FLASR (OTCMKTS:FLSR) Acquisition An Innovative Pr
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An Innovative Profitable Company That Is Disrupting the Timeshare Industry
ATLANTA, April 13, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- FLASR INC., (OTCMKTS:FLSR) reports on the progress and business of acquisition Bridgeport Group.
As previously announced the Company’s issued and outstanding remained unchanged. The Company intends to file Form 8K covering our progress imminently.
AUTHORIZED ISSUED AND OUT
COM 10,000,000,000 4,876,507,249 COMMON
PREF 15,000,000.00 1,800,000.00 RESTRICTED 144
10,015,000,000 3,076,507,249 FLOAT
The acquisition gives FLASR a disruptive foothold in the mature $9 billion timeshare industry. The most immediate and fundamental question is; "can FLASR’s acquired subsidiary, Dinostar Inc d/b/a The Bridgeport Group, develop a return on investment in an industry that is opaque, highly fragmented and overshadowed by judicial intervention and notoriously bad press?"
Paul Taylor, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of The Bridgeport Group & Chairman/CEO of FLASR Inc, who commented, “before we can fully unleash our exciting disruptive business we have to bring FLASR Inc. back to a fully reporting public company while we aggregate all the old FLASR notes “at the right price”. We don’t need that type of overhang, particularly as we didn’t have the benefit of spending that money. Specific plans for the 2018, include operational reports that will be made public after we emerge from the EDGAR and FINRA processes and then address the Company’s equity price and condition and put that into perspective.” said Taylor.
This summary not only elaborates on Bridgeport’s business methods, but also explains how the Company is competitively positioned and why this acquisition unlocks tremendous value for investors who establish a position in FLSR.
Company Background.
Dinostar was originally established in 2003 as a ‘timeshare problem solving, solution creating, business consultancy and investment vehicle.' In 2012/13/14, Dinostar was positioned as consultant to various timeshare developers & resorts and other parties. Dinostar began opportunistically investing in timeshare disposal all the while investigating the lack of a secondary market for the product. Our operations took formal form in 2015, with our earliest outbound call center in central Florida.
In 2015/2016/2017 combined, Bridgeport Group (which is the Company that FLSR will operate through) realized over $103 million in gross disposal fees of well-known legacy timeshares and $58 million in gross rental income in the same 36 months. The Company has successfully created a quasi-secondary market for fixed/floating-week, deeded, legacy timeshares where no market previously existed.
Unaudited Financial Results.
SILO ONE SILO ONE SILO TWO- THREE - FOUR
YE 2016 YE 2017 YE 2017
GROSS DISPOSAL FEES $ 17,594,325 $ 19,765,465 $ 86,395,173
NET DISPOSAL EBITDA $ 11,436,311 $ 12,847,552 $ 29,340,296
$ -
Maintenance Accrued $ 3,842,348 $ 4,316,494 $ 22,548,819
$ -
Granulation Provisions $ 34,986 $ 39,303 $ 520,417
Performance Units $ 26,251 $ 29,490 $ 402,864
Gross Rental Income $ 6,168,985 $ 6,930,238 $ 52,372,293
$ -
EBIDTA $ 13,762,948 $ 15,461,296 $ 59,163,770
Source – Unaudited Financial Statements Dinostar Inc (YE 2016, YE 2017)
Bridgeport enjoys a monopoly with a huge moat around its business.
Taylor commented that “2017 was the culmination of our efforts, although the performance was chaotic, it demonstrated the potential for the “No Upfront Fee / Timeshare Disposal product and the willingness of the legacy Timeshare Owner to pay our $3500 fee upon full disposal.”
According to the FLSR press releases announcing the initiation of the acquisition process, Bridgeport Group projects net revenues more than $60* million in 2018, validating and underlining the viability of the business model.
Taylor continued “In mid-2017 Gary Freeman and I had to improvise when our business took on a life of its own in Nevada & California. The disposal business being referred to us from these two states was enormous."
TIMESHARE RECYCLING FOR DUMMIES.
The majority of timeshares sold in the last two decades are based on a *Points system. (*A customer buys Points or a Right to Use (RTU) contractual agreement, usually for a term of 20 – 30 years. There is no actual physical Deed in an RTU contract). Bridgeport only disposes of Deeded or Legacy deeded Fixed/Floating weeks of timeshare.
