LAS VEGAS, NV / ACCESSWIRE / January 3, 2019 / Alkame Holdings, Inc. (OTC PINK: ALKM) today released its corporate review & update to Shareholders.
Alkame Holdings, Inc. (OTC PINK: ALKM), a publicly traded health and wellness technology holding company with a focus on patentable, innovative, and eco-friendly products, wanted to take the opportunity to provide you, our valued investors and shareholders, with an update on the progress of the Company and provide the current status on various fronts.
"Dear Shareholders,
As we conclude our fiscal year 2018, we are pleased to reflect on our accomplishments to date and to share our business strategy moving forward. We are happy to report that Alkame Holdings, Inc. has been very busy quietly working on several exciting fronts.
Background/Overview
The past acquisition of Xtreme Technologies (2015), while an essential transaction for our company allowing us to take control of the Patents and IP along with a co pack operation, had created quite a turnaround situation for the company. Our Company, through its wholly-owned subsidiaries have been busy and made incredible progress despite numerous obstacles. 2017 was a transition year as we transformed our holding company from an IP water patent holder and a boutique niche water brand to becoming a recognize and creative multifaceted holding company. We diligently worked through the IP & equipment acquisition, turnaround of operations, and the lowering of operating costs. Still in turnaround mode, our bigger picture and expansion plans led us to the creation of our newest subsidiary, Bell Foods, Inc. and the long-term lease of a facility in May of 2017, creating our second co pack operation.
We have made several significant changes which included physically relocating our water manufacturing operation to our new full-fledged food and beverage manufacturing subsidiary based in Oregon. Our new facility allows us ample space to grow our business significantly. Logistically located in the Northwest, this new facility is geographically more desirable for us, and allows us to produce multiple lines of both hot and cold fill products (both water and food products). This in turn has allowed us to greatly expand into the private label, co pack and contract food and beverage manufacturing business. Also, significant to report, we have entered the growing cannabis industry, with a focus on development and manufacturing of products containing Cannabidiol (CBD) derived from industrial hemp. As a result, we have already added several new clients in both the private and public sectors that we are producing products for within the natural, specialty, gourmet, and CBD food and beverage space.
We are always on the look-out and in discussions to grow by joint venture and/or acquisition if, and only if, it makes sense on several fronts. We have also heard the rumors about our being approached as a possible acquisition target. Let me state here and now we are not in any discussions. Our company is still in turnaround mode and our share price and our revenues are way too low and it is much too early to even entertain such talks. We are now working on all cylinders to reduce debt and increase revenues. What we are currently looking for is to entertain joint ventures or sale of various brands that we own. Under these scenarios it would allow us to maintain the manufacturing business and allow us to hold a small equity position in the brand (in case the brands should ever get acquired). These transactions only have upside for us, additional manufacturing business, no marketing or distribution worries, and potential upside in case of an exit for the brands.
Our Company and its subsidiaries are very busy. Our goal is to run our present businesses well, a task made easier because of the outstanding team of employees we have in place. We believe 2018 was the pivotal turning point that has allowed us to move towards wrapping up our turnaround. While we are not out of the woods yet, we have certainly focused on growing our revenues and expended less time on crisis management.
Here are some additional 2018 updates that may be of interest:
Our Alkame Pets division has been busy. The company has been very active in discussions with several companies interested in potentially acquiring the Pawz & Clawz trademarked brand. The brand has both CBD and Non-CBD growth potential.
Our Alkame Aquaculture division has received its fishing cultivation license however we have put our local test pilot program on the back burner for the time being due to other subsidiaries currently keeping us extremely busy. However, due to the fact that our past internal testing showed positive results, we continue to aggressively seek joint venture partners for this operation and are holding discussions with several groups.
Our Alkame Water brand is alive and well. The purpose this specialty niche water brand was created was to bring exposure to the patented Alkame water IP. It has been very successful in achieving its expected results and goal. The brand is doing well but had taken a bit of a back seat this past year due to cash constraints and management's decision to focus on and continue to grow the higher margined private label and co-pack business for other brands. This upcoming year we expect to refocus on and grow this brand. We have taken control of the domain www.shopalkame.com and plan on creating an online sales presence for the brand.
