Former Semmes finance director accused of embezzling money from McDonald’s

Published

2 days ago

March 25, 2025

Former Semmes finance director accused of embezzling money from McDonald’s

MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) – A former finance director for the City of Semmes has been arrested and charged with theft by deception and credit card fraud, according to jail records.

HEATHER DAVIS(Mobile County Metro Jail)

According to the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office, 48-year-old Heather Davis is accused of embezzling between $3,000 to $6,000 from her current employer, McDonald’s.

According to a post on the City of Semmes Facebook page from March 4, 2023, Davis began working for the city in February in 2023 as the finance director.

However, Semmes Mayor Brandon Van Hook told FOX10 News Davis has not worked for the city in over a year.

The Mobile County District Attorney’s Office said these charges do not stem from her position with the City of Semmes.

Davis was also a former city clerk for the City of Satsuma.

Davis turned herself in today after a warrant for her arrest was issued, according to investigators.

Jail records show Davis has since been released on a $10,000 bond.

This is a developing story

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One successful founder’s top investment strategy lessons

Published

2 hours ago

March 27, 2025

Press Room

One successful founder’s top investment strategy lessons

00:00 Speaker A

Let’s stick with the macro investing environment here. Camino Partners, an investment platform focused on longevity, announcing new investments, including Barry’s Bootcamp, Well Labs Plus, and Home Healthcare Provider Network, LiveWell. Joining Camino’s other investments in businesses that include publicly traded quick service restaurant Cava. Here now to discuss more, we got Daniel Lubetzky. He’s Camino Partners founder, also the founder of Kind Snacks, which he sold to candy maker Mars in 2020 for $5 billion. Daniel, great to have you on here. I’m really excited to talk to you about your investment thesis on the longevity space. But first, I just want to get your sense on how you’re viewing the market right now. I’m sure you got a lot of family members asking you this. Our audience of investors want to know how someone like you is viewing the market, how you’re finding certainty in your investment thesis given the volatility right now.

01:53 Daniel Lubetzky

Just go to the fundamentals, Madison. I mean, when uh when we launched Kind, we went through the financial crisis, through many other crises, and Kind grew triple digits every year for 10 years in a row. And uh if you find a good team, a good product, a good value proposition, they’re going to stand the test of time. And in the longevity space, all of us are living longer, hopefully. And uh everybody wants to have higher quality of life. So areas that can help us improve that, whether it’s how to do better fitness, how to eat better, how to live better, how to have better connections with our health and wellness and the health care system, I think there’s a ton of innovation happening in that space. And if you find the right propositions that are actually delivering to the consumer, that are not fads, that people can actually see that it is actually impacting their health and their well-being, I think those are the companies that are going to outperform.

04:05 Speaker A

And for retail investors listening, Daniel, walk me through your rubric for sussing out which companies to invest in. What tools could investors listening maybe steal from you in in monitoring investment opportunities?

04:36 Daniel Lubetzky

We have far smarter people than me figuring that out, but one of the things they look at is gross margins and making sure that people are actually paying for those products or services and that people are actually appreciating them and that they are continuing to reorder. One of the things that I found, Madison, when I started Kind is, the first sale is actually the easiest sale. It’s the return sales that that take, that really, really matter. And same with subscriptions, same with reorders, same with any industry. Are people happy? Because you can fool one person once, but if you really, really want them to come back, they need to be really satisfied with the value proposition, and they will pay for it if it’s real. It’s not going to be artificially sustained through promotions or companies whose margins are not actually able to cover the costs or services that they’re providing, the goods or services they’re providing.

06:12 Yeah.

Yeah.

06:15 Yeah.

Yeah.

07:19 Speaker A

Daniel, great breakdown. Since you mentioned gross margins, I’m curious how that plays into your thesis on AI in particular. There’s been this question about whether the ROI for AI is really going to be there. Are people really going to pay up for chat GPT? How do you think about that?

07:51 Daniel Lubetzky

First of all, the changes that are going to happen through AI are very, very real. I was just last week at a BD TSMC conference with some of the smartest people in the space. And what I can tell you is that everybody’s reporting about how massive the productivity gains are, and I do think it’s going to help the entire market. I also will tell you this is not an area where I go directly because I’m not the smartest guy in that room. So I follow the people that are really smarter and invest in the best funds that really, really know how to discern who to invest in in the AI space. But for companies like uh CPG companies and healthcare companies and every other type of companies, you do need to start figuring out how to leverage those tools so that you can become more productive and it’s actually going to have an impact on everybody. And um everybody should just try to invest in the areas where they are the foremost expertise and where they are the smarter guy in the room. In our case, it’s looking at health and wellness, at longevity, at consumer product goods, and figure out how we can actually create sustainable positive impact that’s scalable for consumers.

