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Renegade Venture Corporation (RDVN) |
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CEOCFO Current
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This is a printer friendly page! Renegade
Venture Corporation is in the process of building an aviation group
Ian Herman Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Interview conducted by: Lynn Fosse Senior Editor CEOCFOinterviews.com October 2003 BIO: CEOCFOinterviews: Mr.
Herman, please give us a brief history of Renegade Venture Corporation. Mr. Herman: “We need to go back to May of 2002, when we acquired Hamilton Aerospace Technologies, which is a new company, and we reversed it into Renegade ventures, which was a shell at that time. Hamilton Aerospace Technologies is a maintenance repair and overhaul operation for narrow-bodied jet aircraft, the large passenger aircraft flown by commercial passengers and cargo operators. Renegade has never been in the aviation business, so I guess that was the biggest change. I am the former chairman of British World Airlines, and I came out of the aviation industry pre-9/11 and after 9/11, I saw a huge opportunity created by that tragedy. The aviation values plummeted to an all time low. So I came back in with a group of colleagues with a view to building an aviation group. In order to be successful in aviation, you have to start somewhere, and Hamilton fit the bill. We agreed to acquire assets from Hamilton Aviation, which had been in business for over forty years. In the first nine months of our operations, we only did about 5 million dollars in sales revenue. In the quarter just ended, we did over 4 million dollars in revenue. We are on target this year to do something like 19 million. For the current quarter, we are looking at something like 7 ½ million.” CEOCFOinterviews: What is causing the increase? Mr. Herman: “We have demonstrated to the market that we are high quality and low-cost and we have customers in the United States and in other parts of the world. We have names you can recognize such as UPS, BOEING, GOODRICH, FALCON AIR EXPRESS, Jetran Internatioanl and SPACE WORLD.” CEOCFOinterviews: Is high quality and low-cost, unusual for the industry? Mr. Herman: “If you are not high quality there are problems with the FAA. Our competitors have a much higher overhead structure than we have. Senior management here, wear a number of different hats and we only add overhead when we know we have the business. The other edge is that we have recently just broken into the international aircraft trading business. One of the things we spoke about in interviews last year is that we needed to do that in order to capture our market. If you are able to supply the aircraft to your customers and supply them with maintenance attached, you will ensure your future business.” CEOCFOinterviews: What did you need to do to get into the new area, and what can you do to ensure new penetration there? Mr. Herman: “The industry is small, and everybody knows everybody. You can quickly develop your reputation. Our reputation has caused us to be approached by Jetran International who acquired just under a hundred aircraft from U.S Air, when they went into Chapter 11, and they chose to maintain the majority of their aircraft with us, and that was a major step for us and it got the message to the whole industry of who we are. That has caused a number of people as far away as Africa and South America, to come knocking on our door.” CEOCFOinterviews: Are there innovations in maintenance and repair as well as new technologies? Mr. Herman: “I would say that the industry is constantly evolving new processes because of the improvement that takes place with the equipment that goes onto the aircraft. The maintenance has to always be up to the minute with the latest technology. It is more of question of making sure that you are current in every way and most cost effective.” CEOCFOinterviews: Because of the overall downturn in the industry, is it easier for you to get mechanics and people to do the work? Mr. Herman: “Yes, we have operated a very flexible staffing program here, which is flexible to reflect the business as it comes off. We don’t carry large overhead if there is a lull in the business. We built our personnel up; when we came in, there were only four people here, and we are now at 250. There have been times when business didn’t come in according to our time table here, and we have been able because of the way in which we contract with our staff, to be able to lay people off and bring them back again.” CEOCFOinterviews: Do any of the security issues filter down to that level? Mr. Herman: “Yes, obviously there are airport security issues, and in addition to that, in terms of the aircraft themselves, the biggest change are the reinforced cockpit doors.” CEOCFOinterviews: What are your challenges going forward and how are you ready? Mr. Herman: “Our biggest challenge right now, is financial; we have grown at such a rate that working capital becomes an issue. I have been trying to stress the need and opportunity, for the working capital. There are deals out there everyday of the week that we can take advantage of, with aircraft, parts and equipment at low prices to be acquired. We have customers that are willing to take them up. Last year, I talked about going from doing where we were then, which was just about five million dollars, to doing thirty million dollars, providing we had the working capital. Without an injection of working capital, we should do around 20 million dollars this year, which will be a great achievement. We are doing a four million dollar preferred stock offering in the near future, and we hope that the market responds well to that, because we have demonstrated that we do what we say we do.” CEOCFOinterviews: Where do you think the investment community doesn’t get the concept? Mr. Herman: “With great respect to the industry, they are sheep. As soon as 9/11 hit, instead of saying this is the downturn at the end of the ten-year cycle that the aviation industry goes through;( the industry goes from boom to bust every ten years). It was already headed downwards before 9/11, and it went through the floor at an unbelievable rate. What I can’t believe is everybody knows that they haven’t invented the “beam me up Scotty Machine” to replace jet aircraft to get you from A to B at speed. The aviation industry is recovering and the next five years will be extremely good for aviation. After 9/11 all the big boys that were heavily invested in aviationwere headed for the exit doors, and Wall Street followed suit. Instead of saying tothose people who have not yet invested in aviation, “this is a great opportunity,” everybody joined in the rush to the exit. The opportunities are there, and we have demonstrated that we are the right sort of company to back. The tide is beginning to turn. After around quarterly sales revenues of four-and-a-half million, we start to break even, and we will do between six and seven-and-a-half million in the next quarter.” CEOCFOinterviews: Are there other pieces that you need to put into place? Mr. Herman: “I think we need to be better at communication. One of the reasons we have been quiet over the last few months, is because we have done a major restructuring of our stock. Management now, is in control of the business, which I know is very important to many investors.” CEOCFOinterviews: What about acquisitions? Mr. Herman: “We are going to be doing more business / aviaton asset acquisitions and more aircraft trading. We have a number of deals in the works. We are looking at an acquisition of a parts company, which is the perfect fit for what we have.” CEOCFOinterviews: Are there any other similar entities developing now, which are a direct competition? Mr. Herman: “Not
following our model. People who are in our business, tend to stick to only the maintenance
side of the business. I think that is just fine for us.” Mr. Herman: “We are in the process of building an aviation group. When you look at it initially, all you see is one subsidiary, namely Hamilton Aerospace, but what you are looking at is the beginnings of the development of an aviation group.” disclaimers |
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