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Veterans Day/Week – 2011 What are YOU doing to HELP?

Posted in 9/11 Rememberance, Board Of Intellectual Capital, boic, Gerbsman Partners, Honoring Veterans, Marketing, US Armed Forces, US Veterans, tagged , on November 7, 2011| Leave a Comment »

As we begin Veterans Day/Week 2011, we say “Thank You” to the men and woman of our armed services and suggest that it is time for all to “step up” and find ways to support our Veterans. To often we say “thank you for your service” and then do nothing more. Please think about supporting various Veterans groups with donations, food, clothing and moral support. The have “Earned” it and we “Owe” it to them.

In the late summer of 1967, I was on my way back to Basic Training at Fort Dix, N.J. I was in New York City and an older couple came up to me and said “Thank You” for serving and then gave me $ 20 to enjoy a dinner on them. The gentleman said he served in the Korean War and understands and appreciates what men and woman in uniform go through. I said thank you, enjoyed a great dinner and to this day, remember their kind gesture.

On this Veterans Day/Week, our family will support the Wounded Warriors program, an American Legion Post and will provide moral support and friendship to Afghanistan Veterans. On 11/11/11, I will also continue to remember that couple and honor them by buying dinner for soldiers in uniform. I will ask them to do the same thing, 5, 10, 20 and 40 years later.

May God Bless our troops and provide our leaders with the courage and strength to do what is Right and what is Just.

Please always remember – FREEDOM IS NOT FREE

What are YOU doing to HELP?

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What bear market? Groupon pressing on with IPO plans

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, Business models, Economy, internet, Investments, IPO news, Marketing, tagged , , , , , , on October 9, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Article from GigaOM.

“Reports of the death of Groupon’s IPOplans have apparently been greatly exaggerated. The online daily deals pioneer filed an updated version of its S-1 document with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, as part of its preparation for a planned initial public offering of its stock.

Since the company first filed its S-1 in June, Groupon has been roundly criticized for its seemingly shady accounting practices and that its early founders and investors have already cashed out billions of dollars worth of the company’s stock. CEO Andrew Mason was so irked by the negative press that he sent a long email to Groupon’s employees filled with talking points they could use to defend the company. Ironically, when that email was inevitably leaked to the press, it only attracted more criticism; the missive was seen as a violation of the SEC’s quiet period rules.

These issues coupled with the larger environment of economic unrest have fueled rumors that Groupon had put its stock market plans on ice. But Friday’s S-1 update — the third revision since June — shows that the company is still keen to go public. Despite Groupon’s swaggering reputation and Mason’s grumbling about haters, the company’s management is showing that underneath it all, it’s actually willing to make changes and respond to criticism. Specifically, the latest filing has a few notable tweaks: Groupon said it plans to scale back its marketing budget, reported that its revenue bookings were slightly higher in the second quarter of the year, and reprinted the full text of Mason’s leaked email.

More than anything, though, updating the S-1 shows that Groupon is still serious about making its stock market debut at some point soon. But ultimately, that will only happen if investors show that they have an appetite for the company’s shares.”

Read original post here.

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“Terminating/Restructuring Prohibitive Real Estate, License, Payables & Contingent Liabilities” – – – “Maximizing Enterprise Value” through proprietary “Date Certain M&A Process”

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, Gerbsman Partners, Investments, Marketing, tagged , on July 11, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Gerbsman Partners has been involved with numerous national and international equity sponsors, senior/junior lenders, investment banks and equipment lessors in the restructuring or termination of various Balance Sheet issues for their technology, life science, medical device and cleantech portfolio companies. These companies were not necessarily in Crisis, had CASH (in some cases significant CASH) and/or investor groups that were about to provide additional funding. In order stabilize their go forward plan and maximize CASH resources for future growth, there was a specific need to address the Balance Sheet and Contingent Liability issues as soon as possible.

