RE: THEY HAVEN'T GOT IT RIGHT IN YEARS I too seek somebody or something to lay blame on when the ship is on fire. The captain of the ship, well we know what should happen. But on the other side, buying the stock was my own intitative, so I also blame myself. Easy to get drawn into a penny stock with dreams of making a bundle of money.
As for Mark, I don't know how involved he was with the actual operations. He was a co-founder, so the place at the table was set for him by default. Now he's into real-estate.
When he first started with Kidsfutures with co-founder Byron Holland, everything was from square one. How much they knew about the loyalty business is unclear. All we know was, that it was a tough learning experience for both in the years which followed.
Now Mark is trying real estate. Here again, from square one. How much does he know about the real estate business or investing in commercial mortgages? I know from my contractor here, who owns US properties as well as Canadian rental houses, it's not easy to develop property or get involved with a real estate syndicate.
Mark might be involved with people who do know the business, so that helps. In any event, I wish him the best. The focus for me noiw is Futura's survival. Not often the captain of a ship hands the reins to an officer and then leaves. But that's what we have here. I hope David can sail the ship.
I don't know what proposals for the company are on the table today. Maybe something can be salvaged, but it will be a much leaner company. I hope everything was reflected upon in the past 7 weeks about the loyalty business, and whether Futura shoud continue the business, or go into something different.
As a shareholder, my bias is obvious, in that things can still be worked out to the satisfaction of creditors and that there is a future to look forward to. But have to expect a rollback also.
What remains a puzzle, is that they had experience in the auto sales category for years now, even before 2011 and the offering of Aeroplan to dealers. Dealer dollars was done with TADA, etc. Did they not have a good idea how much revenue could be earned/dealer and whether the car dealers would take a shine to Aeroplan? What went wrong?
It's rare to see the Aeroplan logo/ad on many of the dealers websites. Seems like the Aeroplan idea was greeted with a luckwarm response. However, some dealerships have taken the program to its fullest and are probably doing well. If they can so can the others. So it's probably in the marketing to the public where the bottleneck is.
Offer a choice between other promotions and Aeroplan for example. Does a customer want cash back, factory discount, a 10% reduction in parts and service, or an Aeroplan equivalent. It's like an ad I saw recently where a hotel will give a free VISA gift card for staying 2 -4 nights. It reads: "May substitute VISA offer for Aeroplan Miles". (Globe and mail Nove 29th. Page L2).