Excellent interview with Andrew Mckinnon!
The full article is available in PDF format at:
twst.com
TWST: How could you improve the investment
community's perception orunderstanding of the company? Are
there any misperceptions or underperceptions you could
address that you feel the market has or perhaps insights from
the Street that you feel are skewed improperly, pluses or
minuses?
Mr. McKinnon: I think one of the things is that the
investment community doesn't really have a firm grasp of the
agricultural industry and how big it is. Secondly, the investment
community doesn't put a lot of value in the agriculture, and here
quite often people say, "Well gee, this farmer has gone broke - this
is happening in the Dakotas, this is happening in Texas." But what
people have to understand is that no matter what's happening in the
Ag sector, they're still buying and selling equipment, horses, cattle,
farm equipment, grain, hogs, whatever it is that they sell. And we're
a full service provider, so in down times or up times we benefit, no
matter what happens in the industry. A farmer may not be making
money, but his business continues on, because he has to ride out
those ups and downs.
The second misconception is people think that all we do
is sell horses, cattle and farm equipment. We sell everything that
goes along with it. On our site you'd see things like herbs, hay, soon
to be launched grains, soon to be launched citrus fruits. We broker
trucking services. We broker just about anything that a farmer or
rancher requires, and that will only build itself up. So we're not
restricted to selling only those items, and I think that's a
misconception in the industry out there.
I think thirdly, a lot of the marketplace right now, the
investment community is saying, "Who are these guys? Where did
they come from? What is it that they do? And let's get some track
record." One of the ways that we're going to deal with that is,
probably the most common question that our people get asked is,
"What have you got for books? What's your history, what's your
records?" Well, the company has always been an audited company.
The audited statements for 1997 are available, updated statementfor
mid-1998 are available. Now with the retaining of Arthur
Anderson to further structure that, I think that the misconception
that this isn't a real business will disappear, because we have
positioned ourselves and brought one of the best accounting firms
and consulting firms in the world on track just to simply overcome
that perception that the company may not be as strong as people
think. We're probably one of the few Internet sites that are breaking
even right now. We're probably one of the few Internet companies
that have a cash position that's strong. We're looking at some
companies out there that are trading at huge multiples that are losing
money. They're dropping millions of dollars a month.
To read the complete interview, go to
twst.com.
CONTACT: The Wall Street Transcript, New York
Barbara Diliberti, 212/952-7455
twst.com |
