Greg Roberts: Yeah. I try for strategic reasons. Now, I don’t know exactly what we said when we took the increased state to get us to, I think it’s 47% or 49%. I will say that, the increase would take us to 75% and I don’t — and I don’t believe the size of that 25% would not be normal course for us if we chose to do it. You know, it’s certainly more than $5 million, and if you go back and look and you can see what we paid for the increase that we did make, you know, you can kind of figure it out. There’s probably enough information there. I don’t want to speak to it at the moment. I just know that as it relates to the way I just described all the decisions in front of us at the moment, we have been preparing in our own minds for the last six months, knowing that this opportunity is there that this window is going to open, and that we feel that that is a top priority, because we believe we value that option, and we believe that we think the option is an asset of A-Mark and we will be prepared if we think it’s the right opportunity.
We’ll be prepared to take it. I don’t think the cost or the investment will, it won’t affect our decision-making. I think we have enough liquidity to do that. We have enough liquidity to pay our dividend. We have enough liquidity to buy back stock when we think it’s the right time. And we have two or three other acquisitions we’re looking at right now. So, I mean, I feel like we’re very well prepared to take advantage when others need to sell. So I like the hand we have and I think we’re playing the hand very well.
Sy Jacobs: Greg, on that point, just last part of the same question. If you were to, you said that option is fully baked. If you were to exercise it and go over 50%? And this could be a question for Kathleen possibly because it involves account.
Greg Roberts: It is going be for Kathleen because I know exactly what you’re going say.
Sy Jacobs: Yeah, is, would it be a situation like JM Bullion where by going over 50%, does the price of the option, is it struck at a price that would cause you to need to write up your minority investment and produce a gap earnings gain?
Kathleen Simpson-Taylor: Yes.
Sy Jacobs: And then you would also get, I assume the other gap effect is you would just have a higher stream of income flowing through the gap income statement because you own more of it?
Kathleen Simpson-Taylor: Yeah, you can look back at the JMB acquisition. We had that re-measurement gain, right? So the book value of how we carried the investment versus what the implied enterprise value is when you would buy the incremental piece. So that would most likely result in another re-measurement gain.
Sy Jacobs: Okay. Great. I appreciate it.
Greg Roberts: I’m assuming, Kathleen, that we would then consolidate their financials if we did that.
Kathleen Simpson-Taylor: If we’re up to 75, we would be required to consolidate.
Greg Roberts: Okay. Is that good, Sy?
Sy Jacobs: That’s awesome. Thanks, both of you.
Operator: Thank you very much. Well, at this time, that does conclude our question-and-answer session. I’d now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Roberts for his closing remarks.
Greg Roberts: Thank you, Jenny. Once again, I appreciate all the shareholder confidence. A lot of you have been — we’ve been talking for a very long time. I really do appreciate your patience and your support as we navigate, as we’ve said before, a fairly volatile company as it relates to the lumpiness and choppiness of our earnings. And I think it’s very important to look at our business and look at it over a year or two years. And again, quarter-to-quarter can be a little bit, it’d be a little bit difficult, both to a blowout quarter or a slow quarter. So I think it’s great that everybody is, over time, has educated and is learning the company. And I thank you all for that support. I’d also like to thank again, our dedicated employees and all of their commitment to A-Mark success and we look forward to keeping you apprised of A-Mark’s progress in the future. Thank you very much. Jenny, take it away.
Operator: Thank you very much, Greg. Before we conclude today’s call, I would like to provide A-Mark’s safe harbor statement that includes important cautions regarding forward-looking statements made during this call. During today’s call, there were forward-looking statements made regarding future events. Statements that relate A-Mark’s future plans, objectives, expectations, performance, events, and the like are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These include statements regarding expectations with respect to the dividend declarations, the amount or timing of any future dividends, future macroeconomic conditions and demand for precious metal products, and the company’s ability to respond, to effectively respond to changing economic conditions, future events, risks, and uncertainties individually in the aggregate could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in these statements.
Factors that could cause actual results to differ include the following, the failure to execute the company’s growth strategy, including the inability to identify suitable or available acquisition or investment opportunities greater than anticipated costs incurred to execute the strategy. Changes in the current international political climate which have favorably contributed to demand and volatility in the precious metals markets. Potential adverse effects of the current problems in the national and global supply chains, increased competition for the company’s higher margin services which could depress pricing, the failure of the company’s business model to respond to changes in the market environment as anticipated, changes in consumer demand and preferences for precious metal products generally, potential negative effects that inflationary pressure may have on our business, the inability of the company to expand capacity at Silver Towne Mint, the failure of our investee companies to maintain or address the preferences of their customer bases, general risk during business in the political and governmental risks, and other risk factors described in the company’s public filings of the Security and Exchange Commission.