Some of the areas in which Gerbsman Partners has assisted these companies have been in the termination, restructuring and/or reduction of:

  • Prohibitive executory real estate leases, computer and hardware related leases and senior/sub-debt obligations – Gerbsman Partners was the “Innovator” in creating strategies to terminate or restructure prohibitive real estate leases, computer and hardware related leases and senior and sub-debt obligations. To date, Gerbsman Partners has terminated or restructured over $795 million of such obligations. These were a mixture of both public and private companies, and allowed the restructured company to return to a path of financial viability.
  • Accounts/Trade payable obligations – Companies in a crisis, turnaround or restructuring situation typically have accounts and trade payable obligations that become prohibitive for the viability of the company on a go forward basis. Gerbsman Partners has successfully negotiated mutually beneficial restructurings that allowed all parties to maximize enterprise value based on the reality and practicality of the situation.
  • Software and technology related licenses – As per the above, software and technology related licenses need to be restructured/terminated in order for additional capital to be invested in restructured companies. Gerbsman Partners has a significant track record in this area.

Maximizing Enterprise Value – Gerbsman Partners proprietary “Date Certain M&A Process”

Gerbsman Partners developed its proprietary “Date Certain M&A Process” in 2002. Since that time, the process has evolved into a 6-8 week time frame vehicle for maximizing enterprise and asset value for under-performing venture capital and senior lender backed medical device, life science and technology Intellectual Property based companies. To date, Gerbsman Partners has maximized enterprise and asset value for over 68 of these companies. A description of this proven process can be reviewed on the Gerbsman Partners website.

About Gerbsman Partners

Gerbsman Partners focuses on maximizing enterprise value for stakeholders and shareholders in under-performing, under-capitalized and under-valued companies and their Intellectual Property. Since 2001, Gerbsman Partners has been involved in maximizing value for 68 Technology, Life Science and Medical Device companies and their Intellectual Property,, through its proprietary “Date Certain M&A Process” and has restructured/terminated over $795 million of real estate executory contracts and equipment lease/sub-debt obligations. Since inception, Gerbsman Partners has been involved in over $2.3 billion of financings, restructurings and M&A transactions.

Gerbsman Partners has offices and strategic alliances in Boston, New York, Washington, DC, Alexandria, VA, San Francisco, Orange County, Europe and Israel. For additional information please visit www.gerbsmanpartners.com or Gerbsman Partners blog.

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On Twitter (and elsewhere), Instagram Growth Zooms

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, Community, Gerbsman Partners, internet, Market research, Marketing, Social Networks, Strategy, Technology, Web 2.0, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 6, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Article from GigaOm.

I have some news for Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, co-founders of Instagram, a San Francisco-based, photo-oriented, social network: They are the fastest growing photo sharing service on Twitter. I’m not surprised. As you know, many folks take photos and share them via Twitter, thanks to services like Twitpic, Yfrog and even Twitter itself. However, Instagram is slightly different; if you’re an iPhone user, you take a photo, upload to Instagram, then share it on Twitter.

Skylines, a Dutch startup focused on real-time photo search, has been analyzing the Twitter feed and has some unique insights into the market. From May 23 to June 26, 2011, Skylines found Instagram usage has gone up 38 percent: from 538,000 photos shared weekly to 740,000 photos shared each week.

Instagram CEO Systrom had recently observed that only 11 percent of Instagram members were using Twitter and by that metric, Instagram members might be adding about a million photos a day to Instagram. Add those two data points together, and one can extrapolate that Instagram is gathering steam. The service recently passed the five million subscriber mark. This level of engagement is one of the reasons why I believe Instagram has a chance of becoming the mobile social hub.

Skylines also shared some other data for the five-week period analysis.

