Stopped by Chariot today.
Spoke to Ken McCleave as I have not been able to contact Dan since 1/1/07. Apparently, Dan has been pretty sick the last couple of weeks. Ken thinks it might be pneumonia, he says Dan says it's the flu. Ken hadn't heard from him since last Friday, he says Dan usually responds pretty quick to e-mails (even on the weekend), but must not have turned on the computer this weekend.
The more I talk to Ken, the more I feel that Chariot's success has hinged on Amour Fiber Core (AFGP), or at least that has always been the backup plan if Dan couldn't get Chariot financing on his terms (which has hasn't been able to do). Although many investors don't have the patience/confidence, these guys apparently do, they are intent on not destroying shareholder value by massive dilution to finance. Chariot has plans for two dealerships, one in Pennsylvania and one in Las Vegas (tha Las Vegas one would serve the CA customers right now). Financing is still needed (obviously) to build the inventory to stock these dealerships. I only saw a few workers on the property so trailer production is still slow, IMO.
As far as the manufacturing deal, Ken says he believes it's still in play and that contracts are being exchanged, updated, exchanged, updated, etc. He has not spoken to Dan for a few days but the deal was still on last week as far as he knew.
They are real close to filing the Form 10 for AFGP, it's had to be revised several times as Ken learns to write things for the SEC that won't get him into trouble. LOL! AFGP would start trading ~60 days after the filing. Ken showed me some small samples of what Amour made and spoke of the potential products as well as a bunch of connected things that will be happening that would get AFGP the necessary financing. Some of that financing could possibly trickle down to Chariot. AFGP has a couple of opportunities lined up to license the process and the first revenue generating phase will be material collection. AFGP will receive licensing fees for both the collection of materials and use of the recycling process. There are two separate patents, one to recycle and one to produce products from the recycled materials. Those patents are due to expire in 2015. Ken told me that during the ~10 shareholder meetings he had in Seattle with Amour shareholders, one constant was that the shareholders felt that Amour was too much an inventor and didn't focus enough on building product for revenue, he'd always tinker with new suggestions or products. Ken plans to focus on producing useable materials for revenue, based on the exisitng core products, to get the business going. He also said Amour had some product ideas he designed and tested but were never sold, they have the research/plans for that stuff for later down the road. Approximately ~$5M of R&D has gone into Amour, yet the debt being taken over is less than six figures.
From what I see, Ken is working his a s s off to help pull all of this together, even though we haven't heard anything publicly. I assume Dan is doing the same, but it's hard to tell with the lack of communication. I don't see anything here that is telling me "sell" yet, even if the manufacturing deal doesn't go through. I think how AFGP progresses will determine AACS'/Chariot's fate.
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