Fundamental Global Inc.

Q4 2022 Earnings Conference Call

3/15/2023

spk03: ladies and gentlemen thank you for standing by and welcome to the fg group holdings inc fourth quarter 2022 and full year earnings conference call at this time all participants are in a listen-only mode a question and answer session will follow the formal presentation if anyone should require operator assistance during the conference please press star zero on your telephone keypad please note this conference is being recorded I would now like to turn the call over to Jen Belladeau of IMS Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.
spk04: Good afternoon, and welcome to FG Group Holdings Earnings Conference Call for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2022. On the call today from FG Group Holdings are Mark Robertson, Chief Executive Officer, Todd Major, Chief Financial Officer, and Kyle Cermonera, Chairman of the Board of Directors. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that some statements made on this call will be forward-looking in nature. These statements are based on management's current view and expectations as of today, and the company is under no obligation and expressly disclaims any obligation to update forward-looking statements except as required by law. These statements are also subject to risks and uncertainties and may cause actual results to differ materially from those described on today's call. Risks and uncertainties are also described in the company's SEC filings. Today's presentation and discussion also contain references to non-GAAP financial measures. Definition of non-GAAP terms and reconciliations to GAAP measures are available in the earnings release posted on the Investor Relations section of the website. Our non-GAAP measures may not be comparable to those used by other companies, and we encourage you to review and understand all of our financial reporting before making any investment decisions. At this time, I will turn the call over to Mark. Go ahead, Mark.
spk08: Thanks, Jen, and thanks, everyone, for joining us today. As we wrap up 2022 and we're now well into 2023, I thought it'd make sense to start by just recapping some of the takeaways from the past year and more importantly, how we're starting to see things shake up entering the new year. We finished 2022 with strong momentum in the fourth quarter. And as we'll discuss, we see that momentum continuing into 2023. Now we'll start in the deck on slides three and four, if you're following along. First, we completed the name change in December, transitioning from Ballantyne Strong to FG Group Holdings. It's a small thing, but it's an important distinction as the new name better reflects our current and our future plans to operate as a holding company. We currently have capital allocated to five primary holdings. First, our Strong Entertainment operating business, which is the largest supplier of premium large format screens and cinema services in North America and where we launched our new studios business this year. We currently own 100% of Strong Entertainment. Our intent, as we've previously communicated, is to separate the entertainment business and will retain a majority but less than 100% stake going forward at the holding company. This is consistent with our holding company's strategy providing a more tangible measure of value in the future for that business, and also allowing Strong Entertainment increased opportunity to capitalize on its growth potential and scale into a much larger company. We also hold less than 100% equity positions in three operating companies, FG Financial, Firefly, and Green First Forest Products, and also in our digital ignition business, We own real estate with a 44,000 square foot building and 11 acres in the Atlanta area. Moving on to slide six and our strong entertainment operating business to start with, we've seen customer demand and revenues bounce back strongly this year. Annual revenues are up over 50% and notably Q4 revenue grew sequentially to come at the highest level of any quarter since COVID. On slide seven, We've signed new exclusive arrangements with many of the top exhibitors over the past several quarters, formalizing those already strong relationships. We supply AMC, Cinemark, Marcus, and IMAX with all of their screens. And we've invested in building our sales and operations teams and increasing our market penetration and market share coming out of the pandemic. This puts Strong Entertainment in a much stronger position going forward. particularly as the industry continues to recover and exhibitors accelerate their investments to improve their properties and the theatrical experience. And especially as the upgrades to laser projection are accelerating and driving capital spending in the industry for the next several years. We're also expanding our global influence, serving this growing industry. In Europe, for example, we established our finishing facility in Belgium recently. which enables expedited screen delivery and more streamlined import export for customers in Europe and the Middle East. We also see the international markets, Asia and Europe in particular, really starting to improve in 2023 and going