10:13 Yeah.

Yeah.

10:40 Speaker B

Daniel, real quick, um, a big fan of Kind. Um, and clearly the uh the landscape has changed a lot. We’re talking about AI now and productivity tools. But you had great success over at Kind, and there’s some things that are just timeless. Uh and that’s why I was always very focused on management. Give me the one thing that you took from your success over at Kind that is going to, you know, make you successful in these great ventures that I see that you’re investing in.

11:13 Daniel Lubetzky

I think what made us outperform everybody at Kind was our culture and our values. We had the hardest working team, the smartest team, the most critical thinkers. We had a very open debate environment where people would engage and constructively tackling every question and debating with one another, which for that to be constructive and useful, people need to trust each other. People need to know that it’s okay to challenge conventional wisdom and be rewarded for taking risks. And so we had an ownership mentality, a we not me mentality. And I think creating the right culture for your team to outperform is essential in any company.

13:09 Speaker B

Speaks to your leadership, Daniel. Thank you so much for making time with us. Please come back soon. Appreciate it.

13:17 Daniel Lubetzky

Thank you, Madison. Thank you.

Finance

Vt. House Democrats to provide education finance update

Published

11 hours ago

March 27, 2025

Press Room

Vt. House Democrats to provide education finance update

MONTPELIER, Vt. (WCAX) – Vermont House Democrats are gathering at the statehouse on Thursday with updates on education finance policy.

Education funding is one of the main topics in this session after a double-digit property tax increase last year.

Democrats will gather at 10:30 on Thursday morning. You can watch it live here.

Finance

ALUULA Reports First Quarter 2025 Financial Results

Published

22 hours ago

March 26, 2025

Press Room

ALUULA Reports First Quarter 2025 Financial Results

Victoria, British Columbia–(Newsfile Corp. – March 26, 2025) – ALUULA Composites .Inc. (TSXV: AUUA) (“ALUULA” or the “Company“) today reported its financial results for the three-month period ended January 31, 2025 (“Q1 2025“). All currency amounts noted are in Canadian dollars.

Building on momentum gained in fiscal 2024, the Company announces progression against strategic initiatives in Q1 2025. These initiatives include: closing an oversubscribed rights offering for gross proceeds of $2,506,156, realizing continued customer diversification, reporting gross margins at the top end of expectation, progressing against the expansion of manufacturing capabilities at a wider width and continuing to professionalize and strengthen the team.

The first quarter of 2025 saw a decrease in sales for ALUULA driven by the challenges that remain for the windsport market, which the Company believes can be attributed to post-pandemic inventory overstocking. While the windsport vertical market, as the first market entered, has underpinned the Company’s historical growth, and remains an important area for ALUULA, the Company believes that future growth opportunities will be driven by markets that have both higher growth rates and larger total addressable markets.

“Our Q1 2025 results underpinned the necessity of commercial diversification for ALUULA. The Company has been focused on bringing our unique composite textiles into new markets and essential to this is that we have the team required to execute our go to market strategies. This requires both driving revenue and ensuring we can deliver the quality products to support that revenue,” said Sage Berryman, President & CEO.

Berryman added, “With this, we are pleased to announce that Sven Sandahl is joining ALUULA as Chief Commercial Officer to help drive commercial and brand value. We are also pleased to welcome Peter Reid who is joining as Director of Manufacturing and Materials Engineering to help the continual improvement in our manufacturing process and quality of products. 2025 is a key year for ALUULA as we move from our internally focused execution to being more active in driving the growth of the business.”

As a seasoned entrepreneur and executive passionate about sustainability, Sven Sandahl has held many leadership roles in performance outdoor companies focused on circularity. Recently Sven helped launch ReJu, an international textile recycling company, as well as Cake, Karun World and Houdini Sportswear amongst others. He also has deep experience in building brand value and driving growth for ingredient brands including Cohesive, MIPS AB in their essential pre-IPO growth phase (where he advanced the uptake and understanding of this important helmet safety technology) and RECCO Systems Inc. Sven and his team will be responsible for leading the evolution of ALUULA’s brand and partner relations, helping to drive the growth for the business.

Peter Reid is a professional engineer who brings extensive experience in composites and materials engineering. Having worked in leadership roles at a number of companies including Mustang Survival and Arc’teryx, he and his team will work closely with the Company’s research and development team with a focus on the continuous improvement of ALUULA’s products and processes.

