Are we back?, page-8

That research is 10 months old so I dont think Intelligent Investor will mind and it does not suggest you buy GRB: You can do a free trial.

Gage Roads Brewing (GRB)
Earlier this year a friend visited Gage Roads’ brewery in Western Australia. When I asked his opinion, he quipped ‘can you lend me some stock?’. Describing activity and organisation at the facility as ‘chaotic’, he was jokingly implying that he’d rather be short the stock (a bet on it falling) than own it, as I did (and still do).
Anecdotal reports like this can be dangerous for investors. Just because you observe that your local JB Hi-Fi is full of customers (or at least people), doesn’t mean the stock is a good investment. You’re only seeing one small piece of a much larger puzzle. But in this case, my friend’s scuttlebutt rang in my ears when a month or two after his visit, the company fessed up to an operational hitch.
The language of the announcement was confusing but the gist was that the equivalent of 140,000 cartons of beer (tragically) went to waste due to a fault ‘during the commissioning of some remaining items of the new brew house project’.
If that wasn't bad enough, two months later the company slipped in another doozy, buried in an announcement which reeked of organisational chaos. The recovery from the ‘processing fault’ had been slower than expected. This resulted in a ‘downward revision in sales of a further 125,000 carton equivalents’.
Bill Hoedemaker, founder and director of operations, announced that he would step down. His replacement, Aaron Heary, was an internal appointment who seems well qualified for the role (the company deserves a tick on at least that score).
Another potential positive coming out of the June upheaval was the appointment of a full-time chief financial officer. Previously, and unusually, that role had been filled by managing director John Hoedemaker (Bill’s brother and co-founder).