Many shareholders think of Alkame as just a water brand, but it is so much more than that. The Alkame Water brand was always a vehicle to get our name and the benefits of our technology known out there. Being a water "brand" was always secondary to us. While we still market the Alkame water brand it is not, nor was it ever meant to be our main focus. The Alkame bottled water brand has been a success in achieving its core objectives. Our Alkame Water technology is now currently being utilized as the water base in multiple brands in the marketplace and more being added all the time. As well, others have approached us regarding other applications for our technology and we have had several discussions as a direct result of the Alkame bottled water brand and the co-branding and cross marketing on several of our client's labels.
Our CBD division continues making tremendous strides. We have expanded our portfolio of CBD product offerings to include a number of liquid based items such as beverage and food items including but not limited to teas, coffees, lemonades, juices, hangover relief, flavored & enhanced waters, energy waters, sports waters, syrups, drink mixes, including cocktail mixes such as Bloody Mary and Margarita Mixes, honey products, sauces, condiments and much more. We continue to incorporate the Alkame Water Technology in many of the products we produce for our clients with numerous clients co-branding with "Powered by Alkame Technology" right on their label. The Alkame water Patents on Oxygenation and Micro Clustering in conjunction with our Alkaline water as the water base utilized for many of these products provides a much more efficient delivery mechanism and increased bio-availability. We have a lot more exciting news coming shortly from this division. Stay tuned.
Bell Food & Beverage, Inc. Under the guidance and tutelage of President Craig Kaufman, this subsidiary is aggressively growing faster than our initial projected estimates. Infrastructure additions and appointments have led to a strengthened team. New contracts (including several large contracts) and customers, and joint ventures have this subsidiary taking off like a rocket. Bell has surpassed all set goals including new client additions. Several new products will be coming to market that have been created in our in-house lab for both food and beverage verticals and channels, including CBD utilizing Alkame's unique patented water treatment technology. With our obtained Organic certification, we wasted no time creating Organic products for our clientele to phenomenal reception. We continue to see the Bell revenues increase year after year. 2017 only had a few months of Alkame at the helm generating revenues. 2018 was better and would have shown even greater increases in revenue, however, the installation of a new, high speed, cold fill production line took several months of construction. The new production line is now up and operational. Stay tuned, lots more news coming from this division.
Omega Hemp Water
This is a brand that we sold off but maintain a minority position in. During this past year we were busy working on development, formulation, and more to bring this brand to market with our partner. With our co-packing for so many other brands in the beverage sector, we felt it was best to not compete against our own customers/clients. We sold 90% of the brand but are the exclusive co-packer. This also provides another cross marketing and co-branding opportunity for our technology. We expect this brand will be in the market in the 1st quarter of 2019.
Alkame Technology
Our water technology is being applied as the liquid base in many of the CBD beverage brands in the space, with several companies producing in both a co-branding and non-co-branding manner. The co-branding has worked exactly liked we had hoped. We have gained several new clients that will be coming to market in the upcoming year (2019), explicitly due to our water technology and our cross-marketing efforts. We are also looking to apply our technology in other sectors and are in discussions for several other applications, with parties looking to apply the IP in their markets this year...stay tuned.
Alkame Holdings, Inc.
To assist the growth of its subsidiaries, Alkame has purchased several new pieces of equipment including a new cold fill production line, full shrink sleeve labeler, PVC labeler, capper, multiple change parts, carton taping equipment, vertical form fill and seal sachet packet machinery, steam generators, and even more production equipment that is already in the works for 2019.
Legal Matters
The company has no legal matters pending during the year. We did have one company breach their co-pack manufacturing agreement with Alkame. However, management felt for various reasons it was in Alkame's best interest not to expend the capital resources to enforce the agreement. Alkame no longer allowed the company to display the Alkame Technology logo on their label, required a change to their website verbiage that pertained to Alkame water technology, and can no longer utilize the Alkame patented water technology providing a superior alkaline water base that is oxygenated and micro clustered allowing for better bio-availability as their water base for their bottled beverages. As well, it was just recently brought to our attention that a website has verbiage describing their product as manufactured utilizing our patented water treatment technology, including oxygenation & micro-clustering among other verbiage directly pertaining to our patents and our content. We have been in contact with the owner of the site and they are now in the process of taking the improper verbiage that was not authorized by us down.
