Happy 2004 everyone!
THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT: A major corporate change has just taken place at UF. Sometime in the autumn of 2003, a B.C. mining company approached UF Media with an offer to buy UF's public company shell. Given that the share price for UFM had been hovering around 1 to 3 cents for the last two years, and given the onerous restrictions that had to be observed while running a publically-traded company, UFM's board of directors voted to sell the shell.
A little clarification for those uneducated in public company parlance: User Friendly is the cartoon strip intellectual property owned by me. The operating company is the actual business of running --in this case-- the website and selling advertising and the like. A public company shell is a vehicle in which you can embed (there's that word!) an operating company, thereby being able to sell shares to the public markets.
Embedding an operating company in a new public company shell can take 9 to 12 months, and occasionally even longer. The regulatory environment is stringent up here, particularly after all of the scams perpetrated during the existence of the VSE. Buying an existing public company shell is quicker and often cheaper, but you have to find someone willing to sell.
As the company CEO (along with the company President, who got to do all of the hard work) my mandate was to always look out for the shareholders. Selling the shell did that; maintaining fiduciary responsibility is a big deal for obvious reasons.
There is no question, however, that I've been pining for a way to divest the operating company from the public company shell for some time. Being public is a real time-consumer. It also eats money because of the amount of legal and accounting required to keep the regulators happy. When this deal came along, I jumped at it.
What this means ultimately is this:
- If you hold User Friendly Media Inc. shares, you still own those shares. They'll eventually be renamed when the mining concern changes the name and stock symbol of the public company shell. The shares have shot up to around 50 cents since the deal, so if you bought for less than that, you're doing much better as a shareholder than you would be if we didn't sell the shell. One cent shares are depressing.
- The operating company was vended back to me. I now own UF and all of its properties, intellectual or real. In the transaction, I didn't get any money for my holdings in the public company. It would look bad for the CEO to get a cash windfall as well as control of the operating assets, and besides, all I really wanted was the company and my IP back.
- UF is now private again. It's mostly staffed by volunteers; I pay what little I can to them when there's money. The folks who staff UF other than myself are David (the smiling man), Webdiva and Yohimbe, Kickstart and our comment system moderators - Nea, DragonLady, Nawft and FireballMatt.
Given the choice, I'm not sure I'd go the route of a public company again. I learned a great deal about running a pubco, mostly that I hate the paperwork and the constant need to please the regulators. I've had senior roles in companies before, but none of them were quite as...bewildering as running a public company.
My thanks to those of you who bought UF stock; it's clear you supported UF and that you believed in me. I only hope I've managed to return the favour by making a decision that sends your stock holdings into the sky. Have a beer on me. :)
DRIVIN' ON: The sponsorship drive will continue for another couple of weeks; the last day will be the 19th of January. Thank you very much to those of you who have already bought in! Folks like yourselves help ensure that UF will be around for that much longer!
CHEAPASS ADVERTISER: Some of you may have noticed a new slew of banners running on the site. Yessiree, those are from the fine folks at Cheapass Games! They're doing a test run for a couple weeks to see if there's reason to advertise on a regular basis. Click on their banner and have a look at what they have to offer! Myself, I'm particularly partial to Devil Bunny needs a Ham.
LAUGH AT HIS BABY PICTURES: His wife said that. Mind the popups. Click.
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