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An update on Vietnam not allowing entry for foreigners:
https://vn.usembassy.gov/u-s-citizen-services/covid-19-information/
This was updated yesterday (5/13).
Key points are as follows:
As of May 13, the Government of Vietnam has not lifted the suspension of entry for foreigners, including people with a Vietnamese visa exemption certificate. Vietnamese authorities have not announced a potential date to allow foreigners to enter Vietnam again.
limited exemptions for diplomatic, official duty, and special cases, including experts, business managers, high-tech workers, and other essential categories as determined by the Government of Vietnam.
Only Vietnamese nationals, foreigners on diplomatic or official business, and highly skilled workers are allowed to enter the country at this time. All persons entering Vietnam must undergo medical checks and 14-day quarantine upon arrival.
Vietnam has permitted dual citizenship under limited circumstances since July 1, 2009. ... The state-run Vietnam News Agency reported that "those who apply to regain Vietnamese nationality can retain their foreign citizenship if they have justified cause and with permission from the state president"
Beast, you may be interested in this:
First Mike, thanks for the post.
Not to pour water on the parade of hope, but
1) There are no flights from Detroit to HCM until May 29.
2) Vietnam is currently not accepting foreigners into the country:
To staunch the spread of COVID-19, Vietnam will not be allowing entry or issuing visas to any foreign nationals, from March 22 until further notice, except for those travelling for official or diplomatic purposes, who must undergo medical checks and 14-day quarantine upon arrival in Vietnam. The ban also applies to those who currently hold visas or visa letters.
preparing to transfer production back to Prodigy Textiles, its Vietnamese subsidiary...The Company is now ready to transition the majority of its production back to Vietnam as soon as the silkworm rearing cycle allows.
Thanks Hope. I see now that I could put it more clearly. I think I should have used REARING instead of PRODUCTION so that some would not get confused. I see the PR as saying they were selecting the best breed and rearing (to some unknown point) whilst waiting for the opportunity to send batches to Vietnam for the remainder of the rearing/production cycle.
With such scarce information, it's anyone's guess where we are in that cycle and how much longer until cocooning, as per Q4S's guesstimated timeline.
Agreed.
Sure the science is the critical component, but presentation and packaging are not trivial. This should be an easy fix.
I'm not TRUTH but here is my assessment:
Company is preparing to transfer production back to Prodigy Textiles, its Vietnamese subsidiary
The Company is now ready to transition the majority of its production back to Vietnam as soon as the silkworm rearing cycle allows
Through vigorous testing of its Dragon SilkTM and Monster Silk® lines, the Company identified its best performing and hardy silkworms ideally suited for large scale production
The Company...will use this year’s first production run to ship materials are dedicated to fulfill an outstanding order, by one of the Company development partners
The following production runs will be to address fiber requests made by additional potential development partners
and to grow the breeding population.
Haha. Nice Chinese!
It's a good question Mojo. I don't think anyone knows.
From the Nov 2019 PR
he Prodigy Textiles operations team finished removing the cocoons from mounting frames on November 6th and silk moths began emerging by November 9th. The breeding of the emerged moths is complete, with the specialized silkworm eggs now in incubation and are expected to emerge shortly. Each female silk moth lays upwards of 200-500 eggs and, as previously announced, all of the emerged silk moths were dedicated to breeding stock expansion to rapidly scale up the Company’s silk production capacity.
Anyone with an in with Ben--
I've emailed him but gotten no response.
Could anyone find out about this from the Jan 28 PR:
The Company will also use this growing season as an opportunity to improve its internal factory environmental control protocols.
Nice point. I did overlook the furlough issue for non-essential employees. There is more here than we know--which seems to be the case a lot of times.
Yes, it does seem so. If you look at the government's report, they donated a total of 200 mill VND (a bit north of US$8,000)--more than donations by the two other companies that donated masks and whatnot.
You might note that poor farmers, according to this report () earn on average US$2000 a year. So in that light, let's take the average US household income of $61,000, then times it by 4. A donation of close to $250,000--would you call that
a complete joke
Quang Nam government's website reports on the donation by KBL
http://ubmttqvn.quangnam.gov.vn/Default.aspx?tabid=63&Group=65&NID=7204&niem-tin-cua-cac-doanh-nghiep-ve-cong-tac-kiem-soat-dich-benh-covid-19-tai-viet-nam
NOTE: The translation of Prodigy in Vietnamese means something like "miraculous weaving company"
The question is, why go to all this trouble if it's a sham. That doesn't mean that production is a given--but it does mean that they think production is very doable.
Vietnamese reporting on the food donation by KBL
From 4/22
http://baoquangnam.vn/xa-hoi/cong-ty-det-than-ky-kbl-my-trao-tang-600-suat-qua-cho-nong-dan-87209.html
From 4/23
https://thoibaokinhdoanh.vn/an-sinh/cong-ty-det-than-ky-kbl-my-ho-tro-qua-cho-ba-con-nong-dan-ngheo-1067698.html
It's like someone is purposely trying to take the price down.
