Verus International Inc (VRUS)

[Nestegg McMuffin]

$VRUS 2.5 YEAR TIME LINE (Aug 4 edition)

Here it is, back from the summer break. Your handy recap of how Verus International has transformed itself into one of the fastest growing stocks on the OTC, oops, sorry, QB.

Jan 2017
Anshu Bhatnagar takes over as CEO of Rbiz.
Begins transforming moribund real estate company into global food distributor building on his success at American Agro Group.

Hires MKR and Mark Forney as IR, who took eGain to Nasdaq.

December 2017
Company settles year-long legal fight with old Rbiz management so new incarnation can run free. (No mean feat.)
Monaker chief Don Monaco personally backs Anshu. “I believe in Verus Foods’ business model and want to help the company begin its growth phase.”

July 2018
FINRA approves Rbiz spin-off into Nestbuilder.
Vrus revenue for first half of 2018 is $2.24 million, a 102% increase over first half of 2017.
Anshu’s global contacts in food biz paying off already.

August 2018
Verus name change. Not quite the lift-off some predicted, but longs sit tight as Investors Presentation is released.

Sept 2018
Company posts a 77% increase in sales for the first nine months of 2018

Winter 2018
IR Mark Forney manages expectations as company enters self-announced “quiet period”…
Shares go as low as .0019. Smart longs buy all they can. Bitter bashers with no patience, not so much.

Feb 2019
Vrus gets $1.45 million in funding from Cronos whale Andrew Garnock, which retires toxic notes from four creditors
Monaker and Don Monaco and Rick Berdon all stay invested (you bet they did).

Garnock’s unveiling as angel investor is the game-changer. Turns out he bought his first shares in the Rbiz days of Vrus. He reached out to IR and was connected to Anshu. He is exactly the kind of “special investor” turnaround growth plays like Vrus dream of. Not afraid of a company going through a lean period while it reconfigures itself.

$10 million honey deal announced for Europe and Middle East
Verus to offer 20-30 different SKUs.

March 2019
$4 million rice deal annually for Dubai market.
Anshu: “This is exactly the kind of contract that we believe we can replicate many times over.”

Vrus announces annual sales of $5.8 million for fiscal 2018, 101% increase over 2017.
Quarterly sales set to grow in excess of 100% year over year.

Revenue hits all-time high of $2.4 million in Q1/19, 145% increase from prev. year’s Q1.
Largest funded backlog in Company history – $24 million for delivery over the next 12 months.
Six months earlier Anshu had said he expected Vrus to reach $20M in orders.

April 2019
Monaker on its conference call says its staying invested in Vrus: The company is "doing well" and they expect to “recover several millions of dollars” from their original Rbiz investment.

Easter 2019
Anshu tweets about “new beginnings” for Spring, and lo and behold --

April 26, 2019
Announces first M&A deal with Big League Foods to sell Major League Baseball-branded frozen dessert products and confections in 2500 stores.
The license covers all 30 MLB teams. It's a turnkey op that will generate revenue very quickly.

May 2019
* Secures $600k in funding for baseball gelato production from GS Capital on impressively favorable terms.
Big League President James Wheeler joins Maryland operation to run ice-cream subsidiary. Already busy with Anshu setting up production. (Moving fast, folks.)

* New designs for MLB ice cream unveiled — and plans for MLB candy.

* Distribution announced for 2500 stores including 7-11s, BP, Chevron, Shell, etc. First footprint into the US market. Humungo.

* Uplist to OTCQB submitted after share price stays above .01 for a month.

* Andrew Garnock adds $500k to his investment by buying 41m shares -- at market!

June 2019
Award-winning CPA Chris Cutchens appointed fulltime CFO. “Anshu’s entrepreneurial spirt and the potential size of this opportunity were both very appealing. I am excited to be part of a true growth story at such an early stage.” (You and me both, pal.)
His deal includes shares vesting over three years, which shows real long-term faith in the company.

