Steve, if you can find $100,000 for GRNO, in my opinion interesting things will happen and the rusty company will be able to at least limp along indefinitely. If you can find $2 million, everything will take off like a shot, building and installing processors and what have you. But good luck in finding it.
Last year, about the time GRNO was agreeing to the SEC slap on the wrist, I tried testing the waters with a couple of venture capitalists I know who had no problem with that kind of money (they were heavily invested in 11 businesses and had $1.5 million sitting in the bank looking for another opportunity). But they took a look through the three-inch stack of documents I compiled for them (all of it legally obtained, I might add, no insider stuff) and said absolutely no interest--"Why should we get involved with a company with this many legal and financial, and probably managerial, problems? There are a ton of other start-up and development-stage businesses out there that are much sounder, more certain money-makers, some with even better profit potential [for themselves]." Bo O'Brien spent most of a year trying to put a deal together with several different investors so that he could get himself and Bill off the SEC hook by proving that he really could buy a technically sound processor and run it profitably. By my estimates, he never came closer than non-binding promises for about 1/4 of the money needed. I was told--how true I don't know--that not even Bo's relatives trusted him enough to invest in the proposed opportunity, though his business plan and financial calculations seemed very sound and well-written (as the venture capitalists told me). But they needed more than "the vision thing." A proven track record and absolute trust in management were the indispensable necessities for risking real dollars under someone else's control. And even without the SEC problems, the financial, regulatory, and other difficulties experienced to date by GRNO would create too many doubts about management. I also discussed financing issues with a number of other people more familiar with GRNO, and was generally told that until Bill shows that he can execute the business plan [no proven track record], they will not invest merely on Bill's continued promises of future developments [no trust in management].
So that's the climate you will be up against. The best situation would be for somebody who really believes in the value of the processor to put up major cash in exchange for some measure of control (say chairman of the board of directors). I doubt that Bill is so desperate that he will be willing to mortgage his knees to the loan sharks from the mob. The hard-ball thing to do is to form a consortium of deep pockets investors and GRNO creditors. The creditors will force GRNO into involuntary bankruptcy (I'm surprised this hasn't already happened, but I'm told by lawyers that the company is protected by its poverty--there aren't any assets for the creditors worth claiming). Then the suits will sweep in with their "generous" offer to the court to buy everything of GRNO's (patents, processor, etc.) for cheap while guaranteeing that the creditors get paid. Deep pockets then finance a real operating company and make all those millions in profits for themselves, and then bring it public again and make multi-millions. SOL in this scenario are all the people with current stock or partnership investments in GRNO. If you are the vengeful type, you can at least console yourself with the thought that, no matter how much money you lost, Bill lost a hell of a lot more. Of course, if you are the paranoid type, you can imagine that Bill is busy this very moment putting this type of consortium together for his own benefit.
Enough mordant speculation for today.
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