Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
It would seem that all has gone very quiet on the Valcent front? Does anybody know what is going on? Valcent.net website no longer there apparently and Valcent.eu would seem to be equally inactive with no new news. Is this one finally dead in the water?
Good on you Provocateur! Bring it on and show the REAL facts about Valcent, not the shareholder hype and nonsense. I watch with interest and look forward to having our information verified.
Perhaps then people will see the Valcent Inc management for what they really are.
One other comment....
Take a look at the remote webcam at Paignton Zoo....you will see wonderful footage of ...... meercats, tigers and rhino!
The camera feed from the VertiCrop has long been unavailable.
Perhaps this in another situation where the company providing the service to Valcent EU is one of the apparent dissatisfied creditors along with the apparently unpaid staff and unpaid redundancy as mentioned by previous postings to this forum?
One would think that the Valcent Inc management would be fully aware of the position of their wholly owned subsidiary company in the UK before making reference to them on a broadcast!
Fane clearly has only a very limited understanding or appreciation of what the VertiCrop is or how it operates and an even lower realisation of how important the pioneering work undertaken by Paignton Zoo has been in gaining credibility for the VertiCrop and publicity for Valcent.
He appreared as unprepared, unscripted and amateurish which as the CEO of Valcent, should not have happened. One would think that the mdeia people advising Valcent would have learned the lessons from Fane's disasterous performance during the Vertical Farming Webinar earlier in the year.
Any professional undertaking a similar presentation would have been practised until they were word perfect and able to put across the crtical points within the 90 seconds allocated and been capable of addressing all questions raised. It is no wonder that Valcent struggle to find serious investment funding when they are led by such a person!
Fane's performance reflects badly on the emerging vertical growing and urban farming industry and one can only hope that he is not seen as a serious representative of this developing and expanding sector. We all know that others in the industry present a professional and polished, credible overview, of an industry that is becoming increasingly important on the world stage. Serious investors need to be aware that there are companies out there who are serious about urban food production and can deliver what is promised.
It is clear that Valcent do not have credible answers for the vertical growing sector and hopefully, serious investors will see this and not waste more investment in a business that would seem unable to deliver anything.
The Valcent opertions in the UK are apparently virtually shut down with the personnel either resigned, fired or made reduntant. David Dicks was removed from the Management Team on the Valcent EU website some time ago and has not been replaced.
Perhaps the people now leading the company are not much better that those they replaced and are keeping their own money in their pockets whilst trying to get gullible investors to part with theirs? Is it not time to put up or shut up?
You have hit the nail squarely on the head when you suggest that the objective of Valcent is to hype up the share price, make a few cents per share and wait for it to fall again - history repeats itself again and again.
We investors have been taken for a ride and for me, it is the end of the journey.
Take a look at http://www.valcent.eu/managementTeam.html and you will see that my earlier statement is also factual. Valcent need to get their act together and make sure that their websites are accurate or at least telling the same stories.
Why not simply ask Valcent to respond to the claims made by various posters to this board and let them state that these are factually incorrect. Certain matters are in the public domain or are registered with the various authorities and can be readily verified, others may well be speculation.
Speculation can be readily addressed by Valcent which would allow investors to make decisions based on facts as posted by the company - or are they likely to issue yet more inaccurate "press releases" that later prove to be false.
Hard facts cannot be argued against but that is the issue here - no hard facts or statements from Valcent.
Valcent need to be asked what they will actually deliver should an order ever materialise. Perhaps the Institute B tour included much smoke and mirrors? I suggest that if anyone cares to visit the offices of Valcent in the UK, they will probably fail to gain access given that everybody has left the building, turned off the lights and locked the doors. It should also be noted that Bradford is still shown as Managing Director of Valcent Products (EU) Limited AND President and CEO of Valcent Products Inc. When there are questions regarding the capabilities of the Valcent team in the UK, then this has been led by Bradford since the start so any reflection on his abilities to operate a business clearly applies to the parent company as well, given his position in both. Perhaps this will be realised when the reported court actions begin and directors are held responsible for their actions (or inactions). It is simply not allowed to make people redundant and not pay them what is due. Likewise, ex-employees presumably had contracts of employment which are breached by non payment of salaries when due. And Valcent Inc announced today that Fane is touting for more gullible investors to further throw cash into the pot! That has got to be bordering on misrepresentation or even fraud. But, hey, what do I know - I am just one of those gullible investors who lost money by backing Valcent!
