Thank you Aeioux,
I have 35 plus years of experience in CPG company boards and ownership.
Here is MY take;
The premise of this company is fine. Sell somewhat innovative products in traditional product categories to a wider marketplace.
The thermometer product is ok. Not the end all that some here try to claim. The NDD is in my opinion (and that of others as well)a non item. Its only real acceptance was as a dealer loader / consumer premium. That was a very small piece of business and its unsustainable.
Ironically in my opinion, the Mebby products are possibly the real sleepers here. Good branding and presentation, wide universal applications, relatively low pick-up pricing and the ability to develop significant brand awareness. That being said, based on the Roth deal, the recall and its catalysts and the limited public knowledge of management's modus operandi, unless i knew the structure of the deal with Mebby its hard to tell if there is any real money to be made and if they are protected if they build it into something. Unfortunately they have shown total ineptitude at negotiating anything and lost in developing a profit driven strategy.
Management is truly clown car caliber. The Roth deal makes no sense in its current form. he adds no value and has no apparent verifiable bona-fides in the branding and operational management areas. Doc T could take a huge fall here.
They have done things that are truly stupid. They had people trying to manipulate consumer product reviews with planted reviews. Unfortunately in the case of Amazon, they have an internal filter to identify such fake reviews and apparently a significant majority of the reviews were found to be planted/fake.
The insanely stupid actions of management that led to the recall were really bush league.
The waste and abuse of resources that come from the incessant trips to trade shows etc., that could easily be covered (if remotely necessary) by the sales representation firm. I would venture to guess that they are already going to these. this has been a series of trips with no results... and it continues unabated.
All in all this is a vapor. No one of any consequence is going to acquire the company. Generally speaking there are no contracts in the retail arena. Your last purchase order is the only agreement that exists.
If someone was interested in this as a real business they should wipe out the Roth / NDD deal, recast the Mebby business and clean house.
but of course management's disenfranchising of the shareholders makes all this moot unless they buy out the business.
Best move may be to put the company into chapter 13, renegotiate the debt. clean up the balance sheet and start over.
The company has an odor to it with the recall, its many missteps in many areas and the widely known financial black hole that it is. The trade is going to be very distrusting and hesitant to do anything beyond dot com and any shelf inventory is going to be highly limited.
In a nutshell
