RE: was thereThere's a half page article on BB and its AGM in the business section of Saturday's Chronicle Herald/Mail Star...good read if you're looking for a reason to shake your head...try to access it if you can, but if you can't here's some high/low lights...
Seems the new product focus is a quartz mix for in ground swimming pool applications...hmm...lots of demand for that on the South Shore of NS...and the distribution cost for such a product to warmer climates makes you wonder why this has become a focus...one of the setbacks claimed by the company was...."shipping costs rose in 2004 due to high international demand for transportation, making it hard for the company to make competitive sales"...but the best line was from Mr. Hilton himself..."This type of product, we think we have something very unique. Still, it is not a product that people are going to come and seek out. It has to be sold."
So, he says, "the main activity for us and the most important activity is marketing"...Daunting task perhaps, given this product focus, proven distribution cost issues, and that the company's mineral revenues for fiscal 04 were a whopping $3,214...its net loss increased by a factor of 4...from $622,733 in 03 to 2.3 million in 04...maybe they'd make some progress if they had a senior marketing person or a CEO yet...neither has been hired to date...wonder what they spent that money on...hmm...I know where a lot of it went...
The company increased its loss last year by about 1.7 million...correlating closely to what they say they ate up from the 10 million financing...they now claim a cash balance of 8.9 million...and for that use of funds they produced almost no sales, have no ceo or director of marketing, no production plant built or started, and a declining or stagnant share price...for that performance, Hilton collected $380,883 in compensation in fiscal 04...that's on top of the $104,000 salary and $70,000 in other compensation that Keating took in 04 before he resigned...beautiful, huh?...
As for building a plant, holding one's breath may be a bad idea...as Don Wright is quoted in the article..."the company plans to build a production facility ... by the end of 2005 but first wants to secure markets...."...with 3 grand in mineral revenue, they have alot of market finding to go before I think these boys start to build anything...
And finally, for those still clinging to the promise of Kaolin...in response to a shareholders question about what was supposed to have been "the big money maker"...Wright replied they were still researching the potential and that "we have not forgotten about it"...well, its nice to know they haven't forgotten about it, isn't it?
Is your head shaking yet?
That privatization theory is an intriguing possibilty and might explain a lot of things if its true.