In the event that a UK is knowingly continuing to trade when it is technically insolvent, it is my understanding that the directors can then held to be personally responsible and liable to investigation and action by through the UK courts. All potentially very serious for those involved and not a good sign for investors, both existing and prospective. Whilst the management of Valcent Inc in Canada may be distant from events in the UK, they must definitley be held to account for their actions given that Valcent Products (EU) Limited is apparently 100% owned by Valcent Inc.
And where does this situation leave the "major UK food processor" who has apparently committed funding to Valcent Products (EU) Limited for a system? Are they even aware of the situation of Valcent in the UK?
All in all, a sad state of affairs for Valcent and their investors given all of the hopes and aspirations presented since Fane and Co took over the helm. As others have said, so many questions and so few answers! We deserve better.
All it takes is one or more unsatisfied creditors to seek a winding up order from the Courts and this remains outstanding beyond the due date, then it is game over for Valcent Products (eu) Limited. Likewise, if HM Revenue & Customs are owed monies for income tax, VAT, etc, then they can take a similar course of actions to force the company to cease trading. Given that redundant employees are apparently owed monies, Valcent are sliding down the short but slippery slope to administration and forced closure. Not very encouraging for the long suffering investors given all the hype over the last 6 months. Perhaps even a hint of illegal trading?
Give me a reason to be excited about Valcent! Despite all of the hype, we have yet to deliver a single order to the table.
The Pagic and Kertz patent issues are old news. If they were not applicable to what Valent are doing then why have they paid over lots of money in the last few years to retain the rights to the product? The system that Kertz developed bears no resemblence to the system installed at Paignton Zoo in the UK and it is this that has been touted as the product that will make the profits for Valcent.
Look back over the filed accounts to see what has been paid to Pagic et al for what would seem to be nothing of value given the latest news from Valcent.
Was there ever any response to your "scathing inquiry" to the company? Or was it "just a sign of yet another CEO not knowing jack-shiat about how to communicate with the public"?
Believe me, I want to have a reason the be excited about Valcent and I want my shares to generate a return but there is ZERO evidence to give me the necessary confidence that I made the correct investment.
And what is the impact of this announcement on sales of the VertiCrop? I see nothing to get excited about and it does nothing to explain why Valcent have been silent for so long.
What has happened since the announcement of the contract with a leading UK and European Food Processor? Any progress to report?
Perhaps there is nobody left to announce anything or maybe just smoke and mirrors again?
Shareholders in Valcent deserve to know more from the leadership of the company.
It would seem that some people choose not to see the obvious!
Whilst you may not be concerned about the remuneration of the officers of the company, it DOES raise questions to me when a significant bonus is paid given the non existent sales of the company.
It is absolutley not conjecture regarding the people who are no longer with Valcent and there has been other discussion threads that are directly related to this subject by others here.
As for the rest of your response....you may think it to be "crazy, baseless crap" but I can only go by what I see and what I can collate from the public domain and forums like this. I would be delighted for you to prove me wrong and show me the sales. The company has repeatedly made announcements that have later proven to be optimisitic at best and downright false at worst. Take at look through the historic "press releases" for the evidence on public record.
Yes, I am negative given the history of Valcent to date. When there is something positive to report, then I will be the first to issue compliments. Until such time, I will remain watching as a concerned but powerless shareholder from the sidelines.
I accept that many scenarios are possible and that there are several ways of interpreting the limited information available so I could well be completely wrong. Time will tell.
In response to your posting:
1.) Bradford may well have been the leader that kept the company alive through the financial collapse of recent years BUT surely, reward should be given for success, not failure. What has the company achieved to date that warrants a bonus compensation?
What is left in the England offices of Valcent to undertake ANY research given the resignation of key personnel mid 2010 and the redundancies of others more recently?
2.) I was simply stating the facts as they are presented in the public domain. VertiCrop has so far failed to attract a single buyer which led me to wonder if the product actually had any commercial value. When the product in the format presented was commercially viable, then surely there would have been buyers for it by now? Perhaps the product is simply not of interest to serious commercial entities and the system as installed at Paignton Zoo is a one off. There is no doubt that as the world's first vertical growing system, the Paignton Zoo VertiCrop generated tremendous interest and excitement (and still does) but since then, nothing has developed or changed. As the very first installation, one would expect that the system would be tweaked and upgraded as new lessons were learned. I suspect that others have watched and learned and have now overtaken Valcent in the development of commercially viable vertical growing systems. And the lack of ANY sale of a VertiCrop system to date would seem to indicate that the company does NOT have a real product to meet the demands of the new farming industry. Sad but probably true.
