Fact 1:
"Our current MANAGEMENT" is solely Mr. Flowers.
That may be true in official titles, but is it true in practical terms? Afterall, we know MMP is likely the largest revenue source for PTSC, but the official word from PTSC says it's Data Sharing. And From Flowers we hear:
Members of our Board have put in an inordinate amount of time over the past several months to assist me in clearing the obstacles that have impeded our progress.
and
I and the Board will continue to pursue what we believe are realistic and practical measures for directing the business.
Fact 2:
"Responsible for most (in terms of amount of money) of the "badly" investments were the former CEO"
Perhaps true, or not, we don't know for sure. Afterall, don't you recall Gloria Felcyn's oh so dramatic "if you only knew how much DD we did". Considering the M&A analysis began long before Goerner came on the scene and was consumated less than 6 months after he joined PTSC, are we sure that Crossflo was HIS idea? I'm not saying it wasn't, but you're assuming it was simply based on his position at the time of the acquisition. Additionally, Flowers was CFO and surely right there in the mix with Goerner & Bibeau, as were the BOD members.
Fact 3:
"Please show me where the company itself squandered the money for luxury"
I didn't see that as Ron's point. Ron's point was that the company has taken in a bunch of money, around $130M to date from MMP licenses, and the market has yawned overall. They paid out about $19M in taxes. The dividends cost about $32M in total (by memory), but were they REALLY required to get rid of S&L? You're parotting a party line that you don't necessarily know is true. Additionally, is CJ's presence on the board the reason that happened? I'd say likely so, but again, hard to be sure. Lastly, were ALL THREE dividends necessary, or was that a means of transferring as much wealth to selected interests before things dried up?
And whether they squandered it on luxury (though limos to meetings, 1st class travel, and catered lunches could be so classified, as could bonuses to Goerner, Bibeau, Flowers, etc) or simply squandered it, doesn't make too much difference. The bottom line is they had roughly $70M after all of that with which to grow the company, and there's only $10M left. And this was during a time with bargains were to be had due to the economic downturn.
Fact 4:
As a result of fact 3 the company didn't have $270mio or $100mio to spend but only about maximum $10-20mio.
That's not really accurate. They may have chosen to only spend that much, but they had access to more, and what they spent was in large part a factor of how they structured the acquisition(s) and who they acquired.
As for "dramatically into the future", perhaps you've missed what Cliff Flowers said just last August:
To the contrary, we have taken measures to divest ourselves of activities that were continuing to place a drain on our cash resources, and that did not present a clear timeframe and path to positive results.
Using Cliff's standard, PDSG's path and timeframe to positive results should be clear and I don't think his comments imply your characterization of "dramatically into the future", but a much nearer term profitability. At least according to the CEO that is. I know posters here differ on this point, so perhaps that's a better source of intel.
