Well, I'm back. Nice to see someone else post on this thread. Got ahold of the 6 month numbers and discussed a few things with the IR guy. My first mistake was believing numbers coming from Mark Shultz. He claimed .12 per quarter. Never happened. Expect $600,000 profit this year on continuing operations, including $120,000 expense for forgiving an 'advance' that the prior owner of Casino had given himself. They called the $120K a 'bonus' so it comes under continuing operations.
There are also losses from discontinued operations ($882K) that will keep them from turning a profit this year. Actually, depending on tax treatment of the losses, they could break even.
There are 25 million shares authorized, of which 3 million are trading and another 2 million are set aside for further acquisitions. Management holds 500000 of the 3 million trading. They are looking at a lot more acquisitions that would dovetail with the travel angle, hopefully creating synergy. Nothing on the short term horizon though.
There are expanding from six to ten departure sites for Casino Air by the Spring. This is up from two at the end of 1994.
Top management all have American Express backgrounds as divisional president or vice president. CEO Forhan has founded three companies before including selling one to AMEX, running it at AMEX for 3 years and then buying it back. I think they are paying themselves too much for running this size of a company, but it is probably low for running the company that they seem to envision. Their stated 1997 goal is $100 million, including acquisitions. They are looking at $18-20 million for 1996.
I think this company was overpriced earlier. I think it is way too cheap now. I did sell most of mine earlier and have watched it continue to slide. If and when I think it has bottomed, I will buy back more shares than I had.
Since the company is depending on share value to finance their expansion, I think they will have to do what is needed to bring the price back up. |
