RE: TrendlinesI don’t think Skidmore’s are responsible forlower shareholder value. They have done everything possible to keep thiscompany on 20-22% organic growth path year after year. They invested all kindsof cash to grow Retail sector and Business sector by acquiring all possible competition.Last 5 years they spent lots to buy (Mobile-Com 1 million, Telephone Booth 18million, Quasar 2.5 million, Remote Telecomm 0.5 million, Time MCI 5.5 million,Digital Mobile and other two small companies 3.0 million, Spent 2 million on acompany to promote and advertise Glentel in its 45 year (25 on TSE), Inaddition to nearly 60 million of its internal cash over years to expand retail stores organically and keepthe required inventory for its 250 plus locations. Today they have over 300repeater sites (towers, frequencies etc). They spent few millions to add the stateof the art new hub, interconnected all 255 branches with new POS (point ofsale) software, and upgraded buildings and old equipment with new technologyhardware and software and operational vehicles. Thus nearly 75-80 million dollarsof internal cash has been utilized to spruce up Glentel. Skidmore’s have done theirshare to increase the intrinsic shareholder value. They also spent nearly 7million dollars towards the dividends to keep shareholders happy.
Retail sector performance has been excellent.The only part that is not performing is 18 Business centers with real assets. Coupleof weeks ago I visited local Digital Mobile and Time MCI locations as acustomer and talked to their sales and service over lunch/supper meeting to find out the root cause of non-performance.They told me that company had replaced the old trusted management with newlyacquired companies who were their competitorsat one stage. Mobile Com took over Glentel management at one stage with 3of their directors, then Time MCI came and all Mobil-Com directors quit or letgo. Directors from Digital, Remote Telecom and Quasar quit too. They all joinedthe Glentel’s competition and took away their knowledge and business expertise andare since poaching their key people. They told me that new director JMD with noRF or DATA experience that Glentel is in business but has only call centeroperating experience that is poles apart is running the show. He was let go bytwo earlier companies he worked for. He is big in to reports, procedures andpresentations but lacks grass root support and knowledge of Glentel’s real business.Sales and Service People are spending hours to produce reports for him toenable this grouchy, angry old man to understand the core business. He isspending all business center money on sprucing up the buildings from his constituencyand hiring his Ottawa people for the top positions to generate all kinds ofreports and procedures for sales and communicate on his behalf directly. SalesAccounts Managers are doing double the work of inputting all kinds of entriesfor him rather than focusing on real customers and sales. His primary aim is tobecome the VP of operations which he mentioned on number of occasions while blaming thepresent trusted hardworking VP for the existing mess. Whole Ottawa office staff is being utilized toachieve that single goal. He hired his own non technical people from oldcompanies he worked for at very high salaries to “manage and Implement “hisself serving goal. Sales and otherdistrict service people are really infuriated and key people are deserting the ship.I was really disappointed at the progress of integration and loosing of key teammembers. After all it is the man behind the machine that makes it work. All they need is an educated and knowledgeable,employee and customer friendly person to build the team across the board tounlock the value of assets and to take Glentel to the next level. If not, I agreewith Porksniffer and WesternRookie, that they should either spin off thecompanies, leave them as stand alone regional players responsible forprofitable operations or sell the assets individually to increase theshareholder value. Right now business centers with deployed assets andresources of nearly 80 million dollars are valued at zero. Remember it is aniche market and Sales, service personal and Directors took years to build the majorcustomer base and key contacts and reputation that instantly transferred to competitionwhen they quit due to frustration leaving the spruced up buildings to remainempty gathering dust on its inventory. This brain drain needs to stop ifGlentel wants real return on its investment in buying companies. I hope Glenteldid not buy the companies to spruce up their buildings and let employees go. Ido hope Skidmore’s and present VP of business centers understands the realissue and act accordingly before it is too late.