Amigo,
Here is one of those back room deals I was referring to:
Guarantees – In May, 2010, we entered into an indemnity agreement under which we indemnified a significant stockholder,Howard
Baer, for any liability incurred in connection with guarantying company obligations. We also issued Mr. Baer warrants to purchase
500,000 shares of common stock as compensation for prior loan guarantees he made with respect to company indebtedness. These
warrants have an exercise price of $.15 (cashless) and a term of 3 years. The warrants were valued at $405,925 using the Black
Scholes pricing model with the following assumptions: volatility 137.66%; annual rate of dividends 0%; discount rate 3.1%.
I'll just take a guess and say you'll tell me this is no back room deal because it is public in the 10-Q, but giving Howard 500,000 shares for some previous loan guarantee is the kind of thing that both bothers me and shows HEPI hasn't yet distanced itself from it's past. They could have just told Howard to go blow on it instead and saved the 500,000 shares from going into his pocket.
As for the honesty of the PRs, I'll again reference the intro to Troy Davis with "nearly 20 years of operations management experience", for a guy that was 36 years old. I can't imagine Troy started out as a Junior in High School and at the same time held a Operations Manager title or even something similar. If they had introduced him as having over 10 years of experience I would have put a little more trust in their honesty.
I agree with all of the other points you make, especially the fact that they're not providing enough info. Some PRs stating they have found xx but have not yet identified xx would certainly be more comforting than this black out. Also, I think putting out a PR stating they were behind on getting their new building running because of xx (plumbing, electrical service, air handling)would have been a lot more forthright than putting something in the 10-Q that just stated they were behind.
Liquidfan