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Just put up some info (all publicly available online) in the iBox for your reading pleasure. And as a disclosure, I own shares.
I'm in and looking forward to it.
EGCT shareholders will receive shares of AZFL (3% of EGCT holdings) from that spinoff, but I know, as an EGCT shareholder, that those shares haven't been registered or delivered to EGCT shareholders. For what that's worth.
Amazonas Florestal website
Looks like today.
VFIN still nowhere to be seen. UBSS still trying to figure out how to get people to sell. It's awful quiet!
The company has never been this quiet in my time here. Combined with the recent bids and the lack of sellers, I'm hoping that means we're in the thick of a legitimate quiet period, on the verge of seeing everything finally come together.
VFIN and his/her 40000 shares disappeared from the offer this morning after several weeks of sitting there, unmoved. No shares for sale on the offer, relatively speaking. No buyers, either. Looks like a quiet standoff for now.
No, just agreeing that there's nothing publicly disclosed to exhibit current status or progress on the ACE acquisition.
Nothing that's been publicly disclosed, very true.
Been jockeying around all day. Had over 130,000 shares showing for a bit. As of this writing, there are almost 136000 at .2622.
EGCT with $35000 showing from one MM on top bid.
Looks like it's still there after close, so nice to see it's not a day order.
Well, someone wants some EGCT shares to end the week: 84,000 shares on top bid.
Yes, it seems that way, but I'm confident it's not.
Well, I imagine that will change when the acquisition is completed. And yesterday was clearly one seller, not sellers plural. He wiped out the bid, now others are freaking out and lowering the offer.
Given the fact that those large blocks on the ask aren't moving down, it seems pretty obvious to me that this is an individual or a single group hoping to suppress the price and/or induce sells at the offer to get shares cheaply before the acquisition closes.
When a woman is 8 1/2 months pregnant, do I say she's accomplished nothing because I can't see the baby yet?
Nothing is proved one way or another, but lack of a completed acquisition isn't proof of no accomplishment.
It's not one seller with tons of shares at .35, it's that the .35s get taken out, the sellers move off, and then when the volume isn't sustained, they come back down because they know people will buy there. That's what we've seen over and over the last few months. A quick burst of momentum that runs us up, then it dries up, then the sellers walk it back down, and .35 is the sweet spot for buying, apparently.
The offer will come down to greet it at open, I'm sure.
9000 shares at .41 before the bell.
Absolutely. They said that things are progressing as expected, that financing should come through soon and the acquisition will be finalized as soon as it does. They said they're already composing the draft so that they can disclose as soon as it's ready and move on to completing acquisition #2. They mentioned the debt financing being well over a dollar and their plans to approach AMEX and NASDAQ Small Cap on the heels of the second acquisition's closing. They said that they have $350 million in revenue from acquisitions alone visible as of today. But there's also stuff going on besides the acquisitions, and I expect that we'll hear more about that stuff.
All of this is what I recall hearing from the directors of Ecologic on the public call. If what they're saying is true, this is a $2 stock minimum this year alone.
I did, and I saw a few familiar names on the guest list.
According to another iHub user, today on "stock talk live" at 1:00pm EST, Withrow and Nesbitt will be discussing EGCT along with the analyst report from today. It will moderated by the author of the report. Go to paltalk.com, register (it's free), create an alias and then search for the room called "stock talk live." There will be a scrolling message board during the presentation along with a Q&A afterwards.
I found this on another iHub page and hadn't heard of it before, so I'm passing on the info.
Full text of the EGCT writeup on seekingalpha:
Being a person that frequently travels, I'm always in need of a rental car. Just this past weekend, I traveled to Cincinnati on business and in using Hotwire as I always do, I was able to rent a very nice full-sized car from Alamo for just $10.50 a day plus tax and of course, rental car taxes many times exceed the actual rental amount depending on what state you fly to. In this case, my total charge for three days including tax was $61.93, so obviously I was pleased and just happy I wasn't flying to California where I would have been taxed like a rich man from France.
Rental car companies are unfortunately always the target of state and local governments with regard to generating much needed revenue from taxes and if it weren't for the target on their backs, profits would be sky high, as rates could be raised considerably from where they are. Needless to say as in the case above, I've always been amazed at how these rental car companies can make a profit when they're only generating $10.50 a day from folks like myself, especially when you always get unlimited miles. This can easily be answered.
Not every car renter is a savvy business traveler that truly understands the business. Those that don't know the ropes will almost always be financially penalized. For starters, car renters pay millions and millions each year for unnecessary insurance at rental car counters when in fact their own auto insurance policy back home will most often cover damages from rentals. Heck, I only have a liability policy from Farmers for my own vehicles, yet my policy states that I'm covered whenever I rent a car in the USA. Many people have credit cards whereby they're covered for rental cars by the credit card company, yet they aren't even aware of this. Secondly, pre-paying for fuel in advance at the counter is a bad idea, as I can recall more times than not whereby I would have basically been putting extra gas in the tank for the car rental company to sell to the next guy. Don't be lazy, fill the tank yourself and return the car when you're supposed to.
In managing several stock portfolios and in always trying to get the best return possible, I not only analyze the larger, more stable companies in a particular sector, I take a look at what's up and coming that many may have casually overlooked. Obviously what comes with the new kids on the block is more risk, so doing as much homework as possible is a must, especially when the money you're managing isn't yours.
I thought it would interesting in this case to take a look under the hood at the largest publicly traded rental car company in the world and also the smallest.
