To: GMG Guild Master Taro Katsuo | Subject: Our future in Okinawa

[Stone Bros Ltd/GmbH]

Encryption: High, Business grade
Sender: Sean Stone, executive director of Stone Bros Ltd/GmbH
Sent from: planet New Berlin, New Berlin system, Rheinland
To: GMG Guild Master Taro Katsuo
Subject: Changes and negotiation about new era of our cooperation

Hello again, honourable guild master Katsuo! As I mentioned in my previous message in Shuri information channel, I would like to speak with you. The issue are incoming major changes and also possible new era of our cooperation. But at the beginning, because you are one of our most important business partners - if not the most important from all - I will share with you some details about current situation in which our company is, because it will provide you explanation of our moves which I want to discuss with you.

So far, our company has been focused on two main branches - transportation and development and sale of high-tech technology devices. And currently we have problems in both of them.

As for transportation, situation on Sirius market changed heavily in last two years and especially in last year. With advance of Gallic military into Bretonia and the damages this devastating war is causing, we lost majority of our clients in this house. And to make things even worse, there was another loss of contracts in Rheinland because of deteriorating economic situation. Moreover, the fact we fly under IMG license makes our business there even harder as we can´t land on bases of Daumann and Kruger corporations and buy goods there. Speaking about the rest - we never had strong position in Liberty because of local strong competition, with exception of importing helium-3, and Gallia is too far for us and also suspicious of Sirians. Last one, Kusari, is not much better because of traditional mistrust of "gaijins" combined with power of giant Kishiro and Samura keiretsus what makes business of small and medium sized companies very difficult. Oh and Kusari embargo on helium export to Liberty made another considerable damage to company´s economy as well because exporting of Helium-3 from Shuri base formed an increasing part of our business over time.

To sum up the current situation - we already had to sell few ships and let go some employees, but unfortunately it seems situation won´t be better in near future.

As for development and sale of high-tech technology devices - our decision to try luck on the market with equipment like jumping drives or cloaking device turned out to be a trap so to say. This initially very promising field became quickly very competitive, leaving currently only small possible profit from contracts, if any. There is too much manufacturers all over the Sirius which we have to compete with. Moreover, despite our maximum effort, there are still technical issues with our produced devices because the development is still in progress.

But this investment plan was really expensive. Building of factories on Shuri, then their running costs and leasing fee, and finally our construction of Ishi base on planet Miura. In total, we invested almost five billion credits in the company business in Okinawa system. And we can´t afford to continue this way.

Saying it shortly, our company has reached the point where major shift in our business is necessary. We need to cut expenses where it is possible, and find new ways how to increase incomes. But in the same time, we don´t want to simply write off all the money we invested in Okinawa and call them wasted money. I doubt we could find anybody who would be willing to buy Ishi base for reasonable price and there are still some posibilites in production of high-tech devices if we find the way how to upgrade them and get upper hand over other manufacturers. We just need to change our business in Okinawa to work better way. Our company might be in danger as whole if we fail in business reorganization where we use what we have the best way possible.

Now to how we plan to do it. After long talks within company board, we decided to try to combine everything. As I mentioned, transport of Helium-3 and H-Fuel became increasing part of our business over time and currently is forming 46 percent of all our transport business in volume and even 54 percent in incomes. It´s also only commodity where demand in increasing in all houses except Gallia despite all wars there. Actually, probably because of wars.

Decision I´m talking about is not only to focus more on transport of these commodities, but to start to produce them actively and create supply chain. Despite Shuri and Fuxyueru bases are very good places to buy the raw gas, sometimes storages are empty. We will need our own miners which will fill our own storages.

But as I mentioned, cuts are needed as well. There will be some cuts on Ishi base, but what is important for you. we need to cut expenses on Shuri base production facility. Leasing fees cost us two bilion credits in last two years and another almost billion were running costs. We can´t afford to continue this way.

Result is simple - we need our own base in Okinawa, to which we could move our production facilities as we don´t want to gave up entirely in this field, but it will work with significantly lower running costs and the rest of the base will be in the same time serving as storage for raw helium which will be transported by our ships or will be sold to interested companies for profitable price. The best option would be of course to buy Shuri base where the facility is now and the base as whole is completely working the way how our future base should, but we are aware about the fact you founded it as home for yourself and your pilots so we don´t expect you would be interested in selling it.

And here we reached the point where your decisions takes place. The first one is simple - we would like to ask permission for construction of new base in Okinawa system.

However, there is also second one which has different nature. From what I said so far about our plans in Okinawa, it may look like we are actually going to create competition for GMG. We don´t, we are not fools. We know it could not work this way as we are guests in Guild´s space.

Major part of the major shift I mentioned is that we would like to ask permission for our company to become affiliated member of Gas Miners Guild. For almost three years, we were affiliated member of IMG, which was so kind to provide us possibility to fly under their license so we were able to use bigger ships than freelancer license allows. There was not a single trouble during this time, but the change I described of course requires closer cooperation with GMG to keep your trust and show we want to cooperate with guild and don´t want to be competitor. If our plan will become reality, we will need to hire miners from your ranks and we are aware that we hardly can do that as your competition. On the other hand, we still would like to keep some independence regarding our decisions and mainly in what we transport because we still transport also other goods than just gases or fuel. Of course, I´m not talking about making any business which could be against interests of GMG. After all, we were generally treated as IMG members and most of their enemies are enemies of GMG as well.

I hope I didn´t take too much of your time with this message, but I wanted to explain everything because this issue has utmost importance for future of our company. We will be looking forward to hearing from you and believe it will be positive. Have a nice day!

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