Wealth Masters International announced plans to conduct an initial public offering (IPO) and float the company on the stock market. This move comes weeks after unverified reports suggested the company faced significant financial strain. Founders Kip Herriage and Karl Bessey confirmed the public offering.
Weeks before this announcement, an anonymous email sent to this publication claimed Wealth Masters was struggling. The sender alleged the company could "barely pay their bills" and was "behind on many invoices," with vendors "threatening collection." ScamTelegraph typically does not report on such claims without additional supporting information or official clarification.
An IPO involves a company issuing common stock or shares to the public for the first time. Smaller, younger companies often use them to raise expansion capital. Larger private firms also go public through this process.
Herriage and Bessey's press release discussed the IPO without detailing the specific reasons for the public offering. The statement opened by acknowledging the company's origins, noting WMI started with ten members and consciously avoided bank debt. They stated a commitment to building WMI "debt free" through "organic growth only," following their business plan.
The founders also wrote that they would not accept income from "conflicts of interest" that they claimed most competitors accept. They explicitly ruled out the IPO as a "blatant money grab," stating, "We would never do anything simply because there was money to be made by doing it, and we would never violate our commitment to integrity."
These statements, when considered alongside the prior unverified claims of financial difficulty, suggest Herriage and Bessey need an injection of funds. They appear unwilling to compromise their stated position of running WMI as a debt-free company. The exact reasons for this need for capital are not clear. WMI claims to be "the only $100 million plus, direct selling/network marketing Seminar Company."