In a poignant recent article from the Wall Street Journal, Churchill’s grandson and namesake, a former MP and writer, states that it was indeed Churchill himself who invented Iraq and laid the foundation for the modern day Middle East. In 1921, as British Colonial Secretary, Churchill created the Iraqi and Jordanian borders, placed Hashemite rulers Abdullah and Feisal on their respective thrones and delineated political boundaries of Biblical Palestine. Today, 80 years later, we see frightening parallels between Saddam’s prior flaunting of the numerous UN resolutions over the past 12 years to the Japanese (who invaded Manchuria), Italy (invaded Ethiopia) and of course the Nazi’s who disregarded the League of Nations numerous edicts. Had the victorious allies from WWI, the Americans, British and French held firm and enforced the rule of laws amongst the nations, perhaps World War II in which tens of millions perished might have been avoided; that’s why Churchill called it the “Unnecessary War”. France, German and Belgium’s current government’s unwillingness to face modern day realities and their blatant, corrupt self-interests are shameful reminders of a tragic past. Churchill, always a proponent of a pre-emptive strike to safeguard the interests of the world, would fully support our current President and the UK’s Prime Minister’s efforts. He would, as his grandson maintains, command the world to act before a true marriage of terrorists, like Al Qaeda and the “Butcher of Baghdad” and his arsenal of chemical, biological and nuclear capabilities was consummated.
This military campaign or war will be over shortly and the fear and uncertainty will dissipate. Stocks will recover, consumers will start spending again, business will once again look to expand, oil prices will come down… Fundamentally, economic trends offer guarded optimism. Fears of a double-dip recession will recede as the gross domestic productions growth increases. The great variable is of course oil prices, which is already down over $10 per barrel from its high in early 2003. The President’s proposed tax cuts should also give Americans over $100 billion to spend or save over the course of the year. While the turn around will not happen overnight, optimism, as evidenced by the resurgent appreciating financial markets is slowly rearing its head, albeit carefully, once again.
During the past quarter, we at Wellfleet Partners (“WPs”) and its two subsidiaries Spider Financial (“SF”) and Starobin Partners (“SR”) have likewise begun to take steps to plan and build for our future. We are pleased to welcome to our family of WPs investment banking clientele the following new members: Blue Flame Data, NYC, NY, Professional Portfolio Management in Holmes. PA, America Senior Financial, in Jupiter, Florida, Fidelity Capital, Image Innovations in Fortworth, Texas, Mercates in Milan, Italy and Washington, DC, V3Media in Las Vegas, NV, Micro Islet Technologies in San Diego, CA, Roomlinx in Vancouver, BC, Univercell in Baltimore, MD, Counsel Financial Services, Getzville NY, and Tarantella in Santa Cruz, CA in conjunction with our West Coast affiliate (see below). Our sincere congratulations to the management of our portfolio client IP2M and in particular it’s CEO, member of our Advisory Board and dear friend, Dr. Robin Smith on its recent acquisition by Dialog Group (“DLGG”). We are equally pleased to have announced the opening of the Palo Alto, California branch office of WPs, under the ownership, management and direction of original founder and member of our Advisory Board, P.Scott Munro. Also known as Inverary Partners, in its first two months they have already been engaged by Tarantella, Inc., Santa Cruz, CA, Amphire, Inc., Redwood City, CA, Flowtix, Inc., Burligame, CA, ChipLinx Soultions, LLC, Carmel, CA, Synnex Information Technologies, Inc., Fremont, CA, OneChannel, Inc., Mountain View, CA. We continue to move towards becoming a more nationally based and expanded investment banking firm with our West Coast affiliate specializing in mergers and acquisitions, technology based companies and larger transactions and consulting projects. Blue Flame and Tarantella are our first of hopefully many East-West coast joint projects. In addition, Mssrs. Munro and Lev, the author of this newsletter, Managing Director of WPs and Chairman & CEO of SR, were the lead speakers at the recent British Consulate’s inaugural seminar in February highlighting opportunities in the US/UK based venture capital markets and in mergers & acquisitions. Finally, at SF, after a prolonged down period, we are once again making bridge loans under the guidance of Zachary Prensky, its CEO, having concluded one recently with a prior portfolio client.
It is at SR that we’re made the greatest strides. We are proud to announce that in March we acquired substantially all the assets of an 11 year old NASD member brokerage firm (e.g. Accounts, clients…) International Securities Corp. and hired its founder and CEO Isaac Vidomlanski to augment our investment banking staff. Special thanks to an old friend, Elliot Gayer of Microbanc for the introduction. In addition, we’re hired Omer Levy and are in discussions with 5-6 other registered representatives to enhance our brokerage capacities through our brokerage affiliate JP Turner & Co., LLC. Finally, we’ve released our second and third research reports for Walker Financial (“WLKF”) and New Century Financial (“NCEN”), wrote a Fairness Opinion for the aforementioned IP2M’s acquisition, (all under the direction of Jeffrey Goldberg-Director of Research) and engaged clients in a new area, stock loans, under the direction of Ytzik Aronov, our Director of Capital Markets.
In conclusion, we have much to be thankful for. We wish sincere congratulations to Zachary Prensky, our Managing Director and his wife Eileen on the birth of their son Daniel, to Zalman Zimmerman, Dr. Robin Smith and our dear English “mate” Tony Sullman on his and their recent engagement and wish to Skye and Jeff Mann, Esq., our corporate counsel, “Shaah tova” on the anticipated birth of their first child. On behalf of WPs, SF and SR, enjoy the spring season and may G-D watch over all of us both at home and aboard.
NOTE: This report was produced by Wellfleet Partners, Inc. ("WPs") from various public research sources, for the sole purpose of general information. WPs makes no warranties to its factual content and is not a brokerage firm, registered Investment Advisor nor securities dealer; therefore, nothing contained in this report shall constitute an offer to sell, solicit or buy any securities or investment advice. Investment in these securities mentioned here involves risk and should not be considered without first reading the target Company’s most recent financial statements, 10Q and 10K, its Private Placement, Offering Memorandum or Business Plan, if applicable, and discussing the investment with your registered representative or professional financial advisor. Venture capital is inherently extremely risky. Mark I. Lev, Managing Director of WPs and the author of this newsletter, is a registered representative of KSH Investment Group, Inc. a NASD member broker-dealer.