3.) As one of what would seem to be a small group of shareholders, I am keen to flush out some answers to the many questions posted on this forum in order to justify my continued investment in Valcent. Unless answers are forthcoming or sales are announced, then one can only assume that we do not have a legitimate product which given the value of funds invested to date, must be bordering on gross negilgence and incompetence. Any business is only as good as the personnel that take it forwards and it would seem that Valcent have plenty of chiefs but very few qualified people to make things happen.
Sorry to come across negatively, but one can only make a calculated appraisal based on the information available and it would seem to be nigh on impossible to garner any response from Valcent or Institute B to inspire the confidence of their loyal investors. Or perhaps I am the naive one here?
If Valcent EU are so "pathetic", "old" and "ineffective", then can somebody explain why Bradford was paid a bonus of C$126,000 and given a further C$300,000 in stock options?
http://investing.businessweek.com/businessweek/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=60446662&ticker=VCTZF:US&previousCapId=54743747&previousTitle=valcent%20products%20(eu)%20limited
Fane, Ng and Institute B may well be "leading the marketing and sales" based in Canada but what do they have to sell? A product that has so far failed to attract a single, real commercial buyer so far?
Perhaps Fane, Ng and Co should have paid more attention to the UK team that actually successfully delivered the worlds first vertical growing system at Paignton Zoo in the UK.
Shareholders deserve better from the company that has mamaged to waste so much of their invested funds and yet actually delivered nothing to date. Valcent management - wake up and manage!
Three key personnel at Valcent EU RESIGNED mid 2010. They were not fired by Valcent. Recent redundancies were initiated by Valcent for reasons only known by the Valcent management and the individuals concerned.
People close to the vertical growing industry know exactly why these events happened so there is no need for speculation.
This is a small industry worldwide and people freely exchange information about systems and the key players all know each other.
Serious questions need to be asked to the Valcent management to confirm the real status of the business to concerned shareholders. What is happening with the project for the "major UK food producer"? Or any progress with the sale of a system? Surely there must be something to report that could give confidence? Or maybe not.
Perhaps it is now game over at the Valcent ballpark and time to cut losses and move on?
Apparently, Dan Caiger-Smith and others have been made redundant and are leaving or have already left the company. There cannot be many left now.
It would seem that all is not quite as it appears at Valcent and that longed for sale of a system will remain a fantasy.
Last one to leave the building, please put the lights off!
If one compares the Valcent published brochure from mid 2010 with the current version, the Management Team is now missing several key people who were presumably involved with the design, development and installation of what is currently the ONLY installed and operational VertiCrop at Paignton Zoo. Other published articles state that these now missing people were largely responsible for the Paignton Zoo VertiCrop system.
It may well be that new people are now on board with the necessary skills.
As an interested observer and investor these skill sets appear to be missing in the Valcent organisation. Do your own research to verify this as I have been doing for the past few years.
The vertical growing industry is a still a relatively small community globally and the people involved DO talk to each other. Whilst this "chatter" may not be based on the actual facts as they relate to specific businesses, it would be remiss of interested parties not to be aware of the general comments. After all, the world of the small investor thrives on the "hot gossip" that buzzes around the various players as can be observed on this and other boards.
I am simply a person looking to protect my investments in green technology and to identify the companies that are best placed to deliver positive returns with calculated or managed risks.
As always, so many questions and so few answers.
The video footage certainly shows that the system as presented can grow plants and that the output is suitable for feeding to animals, hopefully including the human species. What this is not is a "commercial" food production system despite all of the hype.
It would seem that the design team "who know their job" are no longer with Valcent. These people "disappeared" from the Valcent Management Team as shown on their website sometime in the middle of 2010. I wonder why? So much for the new CEO making sure he has the design team on board.
Whilst the VertiCrop system has brought vertical growing from the dream phase to reality, there remains much to be done before the system will be ready for the real "commercial" growers who will be the ones to meet the massive demand for clean, fresh food to feed the ever rising world population.
In the meantime, other companies have systems already in the commercial world actually producing food crops while Valcent scramble around creating PR hype.
