Leung has begun shutting down AIC branches. If you go to the AIC website and look under Contact you will see that the Calgary branch has been closed for "relocation."
The Calgary branch will never be re-opened. This is the way Leung does things. Over the 15+ years Empower has been in existence Leung has made many statements and nearly all of them have failed to come to fruition.
You would have to be naive and willfully blind to believe the Calgary branch will ever be re-opened. A quick call to the AIC offices revealed even the AIC staff don't believe it will be re-opened.
You will recall Leung claimed he was going to move Empower Defence Systems to Halifax and expand the business. That never happened. Leung then shut EDS down without telling the other owners [shareholders] which is against the rules of disclosure. When the shareholders found out EDS had been shut down Leung then announced he was moving EDS to the west coast. Of course that never happened either. The entire history of this company is characterized by failed announcements, projects, partnerships and contracts.
The 2014 financial report is finally out. Its a sea of red ink. AIC had gross revenue of $2.08 million and expenses of $4.16 million. After the dust settled Empower/AIC had a total loss of $2.1 million. This loss included $474K in consulting fees, salaries and severance. As far as I can see, under "expenses" nearly every dollar spent went to maintaining AIC and keeping it running. Almost nothing appears to have been spent buying advanced equipment to help AIC compete and become part of the IoT economy.
I expect Leung will be closing down more AIC branches. My guess is Toronto will be the next branch to close, for "relocation," of course. Its the furthest away. The other 2 branches are both within driving distance for Leung but I won't be surprised to see one or even both of the lower mainland branches closed.
The financial losses created by AIC are unsustainable. At the end of 2014 Empower had a total deficit of $34.2 million. AIC is burning through massive amounts of cash. These losses will in all likelihood continue at or near the same level until Leung realizes he isn't able to stop them.
The former owner[s] of AIC are now suing Empower. Leung states the lawsuit is without merit.
Its now been almost 2 full years since the last announcement by Leung indicating any sort of progress for Empower. That was the July 2013 announcement of the acquisition of AIC. Since that time there have been announcements but they were about loans to the company and massive dilution of the stock.
Not surprisingly there is nothing further on the patent. Buried deep in the MD&A you will find 1 line:
"Empower US is continuing to investigate with legal professionals in Canada and the US on the best practices to enforce Empower’s stylus based handwriting recognition utility patent ("Utility Patent") first announced on Oct 9,2007."
I'm sure the shareholders believe the "lawyers are working on it." Just like the shareholders all believe that OJ Simpson is still out there trying to find the real killers.
The bottom line is Empower is in worse shape now than it was before AIC was acquired.
The company is virtually dormant from the outside looking in and has a market cap of about $720,000. Leung has literally spent enough money to run a small town for several years to produce a stock that isn't worth the paper it is printed on.
The stock rarely trades and when it does it is an investor finally giving up and dumping. At the current price of 1 cent it trades at 4% of the original seed stock price.
Where is Leung? Of course he is nowhere to be seen or heard from. He doesn't even bother to provide an update. Its now been almost 10 years since Leung went into hiding. Leung went into hiding in september of 2005. That is a very interesting story and worth an entire post.
How long will Empower survive before Leung closes the doors permanently?