Baltia Air Lines, Inc. (OTCMKTS:BLTA) Flies Higher
After drifting sideways since the start of November yesterday the stock of Baltia Air Lines, Inc. (OTCMKTS:BLTA) was finally able to soar up the chart. It opened with a gap up at $0.018 and slowly but surely continued to rise throughout the session closing with a gain of 13% at its highest point for the day of $0.0199. The number of shares that got traded by investors was equally as impressive – 17.9 million shares in just six and a half hours. BLTA last saw such volumes nearly five months ago at the start of July.
Investors are hoping that the session will be the start of another impressive run reminiscent of the ones registered by the stock in March and June. And indeed BLTA has been publishing some quite encouraging news lately.
After trying to become America’s Newest Airline for quite a few years now it seems that Baltia might finally be able to do it. On October 10 they entered into Phase III of the FAA Air Carrier Certification. This is the last phase in the process and it consists of Table Top Exercise, Mini-Evacuation Demonstration, and Proving Flights. On Tuesday they announced that their Boeing 747 has met the FAA aircraft conformity requirements while on the very next day they successfully completed the Tabletop Exercise. If their certification is approved the company plans to operate an airline between JFK Airport New York to Pulkovo Airport St. Petersburg, Russia.
Before you get too carried away by the excitement though it might be for the best to take a look at the most recent quarterly report filed by BLTA. It was submitted on Wednesday and revealed the following results:
• $29 556 cash and total current assets!!!
• $2.7 million total current liabilities
• ZERO revenues
• $5.4 million net loss
The lack of revenues and the sizable expenses for such a long period have put a tremendous strain of BLTA’s balance sheet. The massive working capital deficit and the accumulated deficit since inception of more than $100 million are rather discouraging. But investors have a lot more to worry about other than the poor financials.
The company has been putting its shareholders through a crushing amount of dilution. At the end of September, 2013, it had 3.2 billion outstanding shares while at the end of September, this year, that number had grown to 4.9 billion. 1.45 billion of the newly issued shares were sold for cash at just $0.005 each. Although it isn’t covered in the quarterly report the issuance of shares has continued for the months after September. Apparently the number of authorized shares was once again increased this time to 5.9 billion but even that amount might not be enough – as of November 17 there were 5.24 billion outstanding shares.
BLTA‘s business plan might be moving along but they are still a risky choice for investment. The company will need to generate impressive amounts of revenues if it wants to offset the ongoing dilution of the common stock. Not to mention that if any of the extremely cheap shares get dumped on the market at the current price the consequences could be devastating.
