Letter from the President
Dear Shareholders of Oneworld Energy Inc.,
It’s now been a few months since I last reported to you with an update regarding the company. As before, I am writing this letter to update you on the status of Oneworld Energy and to present to you our plan to continue increasing shareholder value.
Let’s talk about what we’ve accomplished in the past 16 months:
We set out on a course to add shareholder value and increase the critical mass of this company and to position Oneworld Energy for the possibility of becoming a publicly-traded company.
The following summarizes our strides forward since I last communicated with you, more specifically, we:
- Acquired a 80 MW wind project in Prince Edward Island – with superbly robust wind resources and located very near an already built wind farm owned by Suez;
- Acquired 100% of MHB Windenergie, a German based wind energy company with wind projects in Germany, France and Hungary;
- Changed the name from Green Breeze Energy to Oneworld Energy to reflect a broader focus and created a new logo and branding strategy;
- Designed and got the www.oneworldenergy.com website up and running;
- Completed the acquisition of partnership units from the unit holders of the Green Breeze Resource LP, Powertree LP1 and Powertree LP2;
- Completed the acquisition of the Green Breeze Technology LP ;
- Completed the acquisition by Oneworld Energy of the outstanding shares of Green Breeze Energy Systems Inc. and Green Breeze Wind Park Development Inc and the amalgamation of those companies under the Green Breeze Energy Inc. umbrella;
- Acquired a 200 MW wind project in Oklahoma, USA with a great wind resource that will open the United States to us as a place of opportunity;
- Persuaded Glenn Huber, a long time veteran of the capital markets and running businesses in both Canada and the U.S. to take on the role of non-Executive Chairman – Glenn was responsible for bringing Raymond James to Canada;
- Started Oneworld Solar in both Munich, Germany and Toronto and have already developed an impressive pipeline of projects to be built in both Germany and Ontario;
- Opened an office in Long Island, New York and hired Roger Slotkin as our U.S. CEO to readily identify and pursue growth opportunities for Oneworld in the U.S.;
- Acquired a 500 MW wind project with a Partner (who also has 500MW) in Kansas, USA with a great wind resource and located within 40 miles/65 kilometers from our Oklahoma project;
- Acquired 100% of the shares of CWC Wind Power ApS, a Danish based wind developer, with 263 MW of wind projects in Europe and South America and an ongoing operating and maintenance business in the solar energy sector. Oneworld also was fortunate to acquire additional bench strength through the addition of one person, David Jensen who will run our European wind and wind service division, and through his connections we have gained access to a number of European based consultants who will be able to assist us in developing and constructing our wind projects world-wide; and
- In early July, we signed an engagement letter with Haywood Securities to act as lead banker in raising $15-30 million as part of taking Oneworld Energy Inc. public. We couldn’t be more pleased to be working with Haywood – they are a quality investment banking house with offices in Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver.
What is Oneworld Energy today?: We are an integrated and diversified renewable energy company that has a goal of building and owning over 500 MW of renewable energy projects with revenues of $500 million by 2015 – simply put, 500 and 500 by 2015. We concentrate on renewable energy where there is no cost for the resource: whether wind, sun or water. We have 1.25 GW of wind projects in varying stages of development and approximately 10 MW of solar projects in Europe. We are active in every aspect of the value chain in both the wind and solar energy sectors– we design and develop, construct and provide operating and maintenance services. And by being involved in each segment of the value chain, we are more valuable and have a better understanding of each sector and the overall fundamentals of the renewable energy industry. That makes us more knowledgeable and if knowledge is valuable, then we are more valuable. We have deliberately chosen to be involved in each segment and to create revenues and earnings in each segment. Overall, our long term objective is to own and operate renewable energy projects. That said, our primary objective is to consistently strive towards greater critical mass that results in meaningful revenue and earnings growth for our stakeholders.
What does the future hold for Oneworld Energy and its stakeholders? We are on the path to becoming a public company in 2009 and to raising capital to help us grow. We are committed to growing Oneworld Energy into a major international independent power producer. We are committed to increasing revenues and earnings and creating solid value for all of our stakeholders. We believe that growth will come from a combination of strategic acquisitions and organic opportunities. And in that respect, it should be remembered that all of the Oneworld senior management team own shares in Oneworld and have as much to gain as the other stakeholders by growing this company.
Some of you have pointed out that you expected Oneworld to be a public company by now – and that may be a fair comment or criticism, but I can only say that it wasn’t because we weren’t trying – the events of September 2008 conspired against all of us in that respect. And while we have the fortune of using 20/20 hindsight, the reality is that we were most fortunate that we weren’t public last year. Were we public in the fall of 2008, the share price would have been depressed and there wouldn’t have been any ability to raise capital or to use our shares to acquire other opportunities.
