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Belegured home goods company, Home Interiors and Gifts, which in the past few months has had some major problems including bankruptcy and the announcement that they will seek a buyer for the company, has now notified employees at its Carrollton facility that the attempts to sell its operating entities is likely to have an impact on their jobs in the next few months.

I’m sure this comes as no surprise to the employees who have known for months now that the company is in some trouble. The company filed for bankruptcy some months ago, but was making an effort to turn things around. Unfortunately, those attempts were futile and last week the company asked for, and received permission from the U.S Bankruptcy court of Northern District of Texas for approval to sell its operating entities.

In a letter filed this past week with the Texas Workforce Commission Home Interiors says employees have been informed on the impact the sale could have on future employment. The company did say however, that the sale of the assets could also potentially lead to opportunities to staff members. “The company continues to conduct operations,” Home Interiors & Gifts said in the letter. “It’s possible potential buyer(s) of the company’s assets will hire employees who received Warn Act notices, although the company cannot make any guarantee.”

Currently there are over 130 employees at the Carrollton facilities. While I commend the company for finally warning employees of the possible termination of their positions, although a bit late in the game, it would also be great if they released a statement to their distributors. The distributors have given their time, and money, and committed themselves to working for the company. The distributors are the ones that have kept the company going. It would be great if they could be honest with those distributors about what a sale of assets could do to their employment as well. And of course, needless to say, still no word from the protective folks over at the DSA.   It’s great to know how on top of these things the Direct Selling Association is - makes ya really confident in their ability to provide timely information to the people that subsidize their business and salaries.

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Natural Health Trends (NASDAQ: BHIP) announced that it has received a deficiency letter from the NASDAQ Stock Market. The letter, received by the company on September 2nd, indicated that NHT is not in compliance with requirements to be listed on the NASDAQ Capital Market because for the last 30 business days, the bid price of its common stock has closed below $1.00. NHT Global trades under the symbol BHIP and the letter has no immediate effect on the trading of the stock.

According to the NASDAQ Marketplace Rule 4310(c)(4) NASDAQ must issue a deficiency letter when a company fails to meet minimum bid requirements-trading at or above $1.00- for 30 consecutive days. NHT will now have 180 days to meet requirements or face being delisted.

Natural Health Trends will have until March 9th, 2009 to meet criteria that would allow it to continue trading on the NASDAQ Capital Market. NHT must have their common stock close at or above $1.00 for a minimum of ten consecutive business days during this 180 day probationary period in order to remain on the Capital Market. If the company cannot meet those requirements, they face having their securities delisted.

While it seems that Natural Health Trends stock is not doing as well as the company would hope, their last quarterly statements show that the company continues to grow and increase sales significantly each quarter. NHT released a statement regarding the NASDAQ letter, sayting that it intends to “actively monitor the bid price for its common stock between now and March 9, 2009, and consider implementation of various options available to the company if its common stock does not trade at a level that is likely to regain compliance.”

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Natural Health Trends Corp, (NASDAQ: BHIP) announced their second quarter financial results. The company is happy to report that they have continued to grow and improve, and that sales have been growing steadily.

Sales in the second quarter of 2008 were $12.3 million, an improvement over the first quarter of 2008 when sales were $11.4 million. NHT was also pleased that second quarter operating losses fell from $698,000 in the first quarter of 2008 to only $364,000 in the second quarter.

Chris Sharng, the company’s president, said, “We were very pleased to see our cost-cutting and revenue-generating efforts begin to pay off in the second quarter. We stabilized our cash balance, and operating earnings of the business were positive, considering non-cash items such as depreciation and stock-based compensation totaled $500,000. We believe that the nascent revenue momentum we gained through certain personnel changes, compensation plan changes and dynamic training sessions were the drivers of this improvement.

The company expects that the summer season will be a bit slower, and coupled with Olympics which will affect their sales in Asia, they might see the numbers fall a bit. NHT says in the next quarter they will continue to focus on ways to improve gross profit margin as well as maintaining revenue momentum.

Unfortunately for the company, the stock has not responded very well over the past year. Hitting a 52-week high of over $7 per share, the price has been languishing at or below $1 for most of 2008.

If you could not be a part of the conference call that they company held today, not to worry, full second quarter results are available on the company’s website on the conference call page.

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Mannatech  released their second quarter numbers, and the news is less than spectacular. The Texas based company reported a staggering 22% percent drop in sales during the second quarter of 2008.

The company lost $10,5 million in the second quarter or 40 cents per share compared with 2007 earnings. Mannatech also reported that sales plummeted from $111.7 million to $86.8 million. While international sales only dropped around 3% percent, sales in the US fell over 31% percent. Mannatech also reported that the company is having difficulty recruiting new distributors.

Mannatech’s president and CEO, Wayne Badovinus, who came to the company in August, blames ongoing litigation for the company’s problems. Mannatech was recently sued by the Texas Attorney General for exaggerating claims made by the company about the effectiveness of their products, including claims that the products have therapeutic benefits for people suffering with cancer, and other serious illness

While Mannatech says that they are “moving toward a resolution” the damage has already been done. The company recently had to lay off 15% percent of its US workforce, and has seen a 20 percent drop in new distributors in 2008.

Mannatech’s stock (NASDAQ: MTEX) fell 13 cents Friday to close at $5.52

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