Caveat Emptor:
A Caveat Emptor symbol was placed on our otcmarkets.com profile. This was generated by an unauthorized stock promotion that utilized our stock without our knowledge or consent, that triggered trading volume. This Caveat Emptor symbol will be removed once we become current this year in our filings.
Financing
The Caveat Emptor on our stock symbol has created a completely different set of issues for us. We were in talks with several traditional funders but due to the Caveat Emptor they decided to wait until it is removed. With limited finance options and massive expansion capital required to fuel the growth, it was necessary to take on a few convertible notes. These notes were used to purchase the production equipment necessary to move forward. It is our goal however, to pay these notes off out of cash flow generated from the new equipment. We did however also receive in the latter part of the year our first traditional funding, a revolving line of credit with extremely favorable terms. This line will evolve in the coming year, with the potential to be doubled as conditions require. Lastly, we are in continuous talks with several other funding sources of traditional financing and will update when and if appropriate.
Miscellaneous
We understand that many shareholders have been upset over our silence throughout the year. We had previously listened to several shareholders and tried to answer questions in an open forum and provide updates in various social media outlets. We decided it was best to hunker down and focus on the growth of the business. We cannot appease all shareholders. We felt it was in the best interest of our shareholders to stay as quiet as possible until we have the Caveat Emptor status removed as we do not want to be construed as trying to promote our stock. We also realized that we can best serve our shareholders by working on getting up to date on our filings and growing the business. It is our belief that if you take care of the business the stock will follow and not the other way around. We expect to improve our communication efforts in this new year.
Revenues/Financials
Our company's financial team continues to work with the auditors to complete our filings. It was during the 3rd quarter of 2015 that we had made the determination to focus solely on growing the business and made tremendous sacrifices to ensure the staying power of Alkame. With the company now on a more stable footing, we are happy to announce that we are back on track and have completed all of the 2016 Q's, with the final K right behind it. We expect the financials for 2017 & 2018 to be completed over the coming months.
We have made some changes regarding our financial team infrastructure. We have brought on a new comptroller this past fourth quarter. With this addition, our financial team has now been strengthened and in a much better position to assist Alkame and our subsidiaries in our growth not only by implementing new policies and programs to assist us and our accounting and audit firms, but also with production efficiencies, costing structures and more stringent day-to-day accounting practices to ensure past financial reporting challenges the company has faced will become a thing of the past, and allow Alkame to move forward in a more timely and efficient manner.
Alkame Holdings, Inc. wants to thank all our employees and stockholders, for your support as we continue to transform our Company, increase product categories, streamline and enhance operations, and continue to support our clients. Our Company along with all our subsidiaries are VERY BUSY ON SEVERAL EXCITING FRONTS and we look forward to sharing significant updates and developments with you, our valued shareholders as they become warranted. STAY TUNED.
Sincerely,
Robert Eakle, CEO"
About Alkame Holdings, Inc.
Alkame Holdings, Inc. is a publicly traded health and wellness technology holding company, with a focus on patentable, innovative, and eco-friendly consumer products. The Company's wholly-owned subsidiaries market and distribute enhanced waters utilizing an exclusive patented formula and technology to create enhanced water with several unique properties. The organization is diligently building a strong foundation through the launch and acquisition of appropriate business assets, and by pursuing multiple applications to utilize its Intellectual Property by placement into several emerging business sectors, such as the growing aqua-culture industry, consumer bottled water and RTD products, household pet products, horticulture and agriculture applications, as well as many other various water treatment solutions to both new and existing business platforms.
For more information, visit www.alkameholdingsinc.com.
Alkame Holdings, Inc. Investor Relations
Website: www.alkameholdingsinc.com
Email: info@alkameholdingsinc.com
Disclaimer/Safe Harbor: This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Litigation Reform Act. The statements reflect the Company's current views with respect to future events that involve risks and uncertainties. Among others, these risks include the expectation that Alkame will achieve significant sales, the failure to meet schedule or performance requirements of the Company's contracts, the Company's liquidity position, the Company's ability to obtain new contracts, the emergence of competitors with greater financial resources and the impact of competitive pricing. In the light of these uncertainties, the forward-looking events referred to in this release might not occur. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
SOURCE: Alkame Holdings, Inc