  • From May 23rd to June 26, 2011, there were 33 million photos shared on Twitter via Twitpic, Yfrog, Instagram and Mobypicture (the four services indexed by Skylines).
  • Twitpic is no slouch. It was responsible for sharing of 3.295 million photos during the week of June 20, making it the largest photo-sharing service.
  • Yfrog was used to share 2.98 million photos during the same week.
  • The growth in the total number of photos shared in the five-week period measured was 17 percent.
  • Only 4 percent of the pictures are geo-tagged, while 15 percent have a hashtag.
  • Not surprisingly, weekends are the most popular days to share photos.

As the data shows, while Twitter might have launched its own photo sharing service via Photobucket, the independent photo-sharing services have not seen any kind of slowdown, though there are some dark clouds looming ahead for the likes of Twitpic and Yfrog.”

Read more here.

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Access to Brazilian markets – distribution, manufacturing, licensing – June 2011

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, boic, Business models, Economy, Gerbsman Partners, Inetellectual Property, Intellectual capital, Investments, Life Science, Market research, Marketing, Medical Device, National Venture Capital Association, Technology, Venture Capital, Venturebeat, tagged , on June 28, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Based on the strategic growth and access to the Brazilian market, Gerbsman Partners has established a “strategic relationship” with a Brazilian medical device manufacturing and distribution company.   This 24 year old wholly owned family company, is seeking additional product opportunities in the medical device, technology and low tech areas, for manufacturing, licensing and/or distribution.

With the significant growth in Brazil (190 million people) and South American and with The World Cup and The Olympics coming to Brazil, this BRIC country is growing at a significant pace and can offer US, Israeli and European companies “access” to a a highly desirable market.

The company presently is profitable, has no debt, complies with all local regulatory aspects, has international quality manufacturing certification for medical devices, a direct sales and distribution network in place, access to other European and Asian markets and strategic alliances with other Brazilian high and low tech Brazilian companies.

History

The company was founded in 1988 by a leading Doctor and Lawyer/Business Person and was the first company to manufacture and commercialize the Women’s Health Products (Disposable Vaginal Specula (instrument used by the Gynecologists to examine their patients) in Brazil.  Encouraged by the success of its first product, the company launched other disposable medical devices to substitute the reusable ones, i.e. Anuscopes, Sigmoidoscopes, Forceps, etc. For over 22 years the company has been the absolute leader in all the markets in which it competes.

The company is presently divided into 2 business units. The first one, the core of the company, manufactures and commercializes disposable medical products. The company has its own production plant and a solid distribution network throughout the country composed of its own sales team, distributors and sales reps. (5 sales reps and over 400 distributors).

The other unit was created in 2004 and distributes medical products from an American company focused on Women’s Health. This unit is seeking to identify additional products through licensing or manufacturing.

The company also exports to France, England, Poland, Chile, India and Portugal.

The company is building a new production facility to increase its capacity and also to be open and ready to opportunities of manufacturing new products in Brazil. The new facility will have 50.000 square feet divided as follow:

  • 7.000 square feet for plastic Injection
  • 6.000 square feet for packaging
  • 6.000 square feet for assembling
  • 15.000 square feet still open for new products/projects

The company has high quality and well preserved machines for plastic injection, extrusion, cervical brush manufacture, gloves and packaging.

The company has all the international quality certificates to manufacture and distribute medical products, i.e. GMP, ISO 9001:2008, ISO 13485:2004 and CE Mark and it is also in compliance with all rules and regulations of the local health agency called ANVISA. The company has no debt, is profitable and has sales revenues in excess of $ 16 million US dollars.  Along with the founders, the company has added their son to the executive team.  He is a recent MBA graduate in the US and has domain expertise in finance and engineering with major Fortune 500 companies.

As indicated above, Gerbsman Partners is seeking to identify interested companies seeking to access the Brazilian market in the medical device, technology and/or low tech areas.  This access would be through licensing, joint venture, distribution and/or manufacturing.

Please call me to discuss your interest and I will set up a dialog directly with the company.

Best regards

Steve Gerbsman

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