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Paid $14M for the rice mill if I recall. Made all sorts of upgrades and even hired a pro to run it. Firesaled. Truly the DUMBEST investment of my life.
They bought Golden Ridge for $8M dollars. It was worthless from an ROI standpoint when they bought it. Maybe they finally cleaned it up to get some of OUR money back with a goose to the share price. They Will dismantle it all.
Over the years I've said we couldn't imagine what other gaffes they could come up with. Thirty years to get QC right and they eff'ed up that big dog food contract. That could have "made them". On top of that they never had any issue with their high end Ri-stuff products. Then they blamed it on Thailand, then they said too much competition and some other thing I can't remember, but it all blurs together as foolishness, anyway. For their last act we are hoping to get some value back as shareholders. I think they paid $14 million for the Rice Mill, and 2 or 4 million for that grain thing. Well, they bought those in horrendous shape and now they are apparently doing much much better than before. So you think they might get what they paid for them. But, my strong guess is they'll blow that too. They'll get pennies on the dollar and we shareholders get the final slap in the face. Take our few nickels left and hope to forget about this. In the immortal words of Gnus "You can't make this stuff up"...
9 cents pre reverse split. Impressive.
That Joe speaks for this Joe, too.
Some positives.
-Revenue was up despite the challenges.
-The rice for the derivatives is not their fault, but this is a big blow for them.
-They kept SGA consistent due to productivity.
-A day late and a dollar short, but they finally admitted they were clueless about running a rice bill. I think back to those calls with that jock strap they had as a CEO talking about unwinding backlog for quarter after quarter. It was basically a keystone cop operation.
But again, the negatives are simply too egregious to ignore. I expect the stock to have no legs at all in the coming months. Don't expect any new announcements of any substance for this quarter, either. Showing up at an expo to ply your wares is not news.
Will lurk and check in every now and again.
GLTA
Welcome to the biggest loser club.
That shortfall to deliver to a major customer is self-inflicted and a major gaffe. Don't underestimate their ability to lose this customer.
I expect more dilution.
Revenue up, good. More gaffes and miscues. No surprise there.
Let's see if there are any surprises, and I don't mean any good ones. Curious why they needed an extra 2.5M when they were almost cash flow break even and 5M in the bank.
Don't give us we areanticipating increase demand. That story is 20 years old.
Any bets that revenue crap out this quarter because, well its RIBT.
Always willing to buy back in when they give reason to.
Let me ask you, if they had no to little cash burn why would they need $2 million within 3 weeks?
Given their history of miscues and negative surprises I'll take a wait and see view.
The market hates uncertainty. The question is how does a company with near breakeven cash flow, $5 million in the bank, and a growing business burn through that $5 million or anticipate to then need to scrape to get another $2.5 million all within 3 months. One thing to say it's all to support CapEx, but that story is hollow and shopworn even if it were the only thing. They threw that hollow carrot in their filing. Then to toss in using the funds for general corporate purposes and to pay down debt says to me they are trying to keep the lights on. That's the only "certainty" I can ascertain.
Very curious to know how that $7.5 million is getting burned through. What new imaginative management gaffe did RIBT come up with?
To quote the late gnus: "You can't make this stuff up"....
They also took an advance of $900k on Sept 26th from Republic. Two weeks later they need more money. Are they going panhandling for the next raise?
I am now grudgingly sitting on the sidelines hoping for the best but I'm not investing in this 180 degree turn of events that are unknown.
GLTA
They also took an advance of $900k on Sept 26th from Republic. Two weeks later they need more money. Are they going panhandling for the next raise?
I am now grudgingly sitting on the sidelines hoping for the best but I'm not investing in this 180 degree turn of events that are unknown.
GLTA
I re-read the Q2 transcript and trying to reconcile it with this paltry raise. It's feels "Edsonian" in nature for you old timers who remember the king of "record revenue". There is going to be some blunder of a bombshell next month, an epic gaffe and/or the ole stand by that demand is anticipated to increase such that the $5 million in cash at the end of last quarter was a surprise CapEx investment to meet the demand that is right around the corner.
Aghast.
Fool me once, fool me twice, fool me 9 times....this is pathetic. How much is a million and change going to last? They have been in a perpetual state of "if we build it they will come".
And, let's of course expect the usual "excuse for a poor quarter" that none of us can imagine because they are always new and unusual.
Fool me once, fool me twice, fool me 9 times....this is pathetic. How much is a million and change going to last? They have been in a perpetual state of "if we build it they will come".
And, let's of course expect the usual "excuse for a poor quarter" that none of us can imagine because they are always new and unusual.
RIBT farms out running Golden Ridge to some newly formed LLC in New Jersey. New Jersey is certainly the rice farming capital of North America. I get that Bella Weinreb is the registered agent, and it doesn't mean much who the registered agent is, but still the optics on it are odd. Found little intel on her.
It must be frustrating that you actually have to outsource to run your business in a general location where there must be similar operations with a local talent pool you can draw from. So, maybe the pickings are slim down south. I guess unloading it doesn't make sense now and they want to make it a viable business. Nothing wrong with that. Getting high on their own supply makes perfect sense rather than have a single key rice milling dependency, which they do.
