Global TeleMedia International Annual President's Letter to Shareholders
NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., Feb. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Global TeleMedia International (OTC Bulletin Board: GLTI) (www.GTMI.com). Jonathon Bentley-Stevens, President of Global TeleMedia International, sent the following letter, dated Jan. 31, to the shareholders of Global TeleMedia International:
Dear Shareholders,
With this communication, I will endeavor to inform you of the Company's progress through the year 2000 and its position regarding the release of its new products and services.
The BentleyTel Smart-e-Card is in its final stages of pre-production. We are in the process of finalizing a banking alliance, which would enable BentleyTel to commence production and distribution of the Smart-e-Card.
The BentleyTel International Phonecards are available in 30, 60 or 120-minute values and remotely rechargeable via the Internet or by phone. This card can be sent overseas to any one of 100 countries, including Mexico, most of South America, most of South-East Asia, the Philippines and Australia. The card can be recharged continuously at any time by the sender, here in the USA, therefore avoiding expensive collect-call charges from these countries. The cards have a detachable recharge strip that can be hung on a key chain and can be used to recharge the card, regardless of what country the actual card is in. The Company will derive not only the initial revenue of the sale, but also recurring revenues from each re-charge.
The BentleyTel AcSys card is a high security, multi-function card aimed at large employers, government contractors and federal government agencies. BentleyTel and AcSys engineers agree their respective platforms can operate seamlessly and there appears to be no impediment to the ability to offer the revolutionary BentleyTel AcSys card.
Both Companies' senior management met in Newport Beach to finalize the marketing agreements, operation and hosting of the biometric security. This means that BentleyTel will manage, operate and/or monitor all the various platforms for the Smart-e-Card and the BentleyTel AcSys card. This card not only has the full international, financial and information retrieval features of the Smart-e-Card, but can also allow the holder access to various predetermined security levels of government agencies, manufacturing and secure facilities, as well as various levels of sensitive computer systems.
The management delayed marketing the Company's range of products until the present architecture and platforms were finalized. The Smart-e-Card and BentleyTel AcSys card are unique and, to date, the Company believes there are no other cards in the reportedly $6 billion smart card market that offer such a broad range of features.
To succeed in the market with such a complex card, the platforms needed to be totally secure, accessible over the Internet, have a local and long distance calling capability, possess the highest level of encryption and the Company must have a strong software engineering team to continue to upgrade its security and operating systems. The Company's subsidiary BentleyTel has all these capabilities.
The Company started to develop these capabilities in late 1999 when it acquired a majority interest in BentleyTel.com, an e-commerce, software engineering, Internet Service Provider (ISP) in Australia and completed the country's first ISP-VoIP-ITSP national network. The BentleyTel acquisition included the purchase of a local and long-distance provider in the Philippines, and a computer sales and IT training company in Malaysia.
These technology companies, now operating as BentleyTel in their respective countries, form the backbone of the BentleyTel range of cards. This means that the Company did not have to compromise its products by giving away sensitive details, or relinquishing control by hosting on a foreign network, which might also degrade members database security. This also enhances revenue retention by not having to pay third party fees. Not only does the Company own and operate its own networks, these same networks are independent profit centers that are generating revenues in three different countries, independent of the revenue from the BentleyTel range of cards.
Global TeleMedia and BentleyTel have developed a unique range of products. This was accomplished by developing products in-house and primarily self-funding. Management accomplished this while simultaneously reducing the Company's inherited debt by almost $20 million dollars during the same period, of this we feel justifiably proud.