forward. If you happen to listen to IMAX's recent earnings call, for instance, a large portion of their commentary in their call was centered around the recovery they're now starting to see in the China market is that market is now more fully reopening. And in other parts of China, of Asia, including new multi-unit deals in Japan and Indonesia, which is obviously great to see. Moving on to slide nine, during 2022, we all saw cinema attendance levels in the overall box office revenue rebound. Box office revenues were up well over 60% from 2021. and are now starting to trend much closer to pre-COVID levels, looking into 2023 and 2024. For 2023 specifically, with film production now catching back up following the COVID-related delays, the studio release calendar is even stronger in 2023 than what we just saw in 2022. Our largest customers are becoming more vocal in voicing their bullishness for strong 2023. A few examples, Cinemark, for example, sees new film releases increasing by over 30% from 2022, driving their internal growth expectations. AMC commented that they expect the number of movie titles in the theaters grossing over 100 million will increase by over 75% in 2023. And of course, IMAX is another example that's performed exceptionally well, and they're expecting their global box office in 2023 to more than exceed the 2019 levels. And they're also starting to ramp up expansion of new screens in their international markets once again. Overall, the industry backdrop was certainly much better in 2022 than in 2021. And we strengthened our position in that industry, which certainly helped propel our business to greater than 50% growth this year and put strong entertainment on solid footing going forward. Turning to slide 10, the upgrades that we've discussed from Xenon to laser projection really started in earnest in the second half of this year. We're seeing AMC and Cinemark in particular leading the charge, upgrading their largest markets first. This is a really big deal for the industry, and it's expected to drive spending by cinema exhibitors for at least the next several years. and particularly as the regional and international exhibitors begin to commence their upgrade plans as well. We spent several years in R&D optimizing our screens and optimal coatings just for laser projection. And we're now the preferred screen and service partner for Cineonic, who's the leading manufacturer of laser projectors. And as the market leader and exclusive provider to many of the large exhibitors, We believe we're well positioned as the upgrade cycle continues to accelerate. Turning now to slide 11. This upgrade cycle that we've discussed is also one of the drivers to the growth we're seeing in our technical services group, which grew 41% for the quarter. We continue to see more demand from cinemas looking to outsource this part of their business as their volumes ramp up. For example, we signed an exclusive multi-year nationwide managed service agreement with Marcus Theaters, and we're continuing to add new customers for both managed services contracts as well as for on-demand work. We've also continued to expand our service offerings to better serve our customers' needs. With the laser upgrade demands increasing, we've been expanding our service team as well as our service offerings, providing more project management services and staffing up to increase our bandwidth for installations of laser screens, projection, and audio equipment in the cinemas. Moving over to slides 12 and 13. In addition to the screen and services business, we launched our new strong studios business this year, adding an entirely new growth vertical to the entertainment business. The studios team has been very busy over the past several months. Inside the Black Box completed production and began gearing on the crackle network in Q4. This project also represents the first revenue producing project for our studio's business. We also wrapped production on Safe Haven, which was a much larger project, and we're now deep into post-production. We expect episodes to be ready for delivery later this year. We see tremendous upside and growth potential in the new studios business, both organically and potentially through M&A. Initially, we're taking a pretty conservative approach to the projects and we'll lean towards utilizing co-production and providing production services where we can generate revenue, minimize capital at risk, while also creating the upside through the ownership of IP and participating in backend revenue streams. Transitioning now, moving to our equity holdings on slides 15 through 17. We're very excited about the value creation potential as the teams in those businesses continue to execute and position themselves for meaningful capital appreciation. At FG Financial, the merchant banking platform was launched this year. The reinsurance team completed seven loss cap reinsurance contracts. Top buy and Hagerty transactions were completed. NFT Merger Corp recently announced the business combination agreement with I-Corps Connect. In the new merchant banking platform, the team has been busy announcing the creation of FG Communities, which is focused in the manufactured housing industry, as well