OpTree

Well, it’s almost that time again, time for companies to begin releasing their 3rd quarter results. In the next few weeks we will hear from several of the major companies about what their business has been like the last few months and practically speaking, we aren’t expecting anything great (maybe overseas).

As we all know, the economy has struggled quite a bit lately, and although history shows that direct sales companies generally thrive in times of financial crisis, the current economic landscape is unlike anything we’ve seen since the 1920’s - especially since this is affecting all global economies.

Reliv (NASDAQ: RLV), NuSkin (NYSE: NUS) and USANA (NASDAQ: USNA) are the first of many companies who have set dates to release the news. USANA will be the first of the group to release the results on October 14, 2008. Executives will hold a conference call to discuss the announcement the following morning at 11 am Eastern time.

NuSkin will release their results prior to the market opening on October 29th. Truman Hunt, NuSkin President and CEO will hold a conference call with investors that same day at 11 am. And finally, on Wednesday, October 29, 2008 Reliv will hold a conference call to discuss results of the third quarter which will be hosted by President, CEO and Chairman Robert L. Montgomery and VP and CFO Steven D. Albright.

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Pre-Paid Legal Services released their reports on new memberships and new sales associates enrolled for the third quarter 2008. Overall, numbers were down compared to last year. Not surprising given the current state of the economy, but were up slightly over the second quarter.

For third quarter 2008, memberships produced decreased 6% percent while new sales associates enrolled decreased 13.2% percent compared to the same time last year. The one bright spot was the active membership base which increased 0.1% percent from the previous year.

The company also reported that their membership persistency rate was 73.5% for the 12 month period ended September 30, 2008. The membership persistency rate is the percentage of members who still enrolled at the end of the 12 month period who were enrolled at the beginning. This was a slight increase from the 12 month period ending September of 2007.

Pre-Paid Legal has been working hard during the past few years on a share repurchase program. During the 3rd quarter the company returned $9 million to shareholders through the repurchase of over 200,000 shares of common stock. Since the program began in 1999, the company has returned almost $400 million to shareholders.

Earlier in the year, Pre-Paid ran into some problems with Barry Minkow and the Fraud Discovery Institute. Although there has been no word lately, Minkow can be relentless and I’m sure he will cause more problems in the future. For now however, while the company’s numbers weren’t spectacular, given the current economy, they aren’t doing too badly.

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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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