There are a billion reasons to hold a SM. Maybe two billion. The first being that because Expo is such a small company and a thinly traded, largely unknown stock, the attendance is almost 100% guaranteed to be 1) small, 2) management friendly, 3) willing to hear and regurgitate even the most devastating news involving further dilution, totally blown guidance numbers, lack of Form 3/4 filings and no financial filing release date as "positive" news on the internet. The company simply cannot lose with the base they are going to attract. The second being that no matter what they say or do, they know with this audience, it is going to be spun positive for them. They can roll out the new CEO to cover the larger portion of the meeting and have them field all the hardball questions (if there are any). That way the CEO can look over their shoulder at Brown and Harrs (who will shrug) and turn back around and say, "Leave your name and email address with Mary Lou in the main office and I'll look into that carefully get back to you with an answer in a day or two."
The financials won't likely come into question because it doesn't look as if there won't be any: "...we're still putting the final touches on the whosits PinkSheets transmitter machine.". The Form 3/4s same deal..."...we're working on them.". Dilution? "We don't anticipate any further dilution at this time.... (there will be two possible endings to the first part of this BS answer). The first ending if they intend to roll out another billion shares almost immediately will be "... but we won't rule it out in the event that product demand and sales backlogs make it necessary" and the second ending if they don't plan to dilute for another 4-6 months "...as we have ample operating capital available through our Crestmark credit facility for now". Then again, maybe they will release the 3Q, 4Q 2009 info because they figure no matter how bad it is, the audience they attracted will just shrug it off as ancient history.
I am certain that every slight possibility they have ever encountered over the last year of even the most remote business prospects will be brought up as though it is a very real and HUGE probability. For instance...if they had by chance sent a letter to Home Depot with a brochure of their CIMA and/or ETC products and received a two line, canned response letter saying "Thank you for your interest in Home Depot. We have received your letter and forwarded it on to our product sourcing department for consideration." THAT will be relayed to shareholders as "Home Depot has shown serious interest in purchasing both our CIMA and ETC line of cabinetry". There will no doubt be a least four or five of those type barnyard "nuggets" dropped during the meeting which will have the EXPH sites humming on Thursday with absolutely baseless conjecture. But I seriously doubt anything that should be of interest to an investor who was looking at the company long term will be either discussed or released.
Then the Kool Aid refreshments and the plywood piles/CNC machine tour and everyone will make happy and it will be meeting adjourned. With no one knowing much more of anything they didn't know going in that isn't disclaimer covered, groundless speculative crap and Expo being extraordinarily happy to keep it that way. Another year. Another informationless SM that ran the PPS up. Another bullet dodged. IMHO.
SBB