In general, a company with an 8M market cap and perhaps be looking at $40M+ in 2023 with positive EBIDTA is simply undervalued.
Without insider buying or a substantive PR what do we expect the price to do?
I will leave you all with a joke:
What's the difference between beer nuts and deer nuts?
Beer nuts are $2.50 and deer nuts are under buck. See us at deer nuts? Hope not.
Macro-economic forces at play here, unfortunately. Small caps getting beaten down hard.
Once the rice mill is sold that will put a good chunk of cash in their pocket and stave off any need for another raise. The reduction in revenue will be accompanied by an increase in gross margins, which will be welcome news. Hopefully, they've stabilized the operations (pun not intended) enough to get over what they paid for it and not a fire sale because they overpaid to begin with.
Hopefully RIBT gets its $7M-$8M back on the Rice Mill. I would expect more, but if they get what they paid for that's a solid cash infusion, saves on factoring, and borrowing. Additionally, it should help gross margins (as they indicated)
RiceBran Technologies on Nov. 5 exercised its option to acquire the assets and operations of Golden Ridge Rice Mills’ milling facility in Wynne, Ark. Total consideration of the transaction is expected to be approximately $7 million to $8 million...
Structural Shift in the industry to SRB
Inflection Point
Demand is Soaring for regionally sourced agricultural products
Strong words. Let's see the number on the 11th to back them.
You are also in the six figure club of losses. Not pleasant. Frankly, I've put fresh money on a "structural shift" and "inflection point"...these are powerful words Bradley used and I feel several quarters on seeing him manage the business and communicate gives me confidence that he and the business can make it work. Weirdly, and sadly - it has taken a pandemic and a war to give this stock some legs. But, I'm here to get back some of losses, and I to love the idea of Upcycled product-always have.
GLTA
Good Read on Upcycling
https://foodtank.com/news/2022/07/op-ed-upcycled-food-is-on-the-rise/
They will clearly dilute. As long as operations are sound and they are executing the share price will take care of itself.
This time it's different
Peter Bradley is a sober man. Picked up a bunch more shares today.
Peter Bradley is a serious man. I like what I'm seeing. Back in.
Selling the company will be through a bankruptcy sale. You can buy at 10 cents, but that will look like an expensive purchase when this drops to sub penny status IMO. These guys are done for. Looking at "options" means a fire sale.
There is nothing to support the price except a wing and a prayer.
Best thing that could happen is they put everyone out of their misery and long sufferers can move on.
They are going to need all the money they can while they burn through cash supporting their buy high and sell low business model.
Classic RIBT inventing new ways to disappoint investors. The market has spoken.
They can take comfort knowing that they have a built in excuse for the stock tanking, and don't have to spend half a board meeting coming up with yet another new reason why they missed expectations and can't give guidance.
Color me stumped. I'm sitting on the sidelines while I watch whatever needs to unfold unfold. If I'm being cynical (actually maybe more realistic given the 10 year losing streak I've been following) they found nobody to buy these shares and in some bizarre/twisted way are doubling/tripling down with their own money hoping for a Hail Mary. I can't explain the CG investment either, but there is a quote from a movie where a father son team are in a business venture and keep losing more and more money trying to turn things around..The quote is: "when you are in deep, go deeper"...my former boss told me that story when I was working in the Dominican Republic where he ultimately invested $2M of his own money (all his savings) on a real estate project and just like in the movie, he went deeper and lost it all, just like the father son team.
CG had 14 billion in revenue in 2011, and I'm sure it's significantly more now, so throwing a few million on a wing and prayer company may really not mean much to them-it's just some change they found under the seat cushion and if it works fine, if it doesn't they look for the next pretty face.
I've always been hopeful, and they have always found a new and unusual way to creatively disappoint.
If they end hold these shares and go down with ship, my hat goes off to them. But, I'm also sure they will find a way to get themselves paid on the back end. Nothing illicit-just some golden rice colored parachute.
As usual, it's a wait and see game.
GLTA
Moving the goal posts again. Typical.
"And I'm confident that, we should be able to ramp into positive EBITDA in the first half of 2020." The first half of 2020 is corporate speak for "we have no clue" and the goal posts will be moved again folks.
Question is - will they do a raise at some point because they are running out of cash and we get watered down even more. They made it a point to say they are looking to reduce spending and capEX will phase out...sounds the opposite for an alleged growing business.
Zero credibility.
After two quarters of making optimistic predictions about positive EBIDTA they are now just blowing smoke and can tamp down expectations so much they can say anything now just to keep hangers on who are tired.
And, I love the blame game. The guy we fired entered into this terrible milling contract. It wasn't our fault... Did anybody look at this contract? Who did the due diligence? Pathetic.
I hold some shares, but sold out a big portion a few weeks back. Once bitten, twice bitten, thrice bitten...
Old habits die hard-they bought the plant in Brazil, run down and dilapidated and needed to sue for escrow money. Now history repeats itself (insert eye roll here). These guys can't get out of their own way. I ask again, who did the due diligence and how did they do it? How can you screw this up?
