Iconic Brands Inc (OTCMKTS:ICNB) Wakes Up But Fails to Move

The first few minutes worth of research on Iconic Brands Inc (OTCMKTS:ICNB) might leave you feeling a bit confused. In September 2014, the company announced the merger with a private entity called Medical Marijuana Business Academy. As the name of the then-new subsidiary suggests, this was supposed to steer ICNB towards the booming cannabis industry. The press release said that Richard DeCicco had resigned from his position as a CEO and that KC Stark was supposed to take the helm.

Several months of silence later, ICNB issued another press release. Curiously enough, it said absolutely nothing about the cannabis business. Instead, it informed us that ICNB had acquired a 51% stake in an entity called BiVi LLC – a distributor of the first ever Sicilian vodka to hit US shores. May 26’s press release also told us that Mr. DeCicco had been re-appointed as the company CEO.

Thankfully, ICNB also filed an 8-K form which managed to shed some more light on the matter. It told us that the merger agreement with Medical Marijuana Business Academy had been unwound and that all the shares issued as a part of it had been cancelled.

In other words, ICNB tried to sink its teeth into the marijuana business, failed, and then turned to alcohol. Not really the most encouraging thing to see when you’re contemplating a potential investment, but it must be said that Mr. DeCicco appears to be more determined than ever to get the company off the ground. On June 29, he announced the first shipment of 600 cases of BiVi vodka to the distribution network and yesterday, he said that actor Chazz Palminteri will act as a company spokesman from now on.

This, coupled with some promotional activity, did manage to draw some attention to the ticker and it closed yesterday’s session with a dollar volume of $108 thousand. Sadly, moving in the right direction proved to be too much for ICNB, and, after a gap up at the open, it stumbled and dropped down to a close of $0.0052 – 32% below the price at the end of last week’s trading. So, investors are treading carefully and we’ll now have a look at some of the potential reasons for this.

The first one is pretty obvious – the company is delinquent in its filings. As we mentioned already, ICNB did file an 8-K form at the end of May when it acquired BiVi LLC, but the management team failed to provide the new subsidiary’s financial statement which means that investors are shooting in the dark at the moment. ICNB‘s own financials are missing as well. After filing their Q1 of 2014 report through the OTC News and Disclosure service, they simply stopped reporting which means that the company profile is now stamped with a big red Stop sign and a “Dark or Defunct” label. Considering the company’s history, however, we don’t expect to see much in the Assets section of the 2014 reports.

About five years ago, ICNB was in the business of selling Danny DeVito’s Limoncello. The drink received quite a lot of media exposure and ICNB did manage to log some revenues from it. Richard DeCicco was at the helm back then as well and he seemed convinced that the future is bright. In an interview for Donald Baillargeon’s Money TV he even described ICNB as a ground-floor opportunity. Just eight months after the said interview, however, ICNB‘s assets were sold and the sales of Danny DeVito’s Limoncello as well as the rest of the company’s products were discontinued.

All in all, investors do have one or two reasons to be cautious around ICNB. The company’s previous business endeavors haven’t been all that successful and there’s no way of knowing what the current financial situation is.

Still, some of you will probably say that the Sicilian vodka will finally yield the desired results. And this might just turn out to be the case. Don’t forget, however, that the latest financial report, as old as it is, does contain some interesting information. It says, for example, that back in March 2014, there were some notes outstanding which were convertible at a fixed rate of $0.00001 per share (that’s four zeros). The lack of financial reports since then means that we can’t say whether these notes have been converted or not. We can tell you, however, that the number of authorized shares was raised from 100 million to 2.5 billion a couple of months ago.