as the launch of Craveworthy with the former CEO, Jimmy Johns, as a multi-brand restaurant franchise platform. If you recall, we acquired our stake in Firefly, a private venture-backed mobile media company, when we contributed our taxi top advertising business to invest alongside Google Ventures and NFX two years ago. Post-pandemic, Firefly has seen exceptional growth in their business, and they're now in over 10 major markets. This year, they entered the European market with the acquisition of the UK's leading taxi advertising company. One key element of Firefly's strategy that we were especially excited about is as they convert non-digital tops to digital, that really multiplies the revenue potential as they continue to grow. We're excited about the team and the potential value they're creating. And then Green First has evolved from a small Canadian shell to one of the leading lumber producers in Canada following our investment. Recently, they announced two transactions to monetize assets that we believe are very favorable to Green First and to the ultimate value of our holding. In November, they announced the sale of their private forest land for 49 million. And then in December, they announced the sale of their two sawmills in Quebec for 90 million. Those transactions further strengthen their balance sheet and allows management to focus on the more valuable Ontario operations. This industry continues to see quite a bit of M&A, so we're watching closely. Overall, a really strong 2022. Solid momentum coming to the end of the new year on all fronts. Todd, with that, would you like to walk us through the financials?
spk02: Sure. Thanks, Mark. I'll start on slide 19, which has our consolidated results for the quarter. Our results of operations continue to show meaningful improvements over the prior year, with revenue up 17%, gross profit up 52%, and adjusted EBITDA up almost 180%. On the revenue side, Strong Entertainment delivered its strongest quarter in three years, surpassing the levels achieved in the final quarter of 2019. Our services business was the primary driver of the revenue increase from the prior year as we increased the scope of our services to better support our customers and to increase market share in cinema services. In addition, as Mark mentioned earlier, Strong Studios delivered its first project since it was launched and recorded $900,000 of revenue in the quarter. We had a large digital equipment order in the fourth quarter of 2021 that didn't repeat in 2022, but that was more than offset by higher sales of our higher margin cinema screens, which led to the over 50% increase in gross profit and improved gross margin percentage. Adjusted EBITDA of $600,000 during the quarter from a negative $700,000 in the prior year is another positive sign that we are benefiting from the continuing momentum in the industry. Our year-end balance sheet is on slide 20. Our equity holdings represent almost half the assets on our balance sheet at $37 million as of the end of the year. We ended the year with approximately $4 million in cash on our balance sheet. And our balance sheet also reflects the assets of our strong entertainment operating business and the real estate and our digital ignition business. We were able to slow working capital uses during the fourth quarter that occurred during the first nine months of the year. And finally, our debt balance was approximately $8 million, primarily related to the real estate in Atlanta and strong MDI in Quebec. We amended our credit facility in Canada following the end of the year. The $3 million term loan and $5 million revolving facility provide access to additional liquidity with increased limits based on the appreciated value of the Quebec real estate. As Mark previously stated, we're seeing positive momentum in our strong entertainment business as the industry continues to rebound and meaningful value creation potential in our equity holdings as the teams continue to execute against their strategy, which we expect to develop into significant capital appreciation. That wraps up the financial section. I'll now flip the call over to Kyle for some closing remarks.
spk07: Thanks, Todd. The current economic environment presents numerous opportunities and challenges, and we're very pleased with how we've managed through the challenges over the last few years while also being conservatively positioned to act on opportunities as they come across our desk. We've taken many steps to transition to a holding company that we believe will create meaningful value for shareholders over the coming years. We're working judiciously to extract that value for shareholders, and we look forward to reporting back to you in the coming months and quarters on new developments. We will now open it up for the Q&A section. Please ask any question. We'll do our best to answer it.
spk03: At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. First question comes from Tyler Phillips with Elm Street Capital. Please proceed.
spk01: Hey, guys. Thank you for taking my question. So I was wondering, how do you handle installation of your screens after they're sold? Specifically, do you outsource installation, or do you handle that in-house?
