have to demand transparency. Nothing like lifting a few rocks to see what is underneath is one of the forensic auditing principles.