So how much were you compensated and in what form? We were paid $5,000 in cash. Of course we disclosed in the report that we were compensated. We did not disclose the amount because it is such a nominal sum in relation to what we normally generate from a recommendation. Basically the company covered our expenses in writing the report - they certainly did not cover the amount of time spent to research the stock and the markets in which it participates. We did not bill them for all the time required because as we conducted the research we decided to move the company into our traditional stock universe and to no longer maintain an "IR" function or accept any further fees or compensation in any form from NNRF.
Why is it that the people who are "recommending" this stock feel it is unneccesary to fully diclose their relationship with this company? I did disclose my relationship with the company.
Was that your decision or did that decision come from NNRF? I don't know what decision you refer to. Obviously in accepting money from the company to write the report we decided to accept money from the company to conduct research and write a report. Because we liked what we saw in conducting the research on the company, we decided to treat the report as a traditional recommendation. It was solely our decision to recommend the stock as a "Speculative Buy" (high risk) to our institutional-only customer base. We were not paid for a rating, we were paid for a report. You'll note that the report that is up on the StockTiger site has no rating on it. That is the report provided to the company. The report that went out to our client base had a rating. The company did not ask us or compensate us to do this, we informed them of our decision to do it. Our institutional-only client base is aware that the initial reason for conducting the research was the Investor Relations function payment from the company. They don't care. They use our research as a basis to determine whether or not they want to pursue their own research on a potential investment.
Were you hired by the Investor Relations firm or directly by someone at NNRF? We were hired by NNRF, which is no longer as a client as explained above. We retain our "Speculative Buy" rating on the stock and will continue to research/publish reports on the company as we would any other company in our published universe.
I'm sure most people who buy otc type stocks realize that these companies are in this market to raise working capital. That is the primary function of equity or bond markets whether, OTC, NYSE or AMEX (or any foreign exchanges for that matter) - for companies to raise money to fund growth. I personally prefer to invest in companies that come public because they want to raise money for growth - as opposed to companies that come public so the initial investors can sell their equity ownership.
So why not just come out up front and state the facts? The less you disclose, the more crooked this looks. I did state the facts, that's why we're having this "discussion." Had I not disclosed the fact that we were paid for the research (and as our firm is not a broker dealer, we are not required to by law), no one would be asking these questions.
My number and contact information is on the report. My name is Laurie D. Goldstein. I am a Chartered Financial Analyst. My phone number and my e-mail are published in the report. As it states in the report, people may contact us for further information.
I would guess that you are short the stock. Are you willing to disclose your name, contact information and motivations?
Laurie
AI