S-1 filed confirming Andrew Garnock’s involvement as “lead investor”. He and his company ARJ Consulting now own 25.2%, with warrant to add 500mil more shares and put another $1.25m into the company.
CEO Anshu Bhatnagar said: “We look on our business as a multi-year growth story, so this latest investment shows Andrew Garnock’s commitment to that vision.”
Also confirms Monaker Group increased their share count from 10m to 152m.
Berdon Ventures also increased their share count by 10%, so Institutional Investors and insiders now own approx. 40% of the stock. A huge statement of confidence in the company.

Q2 released.
Revenue hits new company high of $2.9 million — 153% increase over previous Q2.
Third straight Q increase in a row.

Price hits new high of year of .0373

Verus resumes Conference Call.

First packet design of Yankees gummy worms unveiled. Smart design, same as the ice cream tubs. Why? Because the name of the TEAM is the biggest thing you see. Sports fans = best brand loyalty around.

July
$605,000 note secured from Eagle Equities -- fixed-rate for one year, convertible at no less than $0.10 per share. Money goes straight into ice-cream production et al.
Increases funded backlog to $38+ million in annual sales.
“Verus is projecting rapid growth during the second half of 2019 in three major markets: the U.S., Europe and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.”

First photos of ice cream rolling off the production line. “Our baby is born.” Same manufacturer as “other big-name brands”.

Uplist to OTCQB confirmed
Took more than six weeks, but no paperwork problems. (The same can NOT be said for Etrade, but let’s not go there.)
About 900 companies trade on the QB as opposed to about 10,000 on the OTC. It’s like upgrading to premium economy and leaving the steerage hell of Swamp Airlines behind… Except take off is still massively turbulent.
PPS beaten down to .02s. Profit-taking, weak hands, coordinated bear raids, Clay-mation swarm, coordinated bashing campaigns – the usual OTC stew of manipulated trading that true longs have learned to ride out.

Get to know your fundamentals, folks. Starting with this:

New Investors Deck https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/703a12_6f05eae4b09142bfb6c1745af8978148.pdf
Well worth a look. Shows the scale of ambition here.
Reveals plans to enter South American, European and Asian markets.
Says commercial bank credit line is “pending” and sure enough, one week later…

August 1
$500,000 revolving line of credit (“LOC”) confirmed with The Columbia Bank. Big step forward. Verus can now fund even more of its back orders.

Anshu does interview with Indian television about new projects. Channel Verus. It's not TV, it's CEO.

Aug 4
First fan photos appear of MLB candy in 7-11 stores in New Jersey. (Hat tip to JK88 and Oleg.) Prices are cheaper than the competition. “Almost sold out.”

Ice cream and candy being distributed initially in four key baseball markets: Chicago, New York, Boston and Phillie, but target is to expand to the other 26 teams/cities. In other words:

Where there’s a team, there’s a tub.

Lots of national retail chains also “very interested” to see finish MLB product. Walmat, CostCo, Safeway, Target, Albertsons — all carry MLB product already and many have MLB fan pages on their web sites. So MLB ice cream only has to follow in a well established path.

(First Vrus shareholder to post a selfie with an MLB tub wins Long of the Year award and an ascot from me. Not joking.)
S1-a filed bringing investor share registration up to date. Some concern the wording implies a sell-off, but IR confirms:

“There is no insider selling, no new shares being issued, and all of the selling is normal trading.”

William Kerby of Monaker actually elects to take his bonus payment in the form of Verus shares. As Mark Forney puts it: “Investors have not seen even 1/3 of the game plan yet.”

Verus is now 4th fastest growing company in the CPG space.

Guidance is for “triple digit growth over the next SIX few quarters”.

Q3 set for mid-September…

Happy investing,
Nest




OBLIGATORY FINANCIAL DISCLAIMER
All of the above is strictly my own opinion.
I am demonstratively a good karma long and I endeavor to share accurate information (and always happy to correct mistakes), but I am not a professional adviser of any kind.
Please be sure to do your own due diligence before investing in anything -- especially in the OTC.
- Nestegg McMuffin


PS I recommend you download twitter app. Free to join and easy to use. You can use your same handle from iHub, etc. Lots of posts, photos, and info from solid longs, plus official Verus Foods feed. Just search for $VRUS.