On your advice Smitter, I called Mr Stefanovic after the market close and chatted with him for about fifteen minutes. I was expecting to have some difficulty understanding him, but actually had no trouble with that at all. Basically he reiterated much of what has been stated by you and several others, but I did pick up a few new pieces of information.
First, he is from Serbia, not Russia, as several of the bashers have stated. And he has lived in the USA for over 40 years.
Secondly, he has a PHD, (I believe he said in business, but I may have misunderstood the field.) So unlike what has been inferred by several bashers here, he is a very intelligent well-educated man. English is just not his first language. In fact, as you can observe from the writings of many on the internet, that's true for many Americans. And probably only a small percentage of them can spell any better than a legal immigrant.
We then talked about stock perception. I emphasized to him that investor perception is EXTREMELY important for any stock, much less a stock trading at a tiny fraction of the assets it owns. When a stock trades at such a humongous discount for a long period of time, then it is easy, as we have seen from the Disneyland crew and others, to make the case that it is just a total scam, because it couldn't possibly trade at such a ridiculous price relative to it's value. But we all know that it happens. Otherwise, why did OWC%%P run from .003 to $3.15 in several months? The value was there all along. It was just hidden under a deep pile of investor fears and misperceptions and probably poor communication by management.
In concluding the call, I expressed my opinion that the best thing he could do to maintain the recent positive reassessment of the stock valuation and to reverse the gathering negative investor sentiment, was to update shareholders frequently, especially on the stock buyback. It is in no one's best interests to have the stock trading at such a discount to valuation. A healthy stock price would benefit EFLN because once it's fairly valued, he can then make use of equity financing to fund his ambitious construction plans and possible acquisitions. To my surprise, Mr Stefanovic stated that that was exactly what they were doing. He mentioned that they bought back a sizeable chunk of shares today, and that the family and EAFN owned a large proportion of the shares and that the actual float is a lot smaller than advertised.
I ended the call by strongly encouraging him to PR the share structure highlighting the family ownership and to regularly update the investors on the buyback as the fastest way to get the stock price more in line with true valuation. I urged him not to let the stock price languish because of poor management communication or lack thereof.
I would encourage other long-term investors to urge him to move in this direction as well. He is a willing listener, and I believe if we make the case for action that he will respond favorably. His number is 352-399-6278.
