In some cases, we could be the ultimate buyer, and it could be a new division of Star. In other cases, maybe it’s more valuable to somebody else than it is to us. And in those cases, maybe somebody comes along and buys it. We had one recently where we had a position in the company, very small company, really good product, but it’s way too small to be a public company. And we encouraged them to sell themselves to somebody bigger, and they did make a public announcement that they were hiring a banker. And they just announced recently that they were selling themselves to somebody bigger. So that’s the strategy with that. I mean I think about it as seed corn for future divisions of Star.
John Oberholzer: Okay. That’s very good. Any thought given to a buyback of Star’s shares?
Jeff Eberwein: Yes. We think our stock is very, very cheap. We are value investors. We like buying things when they’re cheap. An issue we have is just lack of scale as a public company. So in general, we’re big fans of buybacks, especially when things are below NAV like we are today. I would say our #1 priority right now is to get more scale. We think that will create a tremendous amount of shareholder value. And we are working on additional acquisitions predominantly in our Construction division that we think will create a tremendous amount of value. So I would say be patient on that front, but we are constantly focused on what is the highest and best use of our cash and if we can do more acquisitions at what we think are really attractive prices and that are immediately accretive. For right now, we think that will create a tremendous amount of shareholder value.
John Oberholzer: All right. That’s great. I — by the by I love your construction vision. I think it’s amazing. Thank you. That’s all I have.
Jeff Eberwein: Thank you.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Al Hill, a Private Investor. Please go ahead.
Al Hill: Hey, good morning, guys. I got a question. I’m looking at the book value. Your stock price is $0.91 a share, and it’s almost — your book value is almost 3x that. Have you looked at possibly just selling the company or putting it on the open market and being acquired as opposed to trying to expand? As you say, with scale, your company’s worth — fundamentally worth about $14 million to $17 million, but you’re so small. Why won’t you look at possibly someone buying you guys as opposed to you guys buying someone else?
Jeff Eberwein: Yes. So that’s a great question. This is Jeff. I own a lot of stock myself. We — I promise you we think about shareholder value each and every day. And it drives everything we do. And that is an option on the table. So we — the #1 thing for us is we want to create shareholder value. So we are open to merging with another company, selling ourselves to another company. Last year, our Health care division, we found somebody to merge that with, and we think that transaction created a lot of shareholder value. It wasn’t fully reflected in the stock price. But we are open — the short version is we are open to anything and everything to create shareholder value: going private, selling ourselves, merging with somebody else. All those things are items we think about and consider.
Al Hill: Okay. And then I saw where NASDAQ’s got you in the penalty box and possibly delisting. Is that still going to happen going forward?
Jeff Eberwein: Yes. That’s not something to worry about. We are dedicated to keeping our NASDAQ listing. We did get shareholder approval at last year’s annual meeting to do a reverse stock split. And if we need to do that to maintain our listing, we will do that. So its …
Al Hill: Yes, because — the comment the gentleman made before me, why won’t you just buy back shares to raise that value of that stock price in lieu of doing a reverse stock split?
Jeff Eberwein: Yes. That’s — we will consider that. That is another way to go.
Al Hill: Yes, because that has — reverse stock splits always have a negative connotation in my mind. That’s just my opinion. And then last question, do you continue to declare preferred dividends even though you’re losing money?
Jeff Eberwein: Well, the — we have a lot of cash, and we have the cash to pay the dividend. And I think the — on the losing money, I think that’s just a moment in time because we sold our Health care business. So in general, if we are going to stay public, we need a lot more size and scale to justify being a public company. So if we execute on some acquisitions, that problem goes away. And another thing I would say is that the preferred stock could be an interesting tool to use as acquisition currency. Some of the acquisition targets we’ve talked to have been interested in taking preferred stock. There — I’ll just say, it’s an obvious point, there are a lot more interest in taking the preferred stock if it’s paying dividends than if it’s not paying dividends.
Al Hill: Sure. That’s the only questions I got guys. Thank you.
Jeff Eberwein: Thank you.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] That concludes today’s question-and-answer session. I will now turn the call back over to Rick Coleman for closing remarks.