Facebook link:
https://www.facebook.com/kenneth.le.543
Translation of sign hanging on the wall:
Textile Company KBL
Program
to support farmers facing difficulties due to the direction of COVID-19 pandemic in Quang Nam - Quang Nam
Dai Loc, April 21, 2020
So it looks like it happened last Tuesday. I see this as Kenneth Le's idea--he knows his way around the culture and how to ensure support for KBL moving forward. Having lived 10 years in Asia, this is a legitimate move to shore up supply/help from the farmers, which in my book adds legitimacy to the fact that production should be starting up there soon.
Someone just bought a ton of shares:
04/20/2020 11:44:39 0.1848 485,555 ^
What clue am I supposed to get?
I see it as nothing more than trying to buy time until the video guy could switch to the preplanned promo video that followed.
Additional mulberry fields to harvest in the next 2 months
no more contracting it.
Pure spider silk via knock-in, knock-out
While some argue (contra the PR) that the webcast won't go forward, and others are arguing for home office presentations, why not just consider the possibility that Kim was not waiting around hoping things would open up.
Rather he was using this month to prepare (be it prerecord and get the video edited, or move to have things in place where he will give it) and ensure it would happen, just like the press release? Along these lines, the press release would be a signal that everything was finalized.
The major question for me is how do we know it's over? We have achieved herd immunity? There is a vaccine?
Some say this will be like the flu and reappear every winter. On the other hand, this is part of the coronavirus group, as was SARS, etc. We haven't seen a reoccurrence of SARS or the bird flu (to my knowledge).
So when is over, over?
In terms of PRs this week, I'm assuming we will hear that Prodigy employees are back to work.
Strong buys at the low .11 level.
In addition to 100% pure spider silk, there's also the possibility of it being on the other patent(s) filed. Who knows how investors would react to an expanded business model "beyond apparel." My guess is that the negs here would say nothing ever came of the clothing side, so this is a more elaborate bait and switch. Believers will say that "holden the golden" just multiplied exponentially. Regardless, should be exciting!
“Every single PR sounds like the last one”
This PR: major breakthrough to be announced
Last PR: major setback/screw up announced
Yup, every single one...
Be that as it may, there are only 16 reported cases in the country. (This underreported too? Perhaps.) Also, there are no outgoing or incoming flights to China from Vietnam.
For more details about business conditions in Vietnam from non-Vietnamese in country, see this link:
https://www.vietnam-briefing.com/news/vietnam-business-operations-and-the-coronavirus-updates.html/
Newest update from NYT on the coronavirus in Vietnam:
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/02/25/world/asia/25reuters-china-health-vietnam-cured.html
Seems all cases are cured and no new cases have been identified since 2/13. That's good news.
Arachno, I think he means that since it's apparent the Vietnamese government is so heavily involved in this process, it is highly likely that KBLB had to grease the wheel, so to speak, by promising a cut of the profits in this new industry.
Can anyone Facebook live the shareholder meeting? I can't go, unfortunately!
Also from Randy Lewis.
This from a year ago:
https://www.hjnews.com/logan_hj/usu-professor-s-spider-silk-research-spurs-potential-new-product/article_45ae0c0a-9ecf-5cb1-8d7b-b5e6ac52c0d9.html
It looks like his company, Spidey Tek, is going more toward the goo side of production, with an initial push into adhesives.
Their website is quite underwhelming (https://www.spideytek.com/). It's been a while since I've seen worse.
MU thanks for posting this. I have a hunch that there's a lot more in the works that an ill-advised, badly-planned RS that has everyone worked up. Your scenario seems very plausible. I've felt for a while that there must be some Millikan connection. We'll find out.
LuvSilk, thanks for the pictures. I understand why you took them down. As one who lived 10 years in Asia and worked on foreign military sales projects there, I can add -- for what it's worth -- that the factory looks like a normal factory in Asia. Those who have experience there will know that. And those who don't will be bothered by the trash piles (I understand why you took photos of those), and the relatively un-modern look of the factory. No, the outside isn't state of the art and it looks relatively overgrown in some areas. It's the interior that is important. It would have been interesting to see how many people/cars/scooters are there during the day.That would have been telling.
Regardless, the video of the contract signing (also in line with what I've experienced in Asia) should be straight forward and a strong sign of what is happening.
KLB's efforts in Vietnam would make no sense if this thing were just a pump and dump.
My guess is that he has an institutional financing offer. If you reread the post by A-dude on uplisting (https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=149939431) that's one aspect that could control this narrow window of time. JMHO
What is with the uniform bids for 2500 shares that have been happening for the last month or so? Anyone know?
I couldn't find that news post online. Sickzone, would you mind providing a link? Nothing came up for Than Ky Textile Company Ltd. either...