spk08: Thanks, Tyler. This is Mark. Thanks for the question. It's a good question, and everyone may not know this, but traditionally, we've not actually provided screen installation services. We sell the screens, and we provide lots of other services into the cinemas, but we have not historically actually installed the screens. They're usually handled by the cinemas using outsourced service providers. However, recently, in particular, you know, We've had demand from customers specifically in connection with the laser upgrades that they're embarking on to start providing. They've asked us, would you guys start providing those services so we can be more of a one-stop shop? So one thing that we've been doing, and we started this midway through this year, is we've started providing screen installation, and we're starting to staff up that group. And it's one of the areas that we see as a real growth opportunity for the services business. particularly in 2023 and then on into 2024. So it's an interesting, good question and an interesting part of the business that, and there's other things like that, but it represents an area of service that we can provide to our customers and expand our service offerings and provide better service to our customers and grow the business.
spk01: Got it. Okay. Thank you. That's it for me. Thanks, guys.
spk03: Sure. Thanks. The next question comes from Brett Weiss with Jenny Montgomery. Please proceed with your question.
spk05: Hey, Brett. Hi. Hi, gentlemen. Good results. Since the IPO window is closed, if you did need cash, what are the levers to raise cash? Does the company have available cash?
spk08: Yeah, Brett, there are a number of levers. I mean, obviously the need for cash is largely driven by the pace of our growth. You know, if we were to accelerate growth much more rapidly, that may require even more capital. But we have a number of levers, you know, on our balance sheet and, you know, within our credit lines that we could utilize to provide additional capital.
spk05: Right. Well, you know, the building in Georgia What do you think it's worth and it's encumbered by what amount of mortgage? Is that a source of funding?
spk07: It could be.
spk05: Go ahead, Kyle.
spk07: Let me answer your question. So there's a lot of different ways we can access capital. We have a building in Georgia that was purchased for a little over $8 million in Um, it has, you know, Mark, correct me if this is wrong, but I believe it has about $5 million, uh, give or take a few hundred thousand dollars of, of debt on it. Um, and, um, and so it has a, you know, at purchase prices has a few million dollars of equity. I think we got a good, good price on that. Um, you know, it was, there's a highway that is, is being developed, um, going literally like right through the backyard of the, uh, the building, and by all measures, we believe that's going to significantly increase the value of the building. In addition to the building, there's land that we own in addition to the building that could be subdivided. And given the highways going through it, it's not a highway like a major highway. It's a highway that you would have like a Chick-fil-A or a gas station or other things like that. that we're getting significant interest from developers to build things like fast food restaurants or gas stations or other things like that on our property. So there may be in the next few months to a year interest in either selling all of the land or some of the land and subdividing it. I'd hate to put a number on it. I'd say if I was, you know, it's, it's definitely worth more than 8 million in my view. Um, you know, perhaps more than 10 million, but I'd want, I'd be, you know, I'd be hesitant to say, you know, it's, it's worth exactly 12 million or it's worth exactly 11 million because it's real estate. Like it could be worth 10, it could be worth 11 or 12. Um, but, uh, you know, it's, it's worth, it's worth somewhere in the eight to $12 million range is my guess. Um, And with that, we could be exploring selling that. We could be developing that into a bigger business with this organization. There's all kinds of things that we could be doing with that. But I don't really think it's in our best interest to really tip our, to really explain exactly what we're going to do with that building until we've made the decision because we have we have lots of things going on inside of that building. So that is obviously one source of liquidity. If we wanted to, we could sell the building and we'd have, you know, five or $6 million of cash, you know, net of the mortgage. Beyond that, we obviously have a very significant stake in Green First Forest Products. They reported today as well. It looks like the stock didn't react that well to it, but we do expect Green First Forest Products to be monetized at some point in 2023. That's our thesis. That's not me speaking with any information relative to that, but I do think that now that they've sold their Quebec Mills, you know, they should be in a position to be a very attractive Ontario Mills sale. And, you know, we would think that that's something that could be explored in the near term. As a shareholder of Green First Force products, we would expect the board of Green First to be exploring all options like that. And we would think that there should be some liquidity event in Green First in 2023 is our hope and our not just hope. We don't invest on hope. So that's where we think we'll see some significant liquidity at some point. Absent that, you know, Mark mentioned that we do have access to, you know, millions of dollars of of credit facilities and other ways of accessing liquidity. But, you know, we won't be issuing common equity.