Bringing transparency
Part of the sales pitch that resort owners use to induce people to buy timeshares is the promise that the timeshare will increase in value over time, it can be resold, or it can rented out easily. The statements are extremely misleading. Owners often experience the misery of escalating maintenance fees (sometimes running into thousands of dollars a year) and the possibility of never getting an opportunity to sell the timeshare at a break-even point, let alone a profit –if indeed you actually got a genuine buyer. In fact, most timeshares can’t be given away! Timeshare maintenance fees increase at a rate of approximately 8% annually, according to the American Resort and Developers Association (ARDA). Because of the burden of escalating fees, potential special assessments from damaged timeshare properties, real estate tax* (*on certain timeshares) and zero return on investment, there is a very limited demand for timeshares in the secondary market, making disposal of timeshares a frustratingly difficult process.
“We’ve had customers owning multiple weeks willing to pay up to $18,000 for a disposal service in order to transfer ownership and save themselves from decades of paying maintenance fees and taxes,” said Taylor. "All of our competition in the disposal businesses demand money upfront to facilitate a disposal and transfer process, a model that increases likelihood of miscreant behavior and often criminal malpractice. The internet is littered with news stories about timeshare resale and rental scams that have stolen millions from customers in upfront fees, sadly most of these are trusting senior citizens.”
“Bridgeport has differentiated itself by being the pioneer of a bold new business that charges qualifying legacy owning customers no money upfront. We charge a fixed, competitive fee after successful transfer of ownership of the legacy or deeded timeshare contract from the original owner to our holding entity,” ventured Taylor. “We are “the only choice” for legacy deed disposal,” he added.
“NO UPFRONT FEES” MODEL TAKING MARKET BY STORM
“Many of our disposal customers are senior citizens. Most of our disposal business comes from people 75 years old or older. We have never, do not and will never ask for an upfront fee to dispose a legacy timeshare,” continued Taylor, clarifying that they only deal with fixed/floating week, deeded, legacy timeshares that are fully owned and have all their maintenance fees (and taxes) paid in full for the next 12 months.
“Our competitive fixed price disposal fee is due only at the closing and irrevocable transfer of a customer’s timeshare contract to our entities,” he added. The Company is able to charge a fixed rate since and works with numerous law firms and transfer facilitators to expedite the process.
Thanks to this approach, the Company is trusted and has been able to grow a robust fee-based revenue stream exponentially while increasing its reach in the market. The Company has outsourced telemarketing partnerships operating in Central Florida. The Company owns a comprehensive database of fixed week, deeded legacy timeshare owners who our telemarketing partnerships contact to solicit “No Upfront Fee” timeshare disposal services.
“When we started our telemarketing campaign, it was us calling prospective customers to solicit business. However, after a while word got around that we could be trusted and didn’t charge upfront, we were swamped with referral calls. We are currently handling 80-150 contracts a month,” noted Taylor. “One peculiar thing about fixed week, deeded legacy timeshares is that the vast majority are owned by people 75 and older. These legacy timeshares date back to the 80’s before the timeshare points system innovation. Most people who bought them back in that era were vacationing working-class citizens at the time. The majority of these owners don’t use the timeshare any longer and are saddled with the ongoing expenses.”
“Culturally and socially, this older demographic is very close knit. They share information and trust one another tremendously, a peculiarity that has helped our brand grow through word of mouth,” ventured Taylor.
HOW TO SHARE RENTABLE INVENTORY LIVE AND ON THE FLY?
Bridgeport began its business model by designing its own proprietary smart contracts used initially with disposal customers. We developed our granulation techniques and resulting inventory that today is shared simultaneously with multiple wholesale networks using a secured distribution ledger. We didn’t think of it, our coders did. We speculate that blockchain will eventually be used ubiquitously to track fractional possession transactions in businesses like ours. Bridgeport cost-effectively transfers timeshares and distributes rentable opportunities to vacation apps and rental networks such as AirBnB and dozens of competitive networks.
Granulated Deeded Timeshares
In other words, after transferring the timeshare to its new ownership, assuming zero initial liabilities and raking in a sizeable disposal fee, Bridgeport monetizes the liability.
“There is a very good reason why we focus exclusively on fixed week, “deeded” timeshares from legacy brands. Deeds cannot be destroyed. They are recorded like any other real estate transaction. The early timeshare developers did this to lock the customer into paying maintenance & special assessment fee’s for ever – ad infinitum. Legacy Deeds in top locations represent desirable vacation destinations and are easily marketable in “daily rental increments”, especially during peak seasons, because that’s what vacationing consumers and special event consumers want today. They want timeshare condo luxuries- rented by the day,” said Mr. Taylor.
