It was not that long ago that the behemoths of my industry, the Automobile After-Market, led every one to believe that they were all-knowing. That is of course, like the crisis for the financial markets, the car care industry was rocketed to different pastures by a small company (about $ 20-25 million in market cap) currently traded on the over-the-counter markets under symbol FLKI. This company struck in late 1997 and has continued its aggressive product conceptions, designs and target objectives to become a global brand and product conception leader. In 1997 a then 26 year Norwegian woman debarked packing her recently earned MBA from a top European School. FLKI's President and founder had won the seed capital for her brain child idea whom she posited as inevitably qualified to take a huge market heretofore ignored. To the land of the free, the land of opportunity she headed. The market she targeted; the woman and her car. This was 1997, and the car care industry was, according to the prevailing dogma of the day a man's business. The industry was uniquely dedicated to the one that would rather spend the weekend in the garage than at home with his family: the so-called car enthusiast. Devoted to his car, egotistic to a fault, this consumer was easily manipulated into a craving to pay three times the price to give his car nothing but the best - he got it, a label, a macho design and often a decent product too if you ignored the exorbitant price. One would have thought that large companies, who enjoyed exalted status for decades before, would have understood that an industry catering to only 8% of the global market is simply not rational. Well they didn't, they left a 92% gap open big enough to pass a tank. And pass the FLKI crew did. In the decade that has followed FLKI has garnered awards, renowned brand and reputation for performance and quality, management perseverance, and better products at one third the price all of which quickly put FLKI in the elite team of global players. Google FLKI and you'll wonder why the company is so unknown by the investment community. "We prefer it that way - the focus stays on our shareholder interest rather than short term reporting exigencies" said Manuel Garcia, Communications Officer. There's much to say for Garcia's confidence even from the perspective of an investor and there are near 4000 of them (officially there are approximately 3,600 shareholders). A look at the last 52 weeks for the stock reveals a rise in the stock value of 1900%. No chart for day traders granted, but a pattern of two to three rounds of favorable trading activity is evident each year since 2006. The first in 2009 gave traders 890%, the second 390% and the third 40%. For my money, be it the little that there is, those kind of returns without the investment community's imprimatur have the merit of being real. This kind of rigid thinking and notions remains. The industry still vigorously defends their continuing and persistent century old strategy, modernizing by copying all too often conceptions designed by competing engineers, or revamping entire lines with a quick brush of label design. Makes you think doesn't it. The race between the hare and the turtle comes to mind. FLKI's young and dynamic President and her staff in product development are plotting along at just my speed. Slow but sure, look at all those people in the dust.
Related Articles -
Car care, car-care, autocare, chemicals, polishes, wax, wipes, wet wipes, clean plus, Lingettes, Nettoyant, Desinfectant, Wipes, Chimie, Degraissan,
|