New management has also executed long-term technology agreements with Cable & Wireless-Optus, Ericsson and AcSys Biometrics. The Company also entered into a national marketing agreement with Nico Communications to market the Company's products through their 50,000+ retail outlets -- eliminating perhaps years of marketing time and costs. The Company also executed national product distribution agreements with Universal Express Inc. through their 7,500 member stores, some of which include Mailboxes Etc. and Postal Business Center Network. (PBC Network.com)
The Data Exchange acquisition was abandoned after Directors infused over $500,000 out of their personal funds and DEI was unable to complete its unified messaging product by 3rd quarter 2000. The Company subsequently executed a 3-year development agreement with Ericsson, which includes co-ownership of products and software co-developed. As a result of this agreement the Company will now be able to offer the Ericsson Global Unified Messaging platform with its products.
We have, of course, experienced some delays. However, to have taken shortcuts and marketed an inferior basic version of the Smart-e-Card would have left the Company open to attack by the competition and it would have been very difficult to re-launch the product. By slowing the product release until the Company was able to own control and/or manage the networks, it is now much harder for the competition to breach our security and determine the architecture in order to copy the product.
The Smart-e-card will be a brand new, worldwide e-commerce card launch which Management believes will change what customers expect from a single piece of plastic: Visa/MasterCard compatible/stored value, world-wide ATM platform, international phone platform, unified Messaging, Biometric encryption, international e-funds transfer capability, upgradeable, multi-lingual and re-loadable from the Internet and most international locations.
Best of all, this is just the beginning. Our goal is to focus on the BentleyTel range of cards and concentrate on continual upgrades to our networks and services, so that the BentleyTel Smart-e-Cards become industry benchmarks others can only follow.
Management notes that the issue of 144 filings by insiders needs clarification. With respect to the concern expressed by some that the rule 144 notices of sale reflect a "bailing out" from the company by insiders, please note that nothing could be further from the truth. The controlling shareholders have been funding the working capital of the Company since taking over management in June 1999. The Company had debts, no funding and no unissued shares. Much of the early debt reduction and overhead was funded by infusion of capital and then by the controlling shareholders surrendering their personal shares back to the Company so that the Company could issue shares to negotiate settlements of various judgments, a legacy of previous management.
Additional funding was accomplished by the controlling shareholders progressively surrendering and/or disposing of their personal shares and depositing the funds into the Company. This was not a loan. During 2000, the controlling shareholders surrendered back to the Company and/or disposed of personal shares resulting in $7,000,000 in funding and $20 million in debt reduction for the Company. The Controlling shareholders waived their salaries for 1999 and 2000 and of all the shares surrendered or disposed by the Controlling shareholders. Approximately 1% of the resulting funds was retained by them for expenses, 99% went directly to assist the Company.
Finally, I wish to thank our loyal shareholders for their support and say that I understand their frustration in not fully appreciating the difficulties the Company had to overcome. It is sometimes difficult for shareholders to appreciate how long it really takes to design, develop and launch such a forward looking range of products. The key was to maintain ownership of the architecture, thus preventing larger card producers from developing similar products. Now that most of these have been overcome, the company has emerging cutting edge powerful global e-commerce products that can earn increasing and recurring revenue. Clearly the management is, and continues to be, committed to the Company's success.
Best regards
Jonathon Bentley-Stevens
President
PR. Action Stocks.com (858) 481 6670
Global TeleMedia International, Inc., located in Newport Beach, California, through its BentleyTel.com subsidiary, (www.bentleytel.com) is a leading developer of Smart-e-Cards (www.smart-e-card.net) interactive software for complex E-commerce solutions, Voice over IP, LAN VPN (Virtual Private Network), ISP, Virtual ISP, GTMI also owns manufacturing, telecom, ISP, and software development facilities in the USA, Australia, Malaysia and the Philippines.
This press release contains forward-looking statements. All such statements involve risks and uncertainties, including, without limitation, the risks detailed in Global TeleMedia's filings and reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Such statements are only predictions and actual events or results may differ materially.
SOURCE Global TeleMedia International, Inc.
/CONTACT: PR. Action Stocks.com, 858-481-6670, for Global TeleMedia International/
/Web site: smart-e-card.net
/Web site: bentleytel.com
/Web site: gtmi.com |
