Reposting my post from this morning because I actually want someone experienced to react to this finding:
In 2016 CEO Alex Umbra authorized a 2 million $ share buyback over a 24 month period. At these prices that’s over the entire float that UAT can buy back. Even if he spent it all over 1 penny, it’s enough to purchase 200 million shares.
If some more experienced people can look into this, the most recent financials shows that just about exactly that number, 200+ million common shares are owned by an entity called Cede and Co.
According to Wikipedia that is not a private entity, but was rather formed “for the purpose of efficiently processing transfers of stock certificates on behalf of Depository Trust Company,[2] the central securities depositary used by the United States National Market System, which includes the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq, and other exchanges together with associated clearinghouses such as NSCC, FICC, DTCC, and others. Cede technically owns substantially all of the publicly issued stock in the United States.[3] Thus, investors do not themselves hold direct property rights in stock, but rather have contractual rights that are part of a chain of contractual rights involving Cede.[4]”.
More suggestively,
“One reason Cede is structured as a partnership is that each general partner can order transfers of stock registered in the name of the partnership without the need of presenting a separate corporate resolution to the stock issuer's transfer agent or stock registrar to validate the authority of the transfer.”
If I’m reading that correctly, Cede and Co. owning 200 million common shares is not the end of the story. Cede is a centralized body involved in stock exchanges; it doesn’t really hold stock of anything. My hunch is that those shares are shown as being held by Cede in lieu of the company as part of the buyback. What other reason could there be for showing Cede and Co. as owning shares on the balance sheet?
Don’t believe me? In the quarterly report on July 25, 2017, Cede owned 53 million shares - 28% at the time. Based on the most recent report, Cede now owns 200 million shares - 60% of OS. Cede’s share is growing over time — and it may be growing as the company buys back.
If I’m right we could be seeing a 200+ million share reduction here, and that certainly fits in with CEO’s stated goal of uplisting to OTCQX and beyond. Based off the 2,000,000$ figure announced in 2016, that buyback could still be ongoing, allowing even more shares to be cancelled. Here’s another key point from the buyback PR: “share repurchases will be made periodically ... or in privately negotiated transactions.” CEO did recently say they restructured debt and cleaned up the balance sheet.
Big partnership and contract announcements —> 50% share reduction —> uplist —> ???