spk05: Right, right.
spk07: Unless it's for something really special. Now, you mentioned that the IPO market is shut. There have been a few IPOs that have gotten done recently. We would only do something if it made sense. But smaller IPOs are starting to get done. There's obviously the SPAC market. We do have FGE Financial where we know the SPAC market very well. So there are things that could be done and you should expect that we're creative people and we will be exploring all alternatives for that business. But when I look at strong global entertainment, the reason we want it to be a public company is not so that we can have a little small public company, you know, that is a 30, 40, $50 million market cap company. It's so that we can do what we did with green first force products, which is to, uh, merge, um, with a much bigger, uh, entertainment company. And, um, there's a lot of other entertainment companies that would be very interesting for us to combine with and have a substantial several hundred million dollar or larger, public company. So that's, that's the reason we want to explore a public listing is, is that we think that a publicly traded entertainment company with hundreds of millions of dollars of value is interesting, not so that we can have a little teeny, you know, micro cap entertainment, uh, you know, company. So I think, I think that's been somewhat misunderstood by people. We're not looking to have like a little teeny entertainment IPO where we, we, uh, we do at some point, you know, the purpose of a public listing, is to really have a currency either to consolidate the industry, which we think is an opportunity, or to potentially do a SPAC transaction where maybe there's another entertainment company that could make sense. So we're looking at all options, and whether it's an IPO, a SPAC, or a merger with a publicly traded entertainment company, there's a lot of things out there that could be done, and we're We're only going to do things that make sense, though. But I'm not concerned about liquidity at all.
spk05: Right. I appreciate that color. Another one or two, if I may. The $900,000 first project with strong entertainment, what project was that, and can we expect any recurring revenue from whatever that project was? Yeah, Brett, this is Mark.
spk08: So that project was inside the black box, which was our first revenue producing project for the new business. So that project is going to be a little different than probably a lot of the projects that we'll do at Strong Studios. It represents a very limited half hour series that we did for Chicken Soup for the Soul. And we did that primarily on a services basis where we managed the project on their behalf. It's a very limited series. It's not going to generate a lot of back end, but we can provide that service. We can generate some revenue, generate a decent amount of profitability on it with no capital, no risk. So it's something that we will do periodically, but it's a little different than the other projects that we've talked more about where we would have a significant back end participation on series that have the aptitude for that. So I wouldn't necessarily expect to see it recur every quarter, but you'll see that from time to time because we'll fill in projects like that with other larger projects to help cover overhead and cover expenses as we grow the business.
spk05: Right, right. Mark, now that revenues are past, even pre-COVID levels, where do you think in the next year or two gross profits margins should settle in at?
spk08: I think, you know, we'll see. We saw gross margin, gross profit margins improve in Q4, you know, from earlier in the year. It's still a little bit below where it was in the pre-COVID levels, and a lot of that has to do with product mix in terms of the mix of the business, you know, between our screen business, which, you know, is a highly profitable business and has higher margins as compared to when we sell third party projector projection equipment, audio equipment, et cetera. So that mix is still skewed a little heavier towards projection and audio and third party product versus screens. But it's improving significantly through the period. We see that continuing to improve as we look forward. I can't give you an exact timing or percentage on when that will occur, but we definitely see the trend on that moving in the right direction. And you probably saw that in the Q4 numbers.