Hertz Global Holdings, Inc. (HTZ) is a company that everyone recognizes as a premium brand along with their main competitor, Avis Budget Group, Inc. (CAR). What everyone doesn't recognize is that Hertz not only rents cars, they rent many types of equipment ranging from massive earthmoving machines all the way down to small tools. The company's been in business since 1918 and employs nearly 25,000 people across the globe.
Just a month ago on August 26th, Hertz announced an agreement to buy Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group, Inc. (DTG) for $87.50 a share after having gone back and forth with regard to a potential buyout since 2010. In acquiring the mid-tier car rental company, Hertz had to agree to sell its Advantage brand in order to appease regulators' concern that Hertz would become too big. With DTG under its belt, Hertz will now expand its global presence with a greater discount model attached along with hopeful expansion of travel partnerships.
What I find particularly appealing is that the average EPS estimate for this year from the seven analysts following the company is $1.33 and $1.55 next year, a very nice 17% year over year increase for a company with a large $5.77 billion dollar market cap. The company itself stated last month that they intend to grow revenues 7% to 8% annually over the next three years while also driving cost efficiency and increasing margins from rapidly expanding their presence in the "off-airport" segment of the industry, a segment where Hertz has plenty of room to grow since their current market share is only 12%.
Surprisingly, 12% of the float is short, but when applying the above metrics to the equation, I think it only adds fuel to the fire unless of course we see a significant global slowdown. All in all, I think Hertz deserves a higher P/E than the current 10.32 based on this year's earnings and next year's EPS forecast growth of 17%, not to mention the premium the stock deserves with the company operating a premium brand.
Ecologic Transportation, Inc. (EGCT.OB) is the smallest publicly traded rental car company I could find with a current market cap of $9 million dollars. At first glance of the most recently filed 10Q, I saw nothing fundamentally that really told me why the one-year chart (below) looked so good, as the company had an accumulated deficit of $7.5 million and a business that was floundering at best, but then I stumbled across [the] August 30th interview that opened my eyes and made me realize just why the company's stock has held up well over the past year.
EGCT's Chairman, Ed Withrow, brought in long time friend Bill Nesbitt a year ago to assume the role of CEO and help build a car rental brand with a single focus on environmentally friendly cars, the first of its kind.
So what's the big deal about Bill Nesbitt? Well Nesbitt once started a small rental car company from nothing that eventually grew its revenues to $1.3 billion. That company? Alamo Rent A Car, one of the most recognized rental car brands today and a company that Nesbitt eventually sold to Florida billionaire Wayne Huizenga.
EGCT's strategy is to grow through acquisitions that are highly accretive and executed with debt and little dilution. On August 13th, EGCT made its first move in announcing a letter of intent to acquire Ace Rent A Car, Inc., a company with over 200 locations that generated $69 million in revenue in its latest fiscal year. EGCT stated just a month later that two investment banking agreements had been signed with one of the oldest investment banking firms in the U.S. and if certain conditions are met, acquisition financing up to $20 million via debt will be granted and the same goes for the second agreement for up to $30 million for a public offering, assuming a successful acquisition of Ace. Nesbitt also stated that an aggressive acquisition program has been launched and due diligence has been initiated on several other acquisition targets.
In reaching out to EGCT's Chairman, Ed Withrow told me he won't sell a single share of his own stock until the company is eventually bought out and that current plans call for growing revenues up to the $350 million area in a few short years. In asking what the share structure would look like after the acquisition of Ace and subsequent strategic moves, Withrow stated that the outstanding share count would be no more than 40 to 45 million.
This is a story worth watching and if Ecologic is successful with its "Pure Green" strategy, it's my opinion that the company will find itself becoming a part of the consolidation that seems to be rampant throughout the sector. The closing of the Ace Rent A Car acquisition will be key and will send a strong signal that Ecologic is for real and a new kid on the block. It also certainly doesn't hurt that the captain of the ship has been a part of some very large deals in the past with very large players.
Thank you. I realize that. Just making a note of the shares that went through at .41, which is significantly higher than the recorded HOD.
EGCT looked a little better today. Had a motivated buyer. 5000 shares took out the .35, and then 25000 set up for the bid at the same point. EOD bidwhack (no blame there), but the bid held despite the lack of bids below it. Perhaps a good sign heading into next week.
With no bid support (bids are mid .20s and lowers) and the rest of the sellers in the .40s, anyone not happy to wait for completion is splitting the difference and selling at .35. So when the shares showing on L2 are bought up at .35, someone else steps in at the same point, seeing that that's where people are willing to buy. The only bright side I see is that when we get news and sustained volume, more shares will have been sold in advance, making it potentially easier to move.
There were two MM's there when it got hit. .36s, now those are deep. We need a catalyst here soon.
Not a whole lot of bid to be whacked, unfortunately. People won't be convinced until there's sustained volume or a completion of the first acquisition. Understandable, but frustrating.
I'm realistically expecting to see completion on the deal later this week. I'd love to be surprised, but knowing the history here and how long it takes to finalize things, I'm hoping for first or second week of October. Boy, I'd love to be surprised, though.
Out of the roughly 140,000 EGCT shares traded so far week, all but 8,000 were on the offer.
EGCT continues to creep higher. Chart looking pretty great so far this week. Hopefully we can hold mid- to high .30s to end the week!
It's not ideal, but it's better than thousands of shares stacked at the offer, I suppose. I have a feeling those bids will rise to meet the offer as they've been doing the last week.
EDIT: PERT must be reading my posts. There's his 25,000 at .38.
I respect your DD, but I've scoured filings for those other companies you mentioned and I don't see those same loose ends in the same way, man. And I welcome a campaign. More shareholders, stronger base.