Has anyone else received the letter from HomeLife dated February 25, 1999 to the shareholders? Any comments? Here it is:
Dear Shareholder:
This letter is an update on the status of your company, and a request for your help in increasing HomeLife's stock price.
As the enclosed financial statement and recent Los Angeles times article show, HomeLife is aggressively pursuing its growth and profitability objectives; as it has since the company went public in 1995. We have made eight significant real estate related acquisitions since 1995, increasing our revenue and making us a profitable company. We expect to continue at this pace, and make more acquisitions in the coming twelve months. At the same time we are developing our existing business through growth in franchise offices, and the creation of MaxAmerica Financial Services, our mortgage banking subsidiary. The synergy between real estate broker and mortgage brokerage should begin to bear fruit during the coming year.
Unfortunately the stock market is not rewarding our efforts. Even as our revenues have increased, our stock price has fallen to a low point where it is currently trading.
We believe a major source of the problem is brokers using the stock in your brokerage accounts to manipulate the stock price for their own benefit. They can use your HomeLife stock to trade in their own account, keep the spread between the bid and ask price high, and keep the stock price depressed - even though there has been substantial buying interest in the company's stock.
To prevent the price manipulation of HomeLife stock, we are asking each and every stockholder to call their broker and ask them to send to you, your HomeLife stock certificate. If enough stockholders do this, it will take the float out of the market and may stop the manipulation of our stock price. Although there is a nominal cost to having your stock certificate sent to you, we believe this will be more than made up for by a higher stock price. (Remember, keep your stock certificate in a safe deposit box.)
We thank you in advance for your assistance, and look forward to a successful relationship during the coming years.
Sincerely,
Andrew Cimerman
President |
