Chartwell Technology

Chartwell released its year end numbers. They've discontinued their Poker community and delayed "indefinitely" their Bingo community launch. So sounds like the company has bailed on some losing projects. Not a good reflection on management but I guess everyone is a Monday morning quarterback. While the reclassification makes the numbers a little harder to follow, it appears the company burned through $342K last quarter. This is based on the fact at end of Q3 they showed they were down $1,004K for the year, and at the end of Q4 they were down $508K. So that's a gain of $495K in cash; however, the company converted $837K in investments into cash this quarter, so the loss would be the $837K gained on the sale of investments less what remains, the $495K. So that's not so good. I prefer to see my companies cashflow positive.

Quarterly revenue was down both on a year-over-year and sequential basis. The company claimed a small profit of 1 cent per share for the quarter on its continuing operations, and a 2 cent loss per share including discontinued operations.

The balance sheet remains strong with $19 million in cash and little debt, which works out to around $1 per share. On that basis, despite the weak quarter, I think Chartwell, at $1.10, still represents good value and I continue to hold my shares.