Namaste changes fiscal year-end

Namaste Technologies (TSXV: N) (USOTC: NXTTF) has announced a change in its fiscal yearend from August 31st to November 30th effective immediately. The reason given was “…to facilitate efficiencies in the administration, accounting and production of the annual audited financial statements.” The company was unable to file audited statements on time for the past two years. This sounds like an admission they weren’t going to make it this year either without a three month extension. Of course the other reason might be that N did not want to issue an income statement for the year ended August 31st because it would paint an unflattering picture of operations. The results will still have to be disclosed but if they can show a subsequent improvement, it might deflect attention toward better results.

We also note the company issued 265,000 options to certain directors and consultants at a price of $1.39 per common share for a period of five years. As we reported earlier, N instituted a Normal Course Issuer Bid also known as a share buyback plan. We observed along with others that seemed to be strange timing as the company is losing money. Now we sense a potential conflict of interest. Directors prefer to get their options priced at a lower level and therefore had an implied motivation to not commence the buyback plan until after they had priced these options. Now that the options have been issued, shareholder funds may be used to buyback and hopefully increase the price of the shares. We will watch the timing of these events carefully (read complete press release here).