We have managed to persuade some very talented people to join our Board of Directors; not the least of which is Mr. Huber. We recognize that we will require a number of special talents to assist us in our growth – because of our large capital needs, people with finance experience, because of our rapid growth, people with experience in transitioning companies and strategic growth and because we need to be a well run business that wants to grow rapidly, to have people with solid experiences in growing successful businesses. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Guy Lever, Mike Heffring, Darrell Smith, Per Regnarrson and Mark Augustenborg Odom for joining our Board. Each has extremely valuable experiences that will add value for this company and its shareholders. That said, I’d like to thank Andrew Patterson and Robert Neville for their time, energy, advice and acumen as members of our Board over the past 16 months – we couldn’t have gotten to this point without their help and guidance.
We have assembled, what we believe, is a top notch management team starting with our Chairman, Glenn Huber. Glenn is the President of Chrysalis Capital Advisors Inc. and has over 25 years of extensive North American investment banking and capital markets experience across a broad spectrum of industry sectors including oil and gas, information technology, biotechnology, manufacturing, entertainment, leisure and retail services. As CEO, I have over 20 years experience in the energy sector and have successfully run both private and public companies and have been extensively involved in the North American investment banking and capital markets primarily in the renewable energy, cleantech and technology sectors.
At this time, I’d also like to announce that Mark Lawrence has decided to leave Oneworld to pursue other opportunities. He has done an amazing job of getting us organized and reorganized for the past 16 months and he will be missed. Many thanks for your hard work and dedication, Mark!
In an increasingly challenging market, we continue to believe that generating (and growing) revenues from operating divisions, having quality renewable energy projects and acquisition of additional quality projects are the key to Oneworld Energy’s continued growth. By combining solid revenue streams with quality projects (whether ready for construction or early stage), the more value we will have in the short and medium term, the greater the value that we expect to be able to create for all of our stakeholders.
We expect to have fully audited financial statements sent to all of our shareholders by the end of August – you will have received the unaudited financial statements to date. We are waiting on the audited financial statements of MHB and expect those shortly. Once received, they will be consolidated with the already audited Canadian financial statements and we will make those available to you. 2008 has been a year of tremendous growth – from $3 million in revenues to over $10 million in revenues. We have incurred significant costs to be able to grow the company and its business and have taken write-downs in anticipation with the company going public and growing further.
And we expect to grow again in 2009; in revenues, in size, and in the number of projects in our pipeline.
Today, and always, we are committed to communicating to you about the many positive things occurring at Oneworld Energy. You will certainly find more on the website in terms of our future activities in the future. We encourage all of our stakeholders to add their name to our mailing list.
On top of all of this, we must focus on adding value and increasing revenues and earnings and on acquiring additional wind and solar opportunities across the whole diversified portfolio of projects. Our continued commitment to renewable energy projects opens the door to consider other types of projects that meet our criteria. Employee retention is very important as it creates stability in a rapidly growing company – it should be noted that many of our employees have been with us since 2003/04. We believe that all of these factors together with a creative and experienced management team will give Oneworld Energy a consistently higher level of differentiation in the marketplace – as a growing independent renewable power producer and in the public market.
We remain committed to growing Oneworld Energy into a significant independent generator of renewable energy projects – as we say: Our business is energy. Naturally!
As you likely know, we held our Annual General and Special Meeting earlier today. To summarize, Rich Rotstein LLP was appointed as Oneworld’s auditors for the next year, Guy Lever, Mike Heffring, Darrell Smith, Per Regnarrson, Mark Augustenborg Odom and R. Charles Allen were elected to the Board of Directors for the next year and Oneworld may now use Preferred Shares as a mechanism to raise capital for its growth. We had a good turnout for the meeting despite challenging weather conditions.
In closing, the balance of 2009 will be an incredibly exciting time for Oneworld Energy and its stakeholders.
Finally, on behalf of everyone in the Oneworld family, once again, I thank you, our loyal shareholders, for your continued support of Oneworld Energy and its endeavors. It is important to the entire Oneworld Energy team that you, our shareholders, understand that we appreciate that we couldn’t have gotten to where we are today without you and your support! As to the future, we can’t succeed without you!
Sincerely,
R. Charles (Chuck) Allen
President & CEO
Telephone: 416.622.7007
Email: callen@oneworldenergy.com