Perhaps this is not a major investment for me at this time but I will continue to retain my stake in this and other similar businesses and see how the vertical food production scene develops. Unquestionably, there will be winners and loosers along the way. Vertical food production is one of the solutions to produce food effectively and efficiently and this will require very serious investment to make it happen. Myself and other like minded people will be a part of this new revolution.
My point was that the past history of Press Releases does not reflect well for a publicly traded company. The Hong Kong deal remains on the Valcent website but the filed accounts clearly state that this deal never materialized.
Even the more recent issuances would seem to be somewhat vague and open to interpretation. When the current CEO was in place as an advisor to the company since April, then why the inaccurate press releases? And when the same guy is now the CEO why should anything be different?
If the company did not have the finances to close sales then where has all the investors money gone in recent years? So many questions remain unanswered.
I agree that we should judge the company based on current words and actions of those responsible but it is strange how history tends to repeat itself.
I for one will remain VERY cautious until such time as the actions justify a different approach.
Also note the Valcent Products Inc., Press Release dated March 23, 2010 (copied from Valcent website below) which stated that they had would be installing the first AlphaCrop at a UK college which would also appear to have been somewhat premature as nothing has been posted since. Was this unit ever installed? And what about the deal with Ikon International? Any sales made yet or was this also hype?
(Marketwire -March 23, 2010) Valcent Products, www.valcent.net, today announces that the first prototype of the new AlphaCropTM vertical growing system has been delivered and is operational at the Company's facilities in Cornwall, England. AlphaCropTM complements the well established VertiCropTM system and is specially designed for smaller commercial growers and amateur growers looking for smaller but still highly cost effective compact units which demonstrate their commitment to growing fresh produce and reducing food miles.
"This premier unit has been designed to enable root crops such as baby carrots and salad potatoes to be grown, as well as fruit crops including strawberries," says Chris Bradford, President and CEO of Valcent Products. "Plant trials with a variety of crops will commence shortly, and it is expected that AlphaCropTM units will complement the production of leaf crops from the Company's larger VertiCropTM system. AlphaCropTM will eventually be manufactured in three different sizes to suit a wide range of grower requirements."
"So far the performance of the prototype has met all our requirements" says Bradford "and within a few days the second prototype will be delivered which has been designed specifically for the keen amateur gardener and hobby grower. AlphaCropTM can be adapted to a variety of growing methods, employing a hydroponics system or using conventional growing media such as compost, to meet organic standards if required.
Together with the company's early success with the prototype comes the news that Launceston College will become the first academic institute in the world to use a vertical growing system both as an educational facility and also to provide fresh produce for their students. Launceston College has recently been re-designated as a specialist technology center preparing students for science courses at University. The College will take delivery of the first commercial AlphaCropTM unit off the production line which will be used by the Applied Sciences department to introduce students to the concept of vertical farming, and by students in the Hospitality diploma course supplying fresh vegetables for their catering unit.
"We are really excited about the prospect of working with this ground breaking technology," said Claire Penfold, the College's Deputy Principal "We already have a close working relationship with Valcent Products who are our neighbors in Launceston, and our students visit their research facilities on a regular basis. When we heard about the AlphaCropTM development, we recognized immediately that it could play a key role in providing a practical demonstration of this new technology in a learning environment, and we will be working closely with the Valcent team to explore its full potential."
AlphaCropTM will be distributed throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland by Ikon International, who will be displaying the "hobby grower" version of the prototype on their stand at GROW 2010, the International Hydroponics Exhibition to be held in Manchester on 27th - 28th March.
AlphaCropTM will also be distributed through Em-Link LLC, the Boston based Master Distributor for Valcent products in the United States, who have already secured significant interest for the company's VertiCropTM system in a number of major US cities.
According to the historic press releases from Valcent Products Inc., they have already made a sale (see below). It would seem that this release we somewhat premature as the VFI deal was later cancelled. Perhaps the press releases have are not to be believed? Personally, I would tread very carefully and ask some searching questions to the Valcent management.
Publication date: 6/22/2010
”Chris Bradford, President and CEO of Valcent Products stated, "We are delighted to announce our first commercial agreement for sale of a VertiCrop system, particularly as Hong Kong will provide us with a gateway into one of the largest markets in the world. In our discussions with the VFI management team over the past few months we have become firmly convinced that we have found a partner fully capable of working with us to carry this major international project forward."
Further to recent Valcent Press Releases, does anyone know if they have ACTUALLY sold a complete Verticrop unit to the "major UK Food Processor"? This makes a material difference to the impact on revenue generation for the company.