Hemp Inc (HEMP)

[Det_Robert_Thorne]

Marijuana nearly irrelevant to HEMP. Look at economics.

Discussing legality of marijuana is pointless when it comes to industrial hemp, which is the business that HEMP says it's in. The economics of the fiber business, relative to the stock price, doesn't make much sense.

If industrial hemp were legal in NC today, then the plant could only handle a maximum of about 30M pounds a year of dried stalks, per Perlowin. That's about 3000 acres worth of hemp.

That's the maximum capacity of the plant working 3 shifts, 310 days a year (in the video, when Perlowin and the plant manager were discussing the operation of the plant, they said no work on Sunday).

That's about 15,000 tons/year, which might generate a net profit before taxes of $1.7M/year. Let's call it $2M. With 3B shares outstanding, that's an EPS of less than $0.0007/share. The current stock price is 50X that.

That's as much as the plant will ever do, because by then, it would be at capacity. If Perlowin wants to process more hemp, then he'll have to build another plant, but instead of costing $3M - $4M because he bought the equipment and land at auction, it will cost at least $15M (in the PR, Perlowin says $20M to duplicate). And that only adds capacity for another 3000 acres.

If industrial hemp is legalized across the U.S.A, then it will become a commodity business, with low profit margins.

It won't matter that in 2014 you had the largest decorticator plant in the U.S. if it can only handle 3,000 acres of hemp. Other plants will be built, and they will be bigger.

Sure they will cost more, but they will be built by companies with better financial backing, where a $20M capital equipment outlay is "mouse nuts" for them.

HEMP's stock is priced as if the decorticator is making $10M - $12M per year, NOW, when it won't be profitable until next year, and even then, will generate a maximum of $2M/year in profits, because it's not capable of more without major expansion.