OK, I finally talked to Doug MacLean. Sorry Robert, it was before I read your suggestion about how the news was disseminated.
I talked to Doug for about 5 minutes. When I expressed frustration at the lack of news lately, he said that he has been so involved with the deal that he got lost in the trees, and couldn't see the forest.
I agreed with him.
He said that he doesn't release news until there is something concrete, he will not issue news to say that something might happen. This last news was available because he just re-negotiated the non-consolidation with the other principles and had it vetted through the exchange. It looks like there was a hiccup and the other principles became more greedy because they don't have to earn as much net revenue before the shares are released from escrow.
Looking back, last month it seemed everything was looking great, and I was expecting an August opening. Suddenly it went limp. The weakness was due to the fundraising for the convertible preferred. Doug said it was deterred by the lack of opinion on RRSP eligibility. Although they had investors lined up with money, they wouldn't commit until they knew how it was going to be handled in their RRSP. It took a month to get an opinion, and he said a favorable one was received at 1:00 local time. So now that the biggest barrier to raising funds is cleared, he expects everything to happen very quickly.
They need to raise a minimum of $120,000 to get the business up, and they will raise the entire $500,000 if they can. He wouldn't tell me how much they have already raised, but he did say he had enough money to get the ball rolling which will make it easier to raise the rest.
I talked to Laurie later, and he said some cheques were already received today.
Doug wouldn't say much about a timeframe, but he expects a lot to physically happen during August.
Maybe Sept 15 is realistic after all.
Ted |
