Appiphany Technologies Holdings Corp (OTCMKTS:APHD) Gets Another Look

Appiphany Technologies Holdings Corp (OTCMKTS:APHD) was covered last year by the Insider Financial team. In the piece, we mentioned that traders became extremely excited about an agreement signed with "Toms Shoes; a 900 Million dollar corporation". The share price returned substantial amount of money to some traders, and then collapsed as traders studied the agreement in details. Additionally, the team reminded investors that the company had been given “buyer beware” status by OTC Markets, so that investors had special care while dealing with the company's shares.The article's thesis was quite correct. Since it was put out, the stock has crushed shareholders and we believe that a new piece was necessary to explain what is going on. Have a look at the recent movements and note the spike in May 2016, which was noted by the last piece.SourceBusiness history and some doubtsAccording to this hidden document, the team found that Appiphany Technologies Holdings Corp. was incorporated in the State of Nevada on February 24, 2010. On May 1, 2010, the company acquired Appiphany Technologies Corp. (“ATC”) through a Share Exchange agreement using 1.5 million shares of the company. Additionally, on January 24, 2016, the company acquired "assets and accounts" of Media Convergence Group, LLC for 20 million shares of the company. ATC commenced its operation in June 2009. It focused on "global brand-protection"; the protection of the intellectual property of clients using risk management tools, technology innovation and strategic supply chain strategies.On the website of the company, we found more information about its business services. We could see that the company counts with individuals with more than 15 years of experience in the brand protection industry. Additionally, it claimed that Appiphany Technologies owns "robust R&D programs", but if we go to the company's financial statements, we cannot find any intangible assets derived from this activity. These are some of the questions that APHD needs to address for the share price to rebound.The company provides its services using two products: "Watchdog Protect" and "Watchdog Locate". The first provides B2B and B2C solutions to help identify "counterfeit, stolen or gray market goods and intellectual property infringements damaging to clients' brands". The second solution is an automatic tool that uses "intelligent" monitoring tools to provide the same services of Watchdog Protect. You can find more information about the technologies on this site. Finally, for those inside the sector, and willing to hire Appiphany, the company is in compliance with the ISO 12931.Recent DevelopmentsSince we published our previous article, the company has released large amount of press releases. We will not have the time to cover them all in this article, but we will grasp the strategy of the company by citing some of them and assessing the most important ones.Right after the spike of May, on July 14, 2016, the company announced that it had appointed Richard Ward to the Advisory Board. Is this a corporate change derived from the horrible spike in the share price that we saw in May? We don't know. But, this news did not have significant impact on the share price, which is normal. In any case, new appointments should be seen as a good factor. Moving and dynamic corporations become big by changing names and teams from time to time. That is the only way organizations can think out of the box. Additionally, this business executive has accumulated remarkable expertise in the field, and we believe that his name should be on the company's website. Appiphany CEO, Rob Sargent, said the following:

"This is exciting news for our team and our stakeholders. Richard has a long history working with global standards leader ISO (International Standards Organization), to assist in developing multiple standards for the print, security and packaging industries." Source

Furthermore, on August 2, 2016, the company announced that it had been hired by another client.

"Southern California based Robin's Jean has completed their trial period with success and has engaged in an annual contract for IP Risk Control Watchdog online brand protection program." Source

Additionally, the company noted deals with partners, which will help in the commercialization of its services. The agreements were signed with Veritrack Inc, a DLS company, and RedChip Companies. These new partnerships and collaborations did not have a significant market reaction as the companies were not very large.Undoubtedly, the most remarkable news was the announcement of the acquisition of enterprise cloud data classification and governance leader, ClassiDocs. Announced on April 10, 2017, the terms and conditions of the transaction were not fully disclosed. Additionally, Mr. Jason Remillard will become the new President of the company. The current CEO, Mr. Robert Sargent, said the following about the transaction:

"Mr. Remillard has broad experience in major enterprise - producing, selling, and procuring high-end technology solutions - which brings great value back to the company, cross product sales, partnerships, and development continue to be a major focus for IP Risk Control and this is the latest step in that direction." Source

The business combination may create a lot of synergies, as the two activities of both ClassiDocs and Appiphany are quite complementary. Appiphany provides services to protect brands online, and ClassiDocs is responsible for searching information and classifying data sets online. Hence, ClassiDocs will bestow the ability to search and classify brand threats and Appiphany will combat them.The following press releases put out by the company were all about the new technology acquired. Due to this reason, we said that it seems that the new merger will make a change in the company's strategy. On April 25, the company noted that it would present at the RedChip's Global Online Growth Conference on Thursday April 27, 2017. Furthermore, on May 3, 2017, it was put out that the ClassiDocs unveiled new functionalities that enabled the classification of structured data sets to help Appiphany perform its tasks in a befitting manner. As we said, the synergies produced by the new combination will be very relevant. Also, it seems that the company commenced to find them. The President, Jason Remillard, mentioned it using the following terms:

"We can use the same policy and classification set - guided and trained by end users and data stewards directly - to classify data within major database vendors. This supplements every security and compliance program - classifying what kind of data is where and who has access to it. Customers can now correlate this information with their existing compliance and policy systems." Source

Good news, but the share price is quite low - Why?The company is delivering good news. But, why is the company not rising? We have several ways to justify this situation. First of all, the financial statements are not up to date. Thus, the new developments were not disclosed yet. Also, the amount of assets is very less, and the amount of liabilities is quite large. In total, the net asset is approximately minus $475,000. Regardless of the type of news put out, savvy individuals will not be buying shares of the company until the financial situation looks better.In addition, the total amount of outstanding shares is quite large; 158 million. Thus, we believe that the company needs to make a drastic reduction in the shares outstanding in order to retain some new investors.ConclusionWe wrote that investors need to be aware of this company, and we still think so. We reviewed the news put out and the recent merger with ClassiDocs, which looks great. However, the situation of the financial statements, and the amount of shares outstanding are quite large. Thus, we believe that most investors still prefer to stay away. In our opinion, investors need to research and look for updated financials as the next catalyst. We will be updating our subscribers as soon as we know more. For the latest updates on APHD, sign up below!Disclosure: We have no position in APHD and have not been compensated for this article.