Henk quoted in Bloomberg-
Pretty baller.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-14/the-mighty-pea-is-everybody-s-new-favorite-plant-based-protein
No specific mention of RBP, however, the fact that companies have sourced long term supply contracts for peas means the same could be true for RBP.
Will be looking for some "tells" during the CC next month on RPB contracts, or a Press Release sooner - though RIBT is under obligation to not release some customer names.
Beyond BYND.
EVERY competitor of BYND has to be sniffing around as well. A real pure play in this space. And with competition RIBT may be able to not get muscled around on pricing. To the highest bidder..........
Some background for the board if you are relatively new or a soon to be purchaser who is just showing up:
https://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Article/2013/03/28/RiceBran-Technologies-launches-novel-rice-bran-protein-range
Couple of compelling quotes:
-Other ingredients to follow at a later date are likely to include more concentrated protein concentrates and isolates.
-Other rice protein ingredients are derived from white rice endosperm or from germinating rice seeds. But we are the first to produce protein from rice bran.
This was SIX years ago....that's a "truckload" of experience with these products.
BYND has to be sniffing around, no question about it.
Rice bran protein (RBP) was prepared by alkali extraction and isoelectric precipitation from defatted rice bran. The protein quality of RPB was evaluated and compared to two vegetable proteins [soy protein (ISP) and rice endosperm protein (REP)] and two animal proteins [whey protein (WPI) and casein]. RPB contained 74.93% of protein and its pepsin digestibility and KOH solubility were 89.8% and 91.5%, respectively. In Sprague-Dawley rats, RBP showed protein efficiency ratio, net protein ratio, net protein utilisation, and biological value of 2.39, 3.77, 70.7, and 72.6, which were comparable to the qualities of animal proteins. The true digestibility of RBP (94.8%) was significantly higher than that of REP (90.8%), ISP (91.7%) and WPI (92.8%) and the same as that of casein. Protein digestibility corrected amino acid score (PDCAAS) of RBP was 0.90. These results suggest that rice bran protein appears to be a promising protein source with good biological values and digestibility.
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Here are some stream of consciousness thoughts about this weak showing..
What happened to seeing "strong momentum" in the first quarter and then their increase in revenue coming mostly from the rice mill and bran growth being in the single digits? They were headlong into the first quarter when they communicated on year end and completely BS all of us with their big set up, and then rug pull....I'm feeling a bit like Charlie Brown kicking the football..
They keep chipping away at their own credibility and sounding more and more like a JS and BE with their missed projections and then making up for it by promising bigger and better things if you just wait a little longer.
What kind of due diligence did they do on Golden Ridge? Seriously...did they even spend any time there? That was shocking to see they had negative margins and the product quality was suspect? SQF Certification? Really?
Positive EBITDA projection went from 1st to 2nd qtr, to mid year, and now end of the year..watch that can get kicked down the road further and further. More BE and JS antics.
The last question from the gracious elderly gentleman about this TOP SECRET product was a legitimate one, and I appreciate his wanting the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow like any of us would with any company but particularly this one with its history.
This new miracle ingredient to me is just some carrot dangled in front of us to keep our attention and our pockets in this stock while they figure things out. I'm not saying it doesn't exist and the demand isn't there. In my totally uninformed opinion but I feel they had no need divulge this pie in the sky thing but did out of desperation to massage and mitigate their miscues and mishaps and keep hope alive..
For any of you old timers it's more of the "if we build it they will come" routine...this has been ongoing for years and years...
Will stick around for Q1 results based on the following statement from the CC:
"Sales momentum for our stabilized rice bran and derivative products has remained strong into 2019."
They have two screw ups already where they blew it, and IT MATTERS.
On their Nov conference call...
We expect fourth quarter EBITDA to improve modestly from third quarter levels.They BLEW this big time. Seriously, this is smoking crack level.
How they hell can you be off by over 50% when you have < 60 days left in a quarter.
12/30/18 9/30/18
Earnings Before Interest and Taxes -2,481 -1,665
The other screw up is minor but they raised guidance from 14M to 15M to 14.5 M to 15.5 M with the addition of the rice mill. Well revenue came in at 14.76 M less the .9 M contribution from the mill, and you get down to 13.86 M. A miss is a miss, and had this been a more largely followed stock it would have gotten punished.
Going back to my first remark about sales momentum being strong..
If I don't see sales at least even with the first quarter and margin/EBITDA improvement, I'm not necessarily leaving but going on the sidelines and am willing to pay a higher price for substance.
Fool me once (BE), fool me twice (JS) fool me three times (I'm the village idiot).
Good day.
Hunk, the eternal optimist. All I can tell you is that this used to be a $500 million dollar company when the stock peaked on hype and bluster 10 years ago, but it did do it.
Now, it is a much more sober place with CG money supporting it and a rice mill (not a wheat mill) as the backbone to their business.
Can lightning strike twice and you get your $20 a share and a $500 million market cap? Stay tuned......
Sounds like a great story, but it wasn't me.
I was the one that received the press release tie up with ADM before the news became public. I asked their IR a simple question and they sent me that.
I do bass. Nice to "see you" again. I enjoyed reading your posts back in the day. Hope you had a good Christmas.