SHM update
posted on
Jan 28, 2010 10:13PM
I went to the meeting. I for one was happy it was in Chicago. I did not attend the other meetings. I have been an investor since 1999.
Cliff Flowers started off with the basic corporate stuff. nothing to interesting. All board members kept jobs and Auditors approved.
Mac Leckrone was next and did a pretty good job. 15,495 claim charts out. Alliacance had 501 customer meetings from 11/08 to 1/2010. 222 companies in active negotiation. effective royalty rate increasing as planned. He made me feel pretty good about the state of the MMP.
Larry Henneman was next. He seemed intelligent but not much detail given. pretty much told the process at USPTO. Said even final office action are not final. Made a comment he recieved a scared phone call from Carlton when there was a final action and assured him it was not really final.
Next was Dan Leckrone. He is a joke. He thinks he is really something. when introductions were given at the begining of the meeting he made a loud applause when his son was announced...no one else did. Dan's presentation was about patent reform and I thought really had no place at this meeting.
There was Q and A next.
Flowers handled most of the questions. Said they are seriously considering dividends again and increasing share buy back program instead of making more poor investments. We sold Iameter on Monday for $250,000 (i think that was the number).
We are looking for a big partner to help with PDSG or selling it altogether. Said we can't compete with the big name campanies we are up against because the government wants to deal with the big boys only.
Cliff said we should no more about PDSG possible partner in 90 to 120 days and probably won't have a new CEO before that because we don't currently know what direction the company is going.
The board is still very bullish on the MMP. There was a question if TPL is taking advantage of PTSC with billing and Gloria stated no. In fact they are spending more than PTSC on the USPTO and law suits, that is why they needed the loan.
At the end during Q & A John Burns from Holocom basically plead his case for more funding from PTSC to keep the doors open. He stood and asked questions as a shareholder and stated how much stock he has bought.
That is a brief recap. I walked out feeling great about the MMP but really felt poorly about the investments the board made over the last year. It was a wasted $20,000,000. Hopefully it is hard to screw up a patent on water.
I hope this recap helps and others can go in to more depth.