Hello John (“Dutchie”). 

As the expression goes, “Time flies.” Also, another unavoidable reality (afflicting us all), “Memories fade.” I ended my last message referencing “the Shareholder Revolt of 2013.” Actually, it was “the Shareholder Revolt of 2012.”

Other than such slight errors as that, you can rely on my recollections of five years ago. As you request, absolutely, you have my permission to do whatever you want with any of my written words as you please. By all means, as you prefer, you may take any (or all) of my sentiments and present them as your own, with or without quotation marks, with or without reference to me.

Only as a matter of form, you may want to tone down some of my words because I’m speaking here, without inhibition, to my fellow Shareholders. But hard tone or soft tone, you decide. You know best. As I mentioned earlier (even in the title of my message), “I gave up. We need a new advocate.” 

To whatever extent you are willing to speak on behalf the Shareholders here, please go ahead and do it. I can speak from past experience; there is an amazing total unanimity of opinion on this Message Hub, concerning what, very specifically, should be done.

At a later date, I’ll recount (on this Message Hub) some of Dr. Smith’s excellent achievements (which exist). However—for the moment (keeping to the theme of my last message)—I will further underline how wrong-in-direction his decision-making brain-functions have gone over the years. 

I believe it can only be helpful to you to be reminded of how we failed earlier, so that you can avoid the same pitfalls. For example, even after I informed Dr. Smith in writing that he could easily put an end to the Shareholder Revolt of 2012, he didn’t even bother to answer me (nor did he take my phone calls). Perhaps you can think of a less direct way to go about this than my unsuccessful direct methods of the past. 

Earlier, as I patiently explained to Dr. Smith, the very simple antidote to the Shareholder discontent (of 2012) was for himself to join the very same organization that expressed it. As I wrote to every BOD member, we would have been honored (and delighted) to have every one of them (including Dr. Smith) as fellow members. We named ourselves (at my suggestion) “Shareholders for Accountability at Fancamp.” Collectively (even without anyone from the BOD), we owned more than twenty million shares and, to a great degree, consisted of contributors to this very Message Hub.

As I also pointed out to Dr. Smith—and spelled out for him in dollars and cents—it would have cost him far less to join us, instead of oppose us (the course he chose). I pointed out that it would cost Fancamp less than $100,000 to hire someone to convey our message to investors (of our portfolios of assets, as I outlined in my last message). As it turned out, he had Fancamp pay more than that to stop the pro-Fancamp message from being circulated. 

In other words, not only did he refuse to setup pro-Fancamp relationships with the investment industry; he preferred to pay serious cash money not to do so. He preferred fighting the overwhelming Shareholder sentiment instead of joining it. The Shareholders would have had everything we asked for (and continue to ask for) on the cheap. Instead, he made the choice to be the villain, instead of the hero.

Our group approved my suggested name—Shareholders for Accountability at Fancamp—after long debate. Other excellent names were suggested. But we decided to make our point immediately visible. We wanted our initiatives to secure recognition in the wider investment communities and to be readily reportable back to the Shareholders. 

This is very simple to do. When you hire someone, it’s not unheard of to ask, “What have you accomplished today.” That’s what the “accountability” in our name meant. Reportable are the number of telephone conversations and their substance and the progress toward our goals. Every single day, proudly and readily reported back to Shareholders should be what topics were discussed with the particular influential investment advisors we should be reaching on any given day. 

That’s what simple accountability on the job means. It’s not hard to do, if you have the mind to do it. In many ways, there’s no serious question of how positive the payback is—in every single instance—measured against the effort made. Yet Dr. Smith’s philosophy is resistance. Not only will he not put in place any serious Shareholder accountability measures. Beyond doing nothing, he paid serious dollars and cents to further his decision to do nothing, by instigating the Shareholder Revolt of 2012, which I gave him the means to defuse (had he given it a moment’s thought).