spk05: Okay. And just one last one. If the macroeconomic winds are blowing towards a, you know, a severe recession, I mean, in the past, you know, people still go to the movies during a recession. Are we in a business that's, uh, quasi recession resistant or, or severe recession, uh, you know, w w would be a headwind for us.
spk08: I mean, if you look at the past, uh, metrics on the box office during prior recessions and they're well publicized out there, there's plenty of charts and graphs that kind of show the historical box office, you know, overlaid against, you know, recession years. Uh, you're right. The box office generally has been quite recession resistant. And we'd expect that to continue to be the case, although, you know, we certainly can't predict that with accuracy. But yeah, I think when you look at entertainment and all the entertainment choices, the cinema, the movies are still a very affordable luxury entertainment item. And it's generally not affected as significantly in recessionary times. Then, you know, when we look, I think the primary driver really of what we see going forward and You know, if you listen to AMC, IMAX, Cinemark, and the other exhibitors on their earnings calls, you know, they're really excited about the fact that the studio slate is, you know, during COVID, you know, not only did certain, you know, projects get moved to streaming versus the cinemas, which is now shifted back, but, you know, the development of content was delayed because of COVID restrictions and COVID shutdowns. That's really now just catching up to where the pipeline of studio releases is getting back closer to where it was pre-COVID, probably still not quite there. But they're expecting a much more favorable 2023 and 2024 from an availability of content to show in the theaters.
spk05: Great. Thank you for taking my questions and good show on the fourth quarter and year-end results.
spk03: Good. Thanks, Brett. Once again, if you have a question or a comment, please indicate so by pressing star one on your touch tone phone. The next question comes from Jim Merrick, individual investor. Please proceed.
spk06: Thank you for taking my call. This is kind of a comment or maybe a question for Kyle. I know it's going to come off wrong, but I'm not quite sure how to rephrase it. When I was waiting for the meeting to start, I kind of looked through some of the messages on the message board and looked look at some previous earnings reports. And since Kyle and his gang have taken control of the company, you know, the stock price has gone down. There's over $25 million in cash, around $25 million, I guess, in cash. They owned a building in Omaha that was pretty valuable. And I had like some friends that hoped to monetize on the stock at one time or another. and one of them happens to be a widow now because her husband passed away and I just talked to her within the last couple of weeks. What would you say to them to keep the faith? I mean I see that Green First doesn't look like it's doing that great and lumber prices I do see did come down significantly. So what kind of hope could you give me to relay to them?
spk07: Yeah, that's a great question. Like, when we got involved with what was originally called Ballantyne Strong in 2015, we got involved because we were frustrated with the direction of the company. And, you know, I actually joined the board. And when I joined the board, I was actually appalled by what was going on with a company called Convergent that the previous board had acquired in 2013. And in my first board meeting, learned that we were losing like several million dollars a quarter in convergence while we were making several million dollars a quarter in our cinema business. And that was when I basically said, hey, we need to take like very dramatic steps with this business to because we're going to start losing huge amounts of money in Convergint if we don't. And the previous board, you know, really didn't act as quickly as I wanted them to, so we ran a proxy fight and we changed the board. And it took us a long time to stop the bleeding at Convergint. We did stop the bleeding and we turned the business around, but it took several years to turn Convergint around. And we ended up selling it for a nice amount of cash. But Convergint was an acquisition that the company made with the cash that it had generated in the cinema business back in 2013 prior to our involvement. We inherited what I think was quite a mess that we had to fix. And it took us several years to fix it. At the same time, the cinema industry basically peaked in 2015. If you look at the 3D industry, 3D installations were growing dramatically through 2015, and they sort of peaked in 2015. And we make the most money at MDI in our screen sales on 3D sales. I think 2015 or 2016 was about sort of like our record year in terms of profitability for that business. And that was sort of right when we got there and we were, we were really focused on, um, fixing convergent. And we basically, when we got there, we basically put every business