Brooke Corp (BXXX)
The Company sells insurance, financial services and funeral services to individuals and small businesses through its network of franchised locations and also conduct limited self-insurance operations and is positioned to conduct reinsurance operations.
Recs
Franchise organization who's news is new litigation leadership - they live by suing their franchisees, taking back the "book of business" and then reselling it to a new franchisee. The franchise fees show as income and become a receivable which never quite gets paid off so they sue the agent and do it all over again. Heckuva business plan.
Recs
This company continues to pay a dividend while it is running a negative cash flow. The last increase in cash was at the end of 3rd qt. '06 and that was after raising $43million in a new offering.
The treatment of franchisee is notorious and there is a recent increase in franchisee filing bankruptcy. Debt ratio to insurance commissions is all out of wack
Recs
Beware of this company. Why is it that when you look at one of the Brooke agencies for sale, you don't actually see the actual commission statements of the prior owner, but a list that Brooke has compiled of them? Could it be that Brooke has over inflated them? That seems to be the case in every agency that I know of and believe me, I have talked to more than just a few. 98% of the time, Brooke will hold money back from the seller and pay them over a period of a couple of years. Most of the time, they will not pay the seller off stating that the actual commissions earned did not equal what the seller originally proposed in the sale. Why then doesn't Brooke credit that money back to the agent?
They continue to charge the agent the original loan amount and the interest when they in fact didn't pay that amount to the owner? Do they just consider this a gift on their part?
Haven't you ever found it strange that such a small company has an entire legal staff? Why would that be? Are they spending that much time fighting legal battles? That seems to be the case if you ask me.
They buy their own stock to drive up the price and they pay dividends every quarter
This is only one of the many examples that involves this company!

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