Key Q1 2025 Highlights

Sales: the Company progressed against its customer diversification goals by:
- Reducing sales concentration with the windsport vertical market from 89% in Q1 2024 to 80% in Q1 2025.
- Increasing the number of customers ordering material in prototype size batches by 10% in Q1 2025 compared to Q1 2025 with 95% of these orders came from non-windsport customers in Q1 2025 vs. 61% in Q1 2024.
- The importance of the Company’s initiative to diversify its customer base was highlighted in Q1 2025 as sales decreased by 37% to $1,261,529 from $1,997,279 in Q1 2024. This decrease was primarily due to the windsport vertical market which continues to recover from post pandemic overstocking issues that has altered customer ordering patterns.
Gross Margins: the Company reported gross margins of 45% in Q1 2025, which is at the top end of its expected range. Q1 2025 gross margins were consistent with Q1 2024.
Operating expenses were $819,530 in Q1 2025 compared to $683,032 in Q1 2024 representing a quarter over quarter increase of $136,498. The increase is primarily due to higher salaries and research & development costs as the Company invests in recruiting key hires and expanding manufacturing capabilities to a wider width, both of which are key to achieving its growth objectives.
Net and comprehensive loss from Ocean Rodeo’s discontinued operations was $5,395 in Q1 2025 compared to a net and comprehensive loss of $346,557 in Q1 2024 representing a quarter over quarter decrease of $341,162. This decrease is a direct result of cost cutting measures implemented in April 2024 after the decision was made to discontinue Ocean Rodeo’s operations.
Increase in cash and cash equivalents: the Company reported an increase in cash and cash equivalents of $2,061,967 in Q1 2025 compared to $412,459 in Q1 2024. The increase in cash and cash equivalents is due to the Company’s successful completion of an oversubscribed rights offering and sale of non-core assets which will provide sufficient working capital to execute on the fiscal 2025 plan.

Outlook

The Company continues to work with its growing list of brand partners, developing products that are lighter, stronger, and recycle-ready. These partnerships are built on the mutual understanding that performance and circularity can be synonymous in the outdoor industry and beyond. The products that are born from these partnerships work to change the industry for the better.

The windsports and performance outdoor categories are still the core drivers of ALUULA’s growth as more new companies move from concept into commercialization launching new ALUULA enabled products in these areas. Collaborative research and development programs with other industrial partners, such as Michelin Inflatable Solutions and AirSeas, continue to advance the materials’ development as these opportunities move closer to commercial viability.

Product innovation, strength, weight, and circularity are key areas of focus for ALUULA and its brand partners. Focusing on these areas, as well as continued improvements to the patented manufacturing process, will continue to improve efficiencies and profitability. The Company continues to focus on stabilizing the corporate foundation to enable a strong base for future sales pipeline, revenue and gross margin growth.

Financial Statements and Management’s Discussion and Analysis

This earnings press release should be read in conjunction with ALUULA’s unaudited interim condensed consolidated financial statements for the three months ended January 31, 2025 and the related management discussion and analysis, which can be found on ALUULA’s website and its issuer profile on the System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval Plus at www.sedarplus.ca.

About ALUULA Composites

ALUULA is an ultra-light, high performance and recycle-ready composite materials brand that enhances the performance of outdoor gear. Proudly owned and manufactured on the Canadian west coast, ALUULA’s innovation is driven by a deep understanding that equipment does not need to sacrifice performance for sustainability. ALUULA’s materials are known for their unique construction capabilities and their ability to make products lighter, stronger, and more sustainable.

aluula.com | (TSXV: AUUA)

On behalf of the Board of Directors,
Sage Berryman
Chief Executive Officer
1-888-724-2470

For ALUULA investor inquiries, please contact:

1-888-724-2470, ext. 4
IR@aluula.com

For ALUULA media relations, please contact:

media@aluula.com

ALUULA’s Brand Partners

The term “brand partners” does not refer to formal partnerships with our customers. The term refers to marketing relationships with our customers who use ALUULA’s technology as a brand ingredient in their products.

TSX Venture Exchange

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-Looking Statements

The information in this news release includes certain information and statements about management’s view of future events, expectations, plans, and prospects that constitute forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to: use of proceeds from the rights offering; the Company’s list of brand partners growing; the Company’s advancement of its materials development; and improved efficiencies and profitability. These statements are based on assumptions subject to significant risks and uncertainties as described in the Company’s management discussion and analysis. Because of these risks and uncertainties and as a result of a variety of factors, including the timing and receipt of all applicable regulatory, corporate third-party approvals, the actual results, expectations, achievements, or performance may differ materially from those anticipated and indicated by these forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurances that the expectations of any forward-looking statement will prove to be correct. Except as required by law, the Company disclaims any intention and assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect actual results, whether as a result of new information, future events, changes in assumptions, changes in factors affecting such forward-looking statements or otherwise.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/246224