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Quest is successful because it is a mass market product that associates itself with protein nutrition....not with bodybuilding, fitness, activity or sports like everybody else in the industry.
The image is as clean as Google and Apple's image.
the earlier Musclepharm releases results the better given past experience.
It doesn't matter what the stock trades at right now. It all depends on q4 and the shareholders' letter.
Also, from past experience and from what codie told us prior to last release of quarterly results, the timing of the release may mean something.
Apparently, Musclepharm delayed releasing bad results of q3 to the last day ...so if results are not released early on for q3, some traders may start dumping the share. It is not time to release results yet though....but Musclepharm better not wait till mid February releasing q4.
The stock is going up today because declining price of gas means more people going shopping.
Musclepharm is a $20 stock by March.
Also, Brad is signing an endorsement contract with Eric Holder
Brad needs to eliminate Cellucor at GNC with some products that are proven and believed to be better.
Musclepharm sells too little through GNC. Cellucor, Dymatize, MuscleTech and Optimum Nutrition are all top selling brands....you cannot say that about Musclepharm...
http://www.gnc.com/Shop-By-Brand/shop.jsp?categoryId=3703232&shopBy=brands
i don't know what you are talking about? i spelled it correctly...
Jym is underground, Musclepharm is not there anymore....it needs to be, to be relevant.
Nike is not selling most of it's products in the hood, but if no gansta finds it cool, only country folks buying Hanes shirts at K Mart will buy it.
I do like his emphasis on science and his brand name looking like Japanese writing. He looks kind of scary to me though, like some white trash from New Jersey that moved to Broward county, Florida.
Musclepharm should not forget the grassroots and hardcore gym rats though, that is my conviction.
OMG, that guys looks like he just came out of jail? What is he making in the lab? meth or crack?
this would be a brand extension that targets the grassroots and hardcore gym rats that founded the company.
I believe that all companies should remember where they come from while expanding into mass market.
The gym rats are the ones that decide whether your product is legit or not....like Nike needs the approval of the trendsetting Afro American youth to be a legit company. Nike always try to figure out what that group likes, making products specifically for them.
So far the Afro American youth have given thumbs up for Nike, if they didn't, then Nike would be in trouble.
Musclepharm could invent a new brand that exclusively was sold through bodybuilding.com to begin with...call the brand something that relates to the World of Musclepharm like GREEN MUSCLE MEN.
Bodybuilding is a good place to launch a brand as the site markets the brand, so all that Musclepharm needed to do would be to pay bb.com for it's services.
The SEC investigation might be about the manner that Musclepharm paid the Deluca brothers for their assistance.
It is purely speculation though, as I have no proof of it.
so bb.com's expertise was worth something to Musclepharm....
so much for old friends I guess. It seems like the Deluca brothers are all about money...
Who cares about that? most people don't buy protein bars over the Internet....
Combat Crunch needs to be sold at every gas station and every grocery store, at every Costco and at every GNC.
Also, Musclepharm needs to come out with fitmiss protein bars and iron protein bars for Walmart and Sam's Club.
Bodybuilding.com will never be a major outlet for a product like that....and most likely it never sold a lot there. The list could have been manipulated to promote it at the launch...
I think it will be very hard for a company like Musclepharm to sustain a high equity and cash compensation level over the next two years.
It is really time for Musclepharm to let the stock price rise and to find ways to save every dollar it can to finance growth projects.
The endorsement deals are putting some limits on how much debt that Musclepharm can responsibly take at this point in time....so cash is king and the stock price is king.
It is not so much a question for Brad of obtaining ownership of 1.3 million shares versus 1 million shares. It is a question of securing that the stock will be worth something in 24 months.
I don't have a problem with past dilution if that's it!
Musclepharm has used the Schwarzenegger endorsement to it's advantage, so if it continues doing similar things with other endorsements there is probably little reason to be concerned.
It is important that top executives got an incentive to perform, I just surely hope that departing executives are stripped unvested stock grants going forward. There should be an incentive to stay with the company and not a reward for leaving the company.
Also, the excessive dilutions we have seen in the past, kind of allocate enough shares to the current management. Now it is time to have an incentive to make the share price grow and that comes from hard work and a break from the issuance of stocks.
The best incentives for everybody involved at this stage are cash bonuses, as Musclepharm only can afford those as long as Musclepharm makes a profit.
It is my strong belief though that no public company can follow a business model that only serves the executives. If Musclepharm continues with excessive stock grants to executives, it may kill the stock price altogether....it would be very hard to argue that this company would be a good investment in that case.
Frost didn't get a 50% discount, that would be a mistake of mine to conclude that. He got a series D Convertible Stock for $8 that is convertible into to two common stocks. So, unless there is some interest on the convertible stock, he would end up paying for the common stock, pretty close to what the stock was trading for back then.
