{"content":[{"text":"whose net assets were deemed, based on an independent accounting analysis, to have a greater \n value than our purchase price, thus the “gain” recorded on the income statement. \n Our acquisition of SEDC would have been made irrespective of the accounting determination. For \n our price, we picked up a business producing over $60 million in annual sales with modest profits \n that we now believe will be an even stronger business under Paragon. In the first quarter of 2018, \n sales are up over 25 percent compared to the 2017 quarter on a currency adjusted basis. We credit \n the turnaround to the able management of Ronell and SEDC’s reputation of being a distributor of \n choice for thousands of customers throughout the country.","bbox":{"left":0.117647,"top":0.118894,"width":0.7649600000000001,"height":0.16203}},{"text":"SI Systems \n Our material handling business experienced a decent result in 2017, but that result was tarnished \n by the settlement of a lawsuit related to our prior acquisition of Innovative Automation in 2013. \n With this settlement, we have completely closed the book on this unfortunate acquisition and head \n into 2018 completely unencumbered by distraction and focused on our core businesses. The \n settlement was painful and drained our business of valuable cash, but we believe we can now be \n focused without any distractions in rebuilding SI. \n This June, SI Systems will celebrate 60 years in business, a claim that only a small percentage of \n American businesses can make. Proudly, SI Systems has operated during these six decades \n American owned and operated – an even rarer claim to make in the material handling business. \n In last year’s letter I stated that “we continue to remain cautiously optimistic regarding the future \n of our material handling business. The volume of projects we are quoting is more robust than ever, \n many of which are substantially larger than we have seen in the past. We now must begin to win \n a bigger share of these opportunities.” \n Currently, we are implementing initiatives and processes that are focusing on generating revenue \n across all aspects of the sales cycle. These initiatives consist of: a) pursuing a market strategy that \n will result in a more robust pipeline with projects of various sizes and durations, b) offering \n customers design and engineering studies, and c) entering into partnerships with logistics partners \n that we can work with to provide more comprehensive material handling solutions. \n Our material handling operations are made up of our Production and Assembly division (PAS) and \n our Order Fulfilment Systems (OFS) division, which provide order fulfillment systems and \n dispensing solutions to customers via our suite of branded and patented products. Our PAS \n business provides automated material handling systems to manufacturer assembly lines and \n distribution center operations via our branded towline conveyance and transportation technologies \n and has been successfully doing so for nearly 60 years. Our PAS systems are sold primarily to end \n users, who then typically rely on SI for future enhancements, additions, or repairs to the system. \n This aftermarket business generates significant margins for us. Our customer relationships tend to \n be very cooperative and long-lasting and we benefit enormously from an existing installed base of","bbox":{"left":0.117647,"top":0.318439,"width":0.764902,"height":0.578394}}],"images_bbox":[],"images_bbox_not_text_overlap":[]}