I met with Mike Puhr today for 2 hours and also met Lorinda Liang and Allen Lan. The following report contains my personal views from that meeting.
First of all I must say that I was impressed with Michael Puhr. He is an honest soft spoken man of high values and appears to have us stockholders in mind when making decisions. The man is a straight shooter and will certainly tell it like it is. I feel we can count on him to follow through with his plans for the future of this company. He believes he made the best deal possible for us stockholders when the Oil & Gas Division was sold to MVPH. The sale was $14,000,000 -- 4 million shares with an augmentation agreement that ensures us of the $14 mil - in other words if the stock drops below $3.50 they have to issue more shares to compensate for the loss in value.
Many questions cannot be answered until the outcome of the court hearing. Mike is relying on James Ray to take care of the court hearing, which should be finalized by the end of this month. Everything looks good and no problems are anticipated. When it's finalized we will be able to move forward and get the financials completed. Best guess at this time is to have them done in May. RMCW will also have audited financials come out at the same time in May. Everything seems to be riding/waiting on this court hearing. Mike is going to look into questions I had regarding PRTI assets since he has no knowledge of them. PRTI has 11,049,886 common shares and 6,000,000 class B preferred shares. The 6 million shares of preferred that were issued to purchase 49% of RMCW are not restricted in any way. Mike says they have no plans to convert any of these shares.
There will be news releases concerning PRTI & RMCW coming out in the future. My guess is many things will happen just as soon as the court hearing is behind us. This is not a reverse merger and they have no plans of changing PRTI's name either. They plan to have a PR firm on board within the next 60 days. This firm will also handle all future news releases.
Mike couldn't answer any questions concerning MVPH since he has no knowledge of their company. The pass-through dividend that everyone is talking about is undetermined at this time and is premature to comment on. I trust that Mike will see that we get the best deal possible. This must be reviewed by accountants, lawyers, tax experts and the SEC. My perception of this was it was going to take 60 - 120 days.
Getting back to what Mike knows best and that's RMCW. The company is three years old now, but has only been bottling water for 2 years. They are incorporated in Wyoming which is good because Wyoming has no corporate income tax. They have two sources of water in Wyoming. One is a natural springs in Woods Landing just south of Laramie and the other is an artesian well in Ten Sleep which is 25 miles due East of Worland. The main source of water is in Ten Sleep and is deemed as an unlimited supply. The report I saw said it will last for centuries to come. It is also among the purest water in the world. They have one small bottling plant (2,500 s.f.) located in Ten Sleep, but are building a new 10,000 s.f. facility attached to the existing building on their 2.5 acre site. The site itself borders US Highway 16 for easy access for trucks. The facility should be in operation within 8-10 weeks and will enable the company to increase production to meet the growing demand. The company has a 99 year lease on the water from the town, which enables them to take 50,000 gals. per month. Anything over that amount costs the company 2 cents per gallon. This water is bottled under the brand Rocky Mountain Crystal Water, Wild Water Plus (private label) and Merlin (private label).
Mike told me the whole town gets its water from this artesian well. As a matter of fact the whole towns water supply comes directly from the well with absolutely no pumps at all. There is so much water pressure from this artesian well that they have to use pressure reducers to get it down to 60 psi. Mike said when they applied for a permit to install a 4 inch waterline that a study had to be completed first. He said they turned on every faucet and fire hydrant in town and still had 40 psi water pressure so based on that they approved the permit. The towns water supply is so pure that it doesn't have to be treated either.
The natural spring at the other site has a limited supply of water. The company sends a tanker truck down there and brings it back to the bottling facility about once a month. This water is bottled under the brand Cheyenne Springs. The company is planning on building a small bottling plant either in Woods Landing or at a site just West of Cheyenne, Wyoming. Since this site is of less importance I didn't ask him any other questions about it.
Besides PRTI owning 49% of it's stock it has an additional 56 shareholders that own the other 51%. There are 6 Directors on the Board of Directors. The water is currently sold in Taiwan, Mexico and 14 states in the US. I'm certain that once production increases that the markets will also increase as well. US sales are being handled by a national food products marketing firm called Distribco Inc.. This company is poised to bring RMCW large orders for national chains. I saw a list of potential orders that exceeded $22 million, many coming from large companies such as Walmart. All International sales are handled internally by Lorinda Liang, Allen Lan and others at the administrative offices in Littleton, Colorado. There are a total of 9 permanent employees and about 25 part-time employees. The company recently secured a $3 million loan to enable them to complete their expansion of the bottling facilities. Most of the information that everyone has been asking about pertaining to RMCW will soon be available on the companies new web site. It is currently 75% complete and will contain all pertinent information. I can't say when, other than it will be sometime this year, but RMCW will become a publicly traded company. When asked why, Mike replied mainly to enable the company pay off its loans for expansion.
In my opinion RMCW appears to be poised for substantial growth. Mike has a realistic plan for growing this company and appears to be systematically following through with those plans. The company is targeting niche markets and is not trying to go head to toe with the larger companies. The company also has many contacts in the Pacific Rim and Southeast Asia that will allow them to tap a growing International market. Mike said one client came all the way from Taiwan to visit the Ten Sleep site and examine the facilities and the water prior to making a sale. Once they were comfortable with the product they handed over a check and bought enough to fill (13) 40 foot shipping containers. This quantity will increase dramatically in the future. Mike also told me that the whole bottling process is completely automated so it takes very few employees to operate the plant. For the most part this business is primarily a sales force.
I not only came away from our 2 hour meeting with a case of water but also with a better understanding of just who Michael Puhr is and what he can do for us stockholders. I know we can all count on Mike to guide this companies growth in the years to come. He is an honest man and I'm convinced that he will not let this company be involved with any questionable business activities like PRTI's past management. You can all make up your own minds but I'm convinced that Michael Puhr and the others in the administrative office have what it takes to lead this company and make it grow.
Mike (nothing more than a shareholder)
mpweber@aol.com |