I'm quite sure that Phillip Frost asked for some restrictions regarding equity compensation though.
the problem is that the first major institutional investor Wynnefield that bought the stock on the open market appeared to vote against the employee compensation plan last year. It is a problem if institutional investors are not happy with what the executives do.
luquidity?
If there are some good consultants providing inspiration and guidance to the executives...the message should probably be that doing less in 2015 is doing more.
The business needs to get it's cost under control....There is no high number of operation costs that "is right in the ballpark" as Brad expressed it during the conference call.
Right in the ballpark is an operating cost that results in a sustainable profit. Also, profits are more important than revenues, no business should accept any business that it cannot make money on.
Over-optimistic executives are very dangerous.
We have seen some examples of very creative founders and Ceos that end up being out of touch with reality.
Look at American Apparel or Joe's Jeans. They want too much with too little money. They both produce at too high cost and spend too much on marketing. Spending on marketing and focusing on revenue over profits has killed these two.
I honestly haven't looked up American Apparel, but I bet it is not doing great. As far as I know, Joe's Jeans has defaulted on it loan recently.
Keeping operating costs down and maintaining profitability through decent margins is what all companies should focus on, after they have achieved sufficient levels of revenue.
Musclepharm has sufficient revenues, it is just doing everything to kill profits by spending too much on marketing and running an inefficient operation imo. The excessive dilution on top of that, that is voted down by the first major institutional investor Wynnefield Capital,just makes things a whole lot more complicated.
Scary aspect of Frost capital raises:
Problem here is that it appears like Frost is given shares at half price in return for very loose restrictions regarding issuing stocks.
Allowing executives and board to issue 3 million shares to themselves in return for discounted securities is really expensive for shareholders.
Now Musclepharm decided to issue 1.5 million of these 3 million shares in 2014. That makes you wonder what is going on?
I mean 3 million shares at stock price $25, $75 million could cover quite some compensation, so had Musclepharm waited a little bit issuing a high number of shares, it would have looked a whole lot better.
It just looks bad, that's all!
focusing on key markets should be Musclepharm's priority.
It is not so important whether Musclepharm is represented in Norway or not....If Brazil stands for 15% of sales, then there might be a reason to invest there one day, in particular if Musclepharm can get a prime asset financed with a loan from Banco Santander.
However, as long as Musclepharm hasn't demonstrated any profitability, then it is hard to imagine that Banco Santander or other Brazilian banks would finance anything.
Musclepharm needs to convince banks that it will remain a going business.
Even if Musclepharm posts a $2 million profit for q4, which I believe is very unlikely, that doesn't mean that dilution needs to be kept high or that bonuses need to go up. Right now, Musclepharm is barely making it....it is selling for a lot, but margins are going down and the complexity of the business is going up.
I hope that Musclepharm makes it, because I got quite some money invested into it, owning close to 26,000 shares. Some of the things that Musclepharm did last year were a little scary to say the least. The extreme commitment of one type of marketing, the endorsements and the extremely fast consumption of the 3 million shares reserved for stock grants. It makes you wonder whether more dilutive colluding capital raises with Frost and Co are in the works.
Musclepharm is big in Brazil and Russia because of UFC and the love of going to the gym there.
Russia is not something that works right now, so Musclepharm is betting on Brasil where assets are cheap right now and where import restrictions are high.
Brazil is a complex country to do business...but it has recently attracted quite a lot of interest from Chinese investors and others. Some years back, mega investments from Spanish multi nationals like Telefonica and Banco Santander changed the perception of Brazil. American telecommunication company Nextel invested heavily there....but unfortunately the company went bankrupt last year...
I don't know what to think of Brad's comments at the conference call. I doubt that Musclepharm would start manufacturing in Brazil on it's own. Most likely contract manufacturing would be the way to go in such a country....but not until Musclepharm got some credit worthiness worth speaking of.
Leapfrogging, and starting to manufacture on a large scale in Brazil seems like an unproven approach by a small company with limited resources.
I personally wouldn't do business with Brazilians and Argentines. I only trust the Mexicans, the Colombians, the Peruvians and the Chileans from Latin America...My experience from living in Miami tells me that doing business with Brazilians and Argentines is going to be very tedious indeed.
the main target are people that shop at Walmart and at gas stations and aren't too smart. It is kind of the same people that still buy cigarettes and hot dogs.
to compete with 5 Hour Energy on anything else than price you need a brand name that says the same, you need a product that does more by adding one special ingredient, you need better endorsers and you need just as good packaging and retail merchandising.
SK Energy competes on price and that might work too....but selling a $2.5 product a buck lower at $1.5, c'mon that's a loser!
