2012-05-12 08:26:16
Dear Shareholders,
I am pleased to have the opportunity to address you as we embark on what we believe to be an exciting and challenging fiscal year 2012. Before I touch on the key points of fiscal year 2012, I would like to share with you some of our key milestones for fiscal year 2011.
Since the inauguration of our Convertible Preference Shares (CPS) subscription in April 2011, ECMC has expanded to over 49 different countries of which 11 of them have seen extremely rapid growth. Developed markets such as Indonesia, China and Malaysia boast a member count of over 35,000 and emerging markets such as Thailand, Taiwan, South Korea and the United States close in on the 15,000 mark. I am truly amazed as to how much the company has grown over the last fiscal year.
As we embark on fiscal year 2012, we are faced with many challenges as we strive to stabilize and expand. We have also looked into the many constructive feedbacks that we have received. We are and always have been looking for ways to expand and improve on the technological and financial infrastructure to support the company’s growth. The financial platform that was promised to be rolled out in the 2nd quarter of 2012 has already been integrated will be introduced in the coming weeks.
One of our main focuses for the 1st 2 quarters of fiscal year 2012 is to improve on our financial facilities and infrastructure especially so in the area of cash withdrawals. While majority of our transfers have been prompt, there are still a significant amount of withdrawals that we think we can improve on. We do seek your understanding that the company is dealing with thousands of withdrawals on a weekly basis and there will be discreet incidents where the transfers have been left out for various reasons. Such incidents are totally unacceptable but they are sometimes inevitable as well. Our finance department is in the process of reviewing our withdrawal facility and infrastructure to ensure such incidents are reduced to a minimal.
I am also pleased to inform you that one of our major milestones in the IPO listing process has been achieved. With that in mind, the board has decided on several key changes that would be made over the next 6 months.
Firstly, the CPS price would see a steady increase of US$0.05 every month from June to December. Since the introduction of our CPS subscription last April, our CPS price has seen a slow but steady growth from our introductory price of US$0.70 to the current price of US$1.00. According to both our internal and external audits done for fiscal year 2011, our current CPS price is undervalued by about US$0.40. The current plan is to increase the CPS price at a steady rate to at least US$1.35 before we decide on further increment. Starting from the current price of US$1.00, it would eventually rise to US$1.35 over the next 6 months. More importantly, this will also help balance the CPS subscription rate as we approach our target IPO before 2015.
Secondly, we will be introducing a new CPS subscription package (SMP) in the near future. We believe this subscription package would be most welcomed by shareholders who prefer to start off with a smaller package. Details for this package will be announced shortly.
Lastly, we will be giving out promotions geared towards shareholders who are actively promoting CPS subscription. This will help to increase the rate of return of our shareholders.
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Jonathon Spencer, our Chief Financial Officer, and Ms. Mary Albridge, our Chief Auditing Officer for delivering such wonderful news as they have been working so hard in the past year to ensure that our bid for IPO listing proceed smoothly. And to all our shareholders, I sincerely thank you for your support without which it would have been impossible for us to achieve such breakthrough.
10th May 2012
John Sherwood
Chief Executive Officer
East Cape Mining Corporation
