Directors Options I am not surprised to see yesterdays announcement granting 3,000,000 shares to directors. Its what I have come to expect.
At first glance the announcement appears to indicate a total of 3 million shares but thats not what it says.
"has granted its directors and officers stock options of 3,000,000 shares at an exercise price of $0.085 per share for five years."
The announcement is ambiguous. It could just as easily mean 3 million options for each of the 3 directors which include Leung, his wife [CFO Amy Chan] and Edward Bagg. This is what I suspect it actually means but I hope I am wrong. If 3 million were the total then Leung should have said so in the announcement. I also notice the term is for 5 years at 8.5 cents per share. 5 years? The investors who have put up tens of millions of dollars to finance Leung's follies over the past 13.5 years usually receive 12 months for their warrants which expire unexercised because the stock price has sunk further.
The company is being diluted continuously and it is now well over 100 million shares when all shares are taken into account.
There was a time in the early years of this disaster when Leung enjoyed enormous good will and trust and was shown great deference. In hindsight it was completely undeserved. Shareholders would not dare ask questions about failed projects or the amount of money Leung was spending as he flew around the world claiming to be a visionary. [do you think he actually believes he's a visionary?] The broker had built up Leung's reputation as a strong businessman with great ideas that would make everyone rich beyond their wildest dreams and if challenged he would argue ferociously that Empower simply could not fail. This denial of the truth was coming from a man who held an enormous personal stake in the company and who lost his career as a broker directly due to his handling of his clients Empower accounts. He would claim the company was always on the verge of a major contract and rocketing to astronomical stock prices. Inexperienced, naive investors completely bought into this man's exaggerated claims and held tight while financing one disaster after another.
Things are much different today. In the last financing Leung managed to raise a paltry $216,000 [before commission] at the incredibly low price of a nickel per share. Only 22 "placees" bought in and over a million shares were left unsold.Investors simply do not believe in Leung anymore. Most have walked away and refuse to spend another nickel to finance this company.
But there is another side to Leung that deserves to be recognized. He does want this company to succeed and he is working hard. If you take a look at the latest financial report its a sea of red ink but Leung is now financing the company almost entirely. In addition to the 2.7 million loan Leung is now another 1.3 million in the hole. The company is burning about 100K per month. The investors are financing very little of these loses.
On another note EDS grossed about 52K in the first quarter from its first contract. The cost of materials was about 41K. Gross revenue was therefore about 11K. I do not know if the cost of labour was included in the 41K. Likely not. It appears the first contract had a net loss.