The culture needs to change at Musclepharm and it needs to make some money for shareholders before it should talk about vertical integration.
Why on Earth would Brad think that he could dilute the stock excessively, year after year, and then ask for more capital at better terms?
I guess science, technology, knowledge and goodwill could be an excuse for paying $2 for $1 capital and paying $2 for $1 worth of labor.
It surely is the case for lots of companies, that provide excellent terms for employees and third parties that contribute much to their values.
I thought that Phillip Frost was going to infuse some of his knowledge from the pharmaceutical industry into Musclepharm. Thus far, all I see is some minor "one hand washes another hand" kind of deal between Frost and Musclepharm. I don't really see any transfer of technology by letting Musclepharm acquire a shampoo manufacturer.
Ryan Cassill's comments were legit.
If you consider the MSLP stock to be a piece of an enterprise, then Musclepharm is diluting that piece of the enterprise continuously.
The less you pay per unit of labor and the less you pay per unit of capital, the more capital and the more labor you may have, and thus the more productive piece of the enterprise you may have...That is simple economic thinking.
Musclepharm sells $2 worth of the enterprise for $1, and it pays $2 for $1 worth of labor. That is ridiculous!
What Ryan Cassill is telling us is: Don't consider the MSLP stock as a piece of an enterprise, because it more like a piece of a piece of a piece of an enterprise.
I believe that we got to look at how many of the approx. 1 million remaining shares, out of the original 3 million shares that Musclepharm had reserved for employees, that will be issued in 2015.
A high number could suggest that another pipe deal is in the works while a low number would suggest that the management is getting more conversative when it comes to dilution.
Brad owes investors to be conservative when it comes to further capital raises as he has kind of has told us that he wasn't too interested in dilutive financing. That is a comfort, because it is not necessarily in our interest if Musclepharm keeps on raising capital at a discount with further share issuances allowed for executives. Such capital raises secure that executives keep their ownership percentages while smaller investors' stock holdings are watered down.
Musclepharm's marketing is full of surprises...
http://www.musclepharm.com/athletes/tiger-woods/
In the long run, if a company keeps on growing the revenues 100% year over year, then why would you worry about channel stuffing?
Musclepharm is under SEC investigation, so there definitely ain't any channel stuffing anymore. Had there been channel stuffing in the past, then surely Musclepharm's sales and marketing efforts improved dramatically because real sales must have grown more than 100% year over year.
I believe that bodybuilding.com initially acted as Musclepharm's extended arm, selling much of what Musclepharm couldn't sell on it's own as it lacked a warehouse and logistics system. Bodybuilding.com's executives might have done things that weren't in the interests of liberty media, the majority owner of the company, but that is not really our problem.
The manner Musclepharm paid Bodybuilding.com for this favor might be something that the SEC is looking at....but there was no channel stuffing here. Bodybuilding.com helped Musclepharm getting established, nothing else.
I noticed that some old people were buying premier protein products at Costco. Also, I recall that an old lady was drinking a small premier protein RTD at the doctor's office some months ago....so, I wonder if these drinks somehow are recommended by doctors?
Tiger Woods makes Musclepharm relevant outside United States, that is the only good thing you can say about him.
Nobody cares about Johnny Manziel and Colin Kaepernick outside US and Canada, so in that sense Musclepharm is fully covered for now. The question is whether these two NFL "stars" will remain relevant to anybody in like 6 months.
that makes you wonder why Musclepharm hasn't considered manufacturing in China and entering the Chinese sports nutrition market.
Nature's sunshine's announcement of manufacturing supplements through a pharmaceutical contract manufacturer in Mainland China made the stock jump. The earlier Musclepharm enters the Chinese market the better. I'm certain that there is a great potential for these kind of products in China's metropolitan areas. China is a country that loves sports, so it seems to be a non brainer.
Musclepharm needs some advertising like this
I wonder how come Musclepharm hasn't made a web site about each of the endorsements. It seems like most resources have been dedicated to tell us about Chady Dunmore's upcoming cooking book and music career.
I mean, why would any company spend so much money on Tiger Woods and Johnny Manziel and not tell us how these guys use Musclepharm's products?
I mean these guys have already been paid hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars without creating as much as $10,000 extra sales.
Brad is not going to announce more bad news for quite a while, I'm quite confident in that.
The company cannot afford anymore dilutions going forward.
Musclepharm better pray for Colin Kaepernick, Tiger Woods and Johnny Manziel, and hope that they keep their popularity alive for a little while longer. These three are all under performing athletes with lots of followers for no other reason than the fact that they once were cool but now their physique is not quite at an adequate level compared to what they are up against...either it is a matter of being completely over with or it's about being too weak for the job