NEW YORK, Dec. 09, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Smokefree Innotec, Inc. (OTC: SFIO), a leading asset management company and innovation group, is pleased to share details around its four-year strategic plan, as well as news of its plans to uplist to a major stock exchange by 2024.
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Dear shareholders and valued business partners,
We began 2021 with the goal of restructuring SFIO to better serve our long-term strategy of being a truly transformative global asset management company. In this letter, I’m excited to share with you the details around that strategy, as well as our goal of uplisting to the NASDAQ, or similar major stock exchange, by 2024.
Our focus as an asset management company continues to be on innovation through disruptive collaborations. We invest in high-growth businesses and support them through partnerships and opportunities, before leveraging our global presence to help them scale exponentially. It’s a methodical approach to hyper-growth, representing a clear strategy of acquisition, collaboration, transformation, and expansion.
To illustrate, I’d like to take the example of our flagship franchise business, Epiphany Cafe. Supported by our ongoing acquisitions and partnerships, transformation enablers, and global network, Epiphany Cafe will be leading the group’s charge to capture markets across Australia, Malaysia, UAE, the Philippines, and the United States in 2022. Soon after, we will be utilizing those same pathways to scale their other businesses.
In growing Epiphany Cafe, back in 2017, we embarked on a series of partnerships and acquisitions both to improve operational efficiencies and unlock new revenue streams. It’s an ongoing journey that’s formed the bedrock of our hyper-growth strategy:
- Acquisition: Identifying the gaps in Epiphany Cafe’s operations, the team brought two new firms into the group, Gorgeous Coffee and Ardent Bakers. More companies would later join the lineup as new gaps emerged across Epiphany’s evolving business model.
- Collaboration: Gorgeous Coffee, led by an award-winning master roaster, developed Epiphany Cafe’s signature coffee blend, quickly becoming a customer favorite. Meanwhile, Ardent Bakers supplied the growing cafe franchise’s donuts and pastries. As demand for these pillow-soft donuts skyrocketed, another acquisition, Big Lou’s Donuts, took on wholesale production, supporting Epiphany’s future entry into the Australian market.
- Transformation: To support inventory management operations across Epiphany’s franchises, Ardent Bakers developed SMART FREEZE technology, a proprietary method of preparing donuts while maintaining quality over six months of being frozen. Gorgeous Coffee later developed their own innovation, a line of instant coffees boasting barley, Manuka honey, and other healthful extracts.
- Expansion: Now present across New Zealand, Australia, and soon Southeast Asia, Epiphany Cafe’s growth is supported by our global network of companies and partners. AG Architects, another fully-owned subsidiary, handles the design and development of new sites, while our international hubs serve as launchpads for the franchise business to enter new markets worldwide. We intend to establish the Epiphany Cafe franchise system, support centers, and centralized commissaries in new global markets as early as next year.
We began our journey with Epiphany Cafe, its own growth driving the growth of our network. Now our network, as SFIO, will be driving Epiphany’s growth in turn—as it pioneers our entry into new markets. It’s a wonderful, full-circle moment for us. To support all this growth, both from a capacity perspective, as well as a financial perspective, we lean on our cross-divisional synergies.
With our newly-minted Technology division, we will be using tech to streamline the existing operations of our businesses, while also building entirely new systems to disrupt the industries they operate across. For our franchise businesses, development is already underway for a unified, streamlined logistics platform. This will not only standardize the operations of our different businesses across the supply chain, but also to bring value to franchisees and ultimately, their customers, who will now benefit from a truly seamless, tech-powered system.
Similarly, we laid the foundation for our eventual entry into real estate when we acquired AG Architects and A+ Electrical. Now our slate of joint ventures will see us developing approximately 200-hectares of prime real estate in Montemaria, Batangas alone. Our recently-signed joint venture with Philippines-based AbaCore Capital Holdings plays a crucial role in the company’s growth trajectory. One project under this joint venture is the development of a two-hectare, bay-side property in Batangas into a $100 million eco-friendly, tech village. Not only do these joint ventures increase our asset values, but profits from these high-yield projects will also be reinvested into future growth—a necessary step towards our ambitions to uplist in 2024.
To that end, I am pleased to share that we are well on our way towards that goal. As you all know, we’ve spent the past year acquiring companies not only to grow the conglomerate’s revenues and assets, but also to serve as transformation partners as we scale our businesses globally. We have also accomplished the necessary filings to reflect the vast array of negotiations and business activities we have entered into these last few months. This includes the successful removal of our shell status and Caveat Emptor designation, as well as the designation of our status on the OTC Pink market (Current).
In the coming months, we will be undergoing further developments, such as filing our audited financials, updating our company name to Starfleet Innotech, Inc. and working towards placing SFIO on the OTCQB Venture Market, as a stepping stone towards our larger goal.
From an organizational structure perspective, we will be streamlining our core divisions to highlight our cross-divisional synergies, and reflect our focus on three emerging industries: Food and Beverage (F&B), Real Estate, and Technology. Our F&B division is a merging of our previous franchise, coffee, and food manufacturing and distribution groups.
With the establishment of innovation hubs in our US, UAE, New Zealand, and Australian offices, we will be entering new global markets, forging strategic partnerships in construction & exports, developing innovative new technologies, and driving market value alongside you, our shareholders—all with the goal of uplisting from the OTC Markets to the NASDAQ, or similar major stock exchange, by 2024.
This has been a long time coming—the realization of an ambitious goal we set for ourselves almost a decade ago now. We have been lucky to have strong backers and a deep talent bench to make this happen. Thanks to your continued support, things have been moving very quickly these past two years. I’m excited to say they’re only going to accelerate from here.
Sincerely,
Jeths Lacson
CEO and Chairman of SFIO
www.sfio.co.nz
Forward-Looking Statements: Certain information disclosed in this letter contains forward-looking information. These information are not guarantees of future performance of SFIO and readers should not place undue reliance on them. Such forward-looking statements necessarily involve known and unknown factors. Although forward-looking statements contained in this letter are based upon what the company believes are reasonable considerations and opportunities, there can be no assurance that these will prove to be achieved, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. SFIO undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if circumstances or the CEO’s estimates or opinions should change.
For media enquiries, please contact:
Craymond Yeong, PR & Marketing Specialist
Epiphany Café
Phone: (+64) 21 0833 2966
Email: info@sfio.co.nz
About Starfleet Innotech, Inc.
Starfleet Innotech, Inc. (OTC: SFIO-Smokefree Innotec, Inc.) is an asset management company focused on innovation through disruptive collaborations across its three key industries: Food and Beverage (F&B), Real Estate, and Technology. With a strong presence across New Zealand, Australia, and the Philippines, as well as a roadmap for further global expansion, SFIO makes strategic investments in high-growth businesses, building synergies across its diverse portfolio to provide maximum shareholder value. Guided by tradition, driven by innovation, and enabled by collaboration — SFIO is on a hyper-growth path to build a thriving business ecosystem, with plans to uplist onto a major stock exchange in the near future.
