However, just because there is demand does not make this a good business.  There are many other firms manufacturing or importing the same type of cameras, both for commercial and personal retail markets (think GoPro) with new ones starting all the time.  All this competition is lowering prices and increasing the investment required to keep up technologically with the competition.  From the consumers’ perspective, those are good outcomes. From the perspective of a company such as ours, they’re terrible. Rather than wait for the inevitable thinner margins and shakeout that will occur here, we decided to exit the business.  And so on May 7, 2015 we sold Janus Cam back to its own management in exchange for 68,000,000 shares of Concierge, then worth $605,200, which they owned. We had to give up some debt owed to us by Janus Cam but overall not a bad return.

If our first step was to get out of what we believed to be a declining business, our second was to begin looking for good businesses. Our criteria: We want to invest in businesses we can understand, that have been around a long time, that are historically profitable, and that we can buy at attractive prices.  We found one that met these criteria: Gourmet Foods Ltd, a New Zealand (meat) pie manufacturer, which we bought on August 11th for about NZ$2.55 million. Gourmet Foods, and its sister brands Ponsonby Pies, Pat’s Pantry and Gourmet Patisserie have been in existence since 1966. They are well known in New Zealand for selling a delicious quality product.  And we expect they will be profitable.  We believe we bought them at an attractive price. Note that, to avoid diluting your shares, we paid for Gourmet Foods Ltd in cash.

Our search continues, and we’re getting better at it. If you know of a company that fits our target profile please feel free to contact me.

 

Nicholas Gerber,

CEO, Chairman of Board