In view of their marketability, what the Company does to monetize the timeshares is to granulate them down further into individual days (and in some cases hours) that can then be rented out. Apps such as Vacatia, Orbitz and Expedia’s, Travelocity, which it acquired from Sabre Corp., among others offer inventory to be rented. These apps tend to subscribe to wholesale inventory and pay a commission on rentals, giving Bridgeport an avenue to monetize the timeshares.
“Fractionalizing is an age-old business model that is renowned for its simplicity yet revered for its effectiveness in different sectors. Think about the best disruption in modern times. Apple disrupted the music business by making music libraries portable and then instead of selling a CD or an Album; Apple cut the albums into tracks permanently disrupting the industry. We take a portfolio of deeded Timeshares and we grind them down into daily rental opportunities, concentrating on specific resorts and specific times of the year.
“We took a worthless legacy product that no one wanted, we got paid to take it away, we chopped it down and fed every Airbnb style marketer their sweet spot,” commented Gary Freeman; Chairman of Dinostar. “Applying this concept to deeded timeshare and renting out fractions (days and hours) on platforms such as Airbnb more than offsets the maintenance fees and leaves us with money to pass down into our P&L,” he added.
Going public
Bridgeport continues to aggressively market disposal services to add to its growing portfolio of timeshares. “We have 2016 and 2017 granulation tranches producing rental revenue. If we fail to pay our maintenance fees or create the impression that we are unable to pay, these resorts may take adverse action. In many ways the resorts are our unwitting business partners,” noted Taylor.
While noting that Bridgeport’s portfolio consists of an assorted range of legacy timeshares, the CEO said the Company selected a handful of the best brands to concentrate its fractional ownership model. The model has the potential to also increase resort’s direct sales through high traffic online marketplaces in the hospitality space.
“Our model is disruptive because the Resort’s cannot change the business model they created in the 70’s. The product of our granulation technique creates shared value for the resorts in the form of new visitors & creates vacation property rental revenue opportunities, fills vacationing apps with great inventory, and we profit from all of it. This disruptive process of ownership granulation can be further extrapolated and lends itself to the fractional possession of not only Timeshare but everything from Boeing Jets to Birkin handbags,” said Taylor.
Major public timeshare operators, including Wyndham, Marriott, Bluegreen Vacations and Hilton, have all hived off their timeshare units into separate trading companies. When Wyndham spun off its timeshare unit in August 2017, Professor Amy Gregory, who analyzes the Timeshare Industry noted that the timeshare business carries tremendous liabilities for real estate and construction for as long as decades. In contrast, the core hotel business today largely depends on the use of franchises and management arrangements, which don’t require heavy capital outlays on fixed real estate assets. In other words, timeshares operators come across occasional cash flow challenges compared with mainstream hotels.
Conclusion
Bridgeport Group is disrupting the timeshare industry in the same way Uber disrupted the taxi business and Facebook, and Twitter, disrupted the media business. The Company is bringing much needed transparency for timeshare disposal while profitably creating a quasi-secondary market through granulation of fractional ownership. It is also creating shared value for both resorts and vacation apps, strengthening the possibility of lucrative strategic partnerships further down the road.
Through FLSR Bridgeport has access to equity financing, the Company’s growth will explode. The projected topline growth for 2018 may just be the beginning of a more exciting growth narrative.
FLSR, which is set to own this high growth entity, is trading at cents on the dollar despite this bubbling potential in its acquisition target. FLSR could unlock great value for shareholders in the mid-to-short-term, especially after the acquisition is finalized and it starts executing it definitive plans to acquire at least two other firms in the hospitality space.
About FLASR.
FLASR’s wholly owned subsidiary is an entirely new breed of Fractional Ownership Company. We utilize a proprietary "War-Ship" strategy that combines Fractional Ownership related investment and a fee-based business of immediate, irrevocable and permanent transfer of specific legacy timeshare. We manage a portfolio of specific Fractional Loan Asset Backed Securities, timeshare public company's equities, specific exchange traded options, off-exchange derivatives, swap contracts as well as other privately negotiated instruments. Our portfolio is one of the largest private collections of well-known branded timeshare assets.
Bridgeportgroup.net
Fannietime.com
Safe Harbour Statement
This communication contains statements that may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Those statements include statements regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of My Social Income, Inc. and members of its management as well as the assumptions on which such statements are based.
Prospective investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, and that actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by such forward-looking statements. Important factors currently known to management that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-statements include fluctuation of operating results, the ability to compete successfully, and the ability to complete before-mentioned transactions.
The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect changed assumptions, the occurrence of unanticipated events or changes to future operating results.
For more information please contact:
info@flasracquisitions.com
sales@bridgeportgroup.net
844 884 9772
Source: FLASR Inc.
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