Save Money and Learn More About Your Finances

Sally Summers

If you want to make shopping much, much easier -- whether you're looking for the best mutual fund, car insurance, cell phone, television or toaster...If you want to know the pros and cons about products and services -- before you shell out your hard-earned money...If you want to know the healthiest, most nutritious foods for you and your family...

When you put Consumer Reports to work for you, you get more than 100 car experts, engineers, chemists, statisticians, nutritionists, money advisors and safety gurus you can count on!

Live healthier, wealthier and wiser with the facts you find only in Consumer Reports:

* How to lose weight without feeling hungry
* What= the car salesman doesn't want you to know
* Ways to save $700 on your annual cell phone bill
* What the guy in the stereo store won't tell you
* Strategies to protect your nest egg against a volatile stock market
* What your car mechanic might not tell you
* The scary reality about chicken safety and salmonella poisoning
* What your travel agent won't tell you
* The top-rated 27-inch television
* Ways to slash your car insurance costs
* What the appliance store salesman won't tell you
* The expensive secret about premium gasoline
* The only airline consistently rated high for good service and low prices
* The truth the diet gurus refuse to tell you
* Best picks for this year's new cars
* And much, much more!

Consumer Reports compares features, sorts through the choices, analyzes the options= and reports back to you. You benefit from the clear advice. Useful recommendations. Wise insights. Simple, easy-to-understand information.

You'll discover new products. New technology. New ideas. New ways to make your life better, safer, easier and more enjoyable, too. You'll know powerful facts. You'll avoid problems. Spot scams. Get the best value for your money.

Consumer Reports is the only magazine of its kind!

Consumer Reports is 100% nonprofit. And Consumer Reports doesn't have to worry about big car companies, big manufacturers, big financial institutions or big airlines pulling their advertising dollars. That's because Consumer Reports doesn't carry any advertising. Consumer Reports is paid by you only and works for you only! Consumer Reports tells you the truth -- in plain English -- straight from the experts= at the world's largest consumer product testing center.

About the Author

Sally Summers is Editorial Director at www.BlueDolphin-Magazines.com and www.Magazine-Supermarket.com. You can read her weekly blog at http://sallysummers.blogspot.com where she talks about today's most popular magazines and how they can enrich your daily life.

Selecting An Equity Finance Consultant

William Cate

Selecting An Equity Finance Consultant
By
William Cate

Most Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) realize that it's a hundred times easier to raise venture capital for a public company than a private company. There is no shortage of individuals and firms seeking to advise and coordinate the going public process for CFOs. The problem is that many of these equity finance consultants are inept and/or dishonest. Here are some simple rules for finding a competent and ethical advisor.

Avoid firms that don't disclose anything about themselves or their employees. The Net is a wonderful free-tool for doing "Due Diligence" investigations on firms and individuals. Do an advanced search on the firm and its principals. Credit checks and background investigations are wise investments before you hire any consultant.

All equity finance consultants have two basic ways to take your company public. They can help you do an Initial Public Offering. Or they= can suggest one of several alternative ways to go public in the USA. None of the alternative tactics include a public financing for your company. Whatever solution the prospective equity consultant advises, you should ask for an estimate of costs, time to trading and the odds of being called for trading. You should also determine how the equity finance consultant expects to make money helping your company go public.

If you have an operating company and decide to do an IPO, your costs should average between $1.5 and $2.25 million. You should expect that it should take an average of 18 months to get your "Effective Letter" from the SEC. And your odds of success are about even, that is, 50/50. You should expect to pay your underwriter about 18% of the money raised. You will be expected to pay non-refundable upfront expense fees. You should budget $10,000/per broker presentation that will be needed to help the underwriter raise your IPO money. If your prospective consultant= disagrees with these guidelines, ask them in writing for the evidence to support their viewpoint.

IPO alternatives range in costs from $60,000 to several million dollars. Amazingly, the most expensive IPO alternative is the most popular. While doing a reverse merger shouldn't cost your company more than $150,000 in out-of-pocket Due Diligence costs, the expense of maintaining your shell float's share price will run into millions of dollars.

In a reverse merger, the public shell insiders retain their shares. This means they have several million shares of your stock to sell. You are responsible for finding the public buyers of their stock and all future shareholders of your public company. Let's assume that the reverse merger insiders have three million of your public company's shares. Your goal is to maintain a $4 share price. The previous shell owners will gross $12 million on the sale of their reverse merger shares. It should cost you $0.25/share to buy the past= owners' shares. The past owners will take a three million-dollar bite out of your investor relations' budget.

However, that's only the beginning of your problems. Your reverse merger public company must now find the buyers, each quarter, for those past insider shares. Assuming you can maintain the same $4 share price, the estimated annual investor relations costs will be $12 million per year, in addition to any other shares in the public float. This $12+ million investor relations cost will continue as long as the company is public and trading at $4/share.

The cash price of an OTCBB (Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board) shell with 90% or more control is about $1.5 million. The primary advantage to a shell purchase is that the buyers are certain that their shares will trade. The major disadvantage is that the shell insiders often create shares for themselves and hide this fact from potential buyers. The industry axiom is that there is no such thing as a clean shell. Thus= the buyer also inherits the future costs of finding the buyers for those hidden shares.

There are alternatives to taking a company public whic cost less than $100,000. They don't create stock that enters the float. If you are interviewing potential equity finance consultants, you should ask them for their low cost strategy and determine its odds of working for your company. You should also ascertain the ongoing investor relations costs of any public company strategy.

Most professionals in the equity finance business have far more interest in short-term profits than long term earnings. If your purpose in going public is to give your investors a "liquidity event," you'll easily find equity finance consultants who share your myopic vision. If you are going public to build your company, you should read my ebook Venture Capital Profits. It's the formula for a win/win public company strategy. The public profits. The insiders and private placement investors maximize= their profits.

About the Author: Since 1981, William Cate has been managing Director of Beowulf Investments [http://home.earthlink.net/~beowulfinvestments/], a Merchant Banking and Equity Finance Consulting firm. He can be contacted at: Beowulfinvetments@Earthlink.net

About the Author

He has been the Managing Director of Beowulf Investments [http://home.earthlink.net/~beowulfinvestments/] since 1981 and is the Executive Director of the Global Village Investment Club [http://home.earthlink.net/~beowulfinvestments/globalvillageinvestmentclubwelcome/]