up for sale. We said like, let's just sell this company as quickly as possible. We put every business up for sale. Um, convergent was, was not fallible. Like I can tell you like the, the bids that we got for convergent when we first got there were, were negative. Like we had a building and we, we actually got bids for the business that were negative. We had, we spent a lot of time because it was losing so much money. Uh, we spent a lot of time fixing that. We ended up selling the building and, uh, getting cash for that, uh, to, um, sort of help us, uh, through some period of time. And, you know, we tried to, we ran the sales process on the cinema business. And we were, we had fantastic prices on that. And we got through, right before COVID hit, we were about to sell the cinema business. And unfortunately, those sales fell apart. for one reason or another and COVID hit and we decided it was not a good time to sell the business because as you know, basically the government shut every single cinema in the country and our business was significantly impaired by that. We did a very good job managing costs through that period of time. um we made some very good investments in green first forest products if you look at our cost in green first forest products we um you know did a good job of uh of um you know not only in green first forest products but also uh harvesting what was a business that we had created called strong outdoor uh right right at the beginning of covid we um were able to monetize that business for equity in Firefly, which is now a very rapidly growing private company. And I think that we've, you know, we've done our best through some really challenging situations. So if I could go back to 2015, you know, would we have gotten involved at all. I'm not sure, but you know, we, we did our best with what we, what we had. So we thought that we had a sale of the cinema business in like 2019 or 20, like right before COVID hit. And that probably, you know, if we, if, if that had, if that sale had gone through, You know, we'd probably be looking at a different stock price and we'd be looking at a lot of a lot of happy shareholders. Unfortunately, you know, COVID hit and, you know, that was something that we couldn't you know, we could we we didn't we didn't plan for, obviously. And but we did the best with what we had. So, you know, we're doing we're doing the best to monetize our current positions that we have. And our goal is to get the stock price a lot higher. But at the same time, we're not going to be promotional. We own a lot of stock. Our goal is to grow the assets of the company over time. We're not going to go out and hire aggressive investor relations firms or do things that sort of promote the stock just to get the stock higher so that people can sell it. That's just not in our DNA. to do things that are promotional. So we will be as honest with you as possible, which I'm trying to do in answering your question. We'll be as honest as we can, but we can't go out and just sort of you know, do what I've seen other companies do, which is be dishonest and pump their stock and get their stocks higher just to, you know, just to, you know, reward shareholders in the short run. That's just not in our DNA. So hopefully that answers your question, but if you have a follow-up question.
spk06: I appreciate you taking that. Do you have a price in mind that you will not go below on a potential IPO?
spk07: I don't think that we can answer that. I don't know that we can answer that, but Mark might be able to speak to that.
spk08: Yeah, I don't think we're allowed to specifically answer questions on IPO evaluation under the rules.
spk06: Because you're going to have to probably hire some kind of indefinite banker to go out there and try to sell that business, I would assume. Isn't that what they've done in the past at Ballantyne?
spk07: Yeah, we have an investment banker that's been hired for the IPO.
spk06: Okay. Thank you for asking my question. I know maybe it sounds kind of rude, but, you know, I mean, I know some people. And I said the husband, you know, really thought that was a great opportunity here in Omaha, and he's since passed away. And, you know, I talk with the widow every now and then, and she's still sitting on it. And I know she'd like to monetize it. You know, she's getting up in age. So thank you for taking my question, and have a great day.
spk07: I don't consider the question rude at all, and I appreciate it. Thank you.
spk06: Yep.
spk03: We have reached the end of the question and answer session. I will now turn the call over to Mark for closing remarks.
spk08: Thanks, and thanks, everyone, for dialing in. Really good questions today. If you have additional follow-up questions, don't hesitate to reach out to any of the three of us on the call here, and look forward to speaking again soon.
spk03: This concludes today's conference and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.
Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

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