Investors have taken notice of the parent company of Cortes Campers in Euclid, Ohio, in the week since the travel trailer subsidiary announced its first shipment.
The thinly traded shares of US Lighting Group Inc. (OTC: USLG), which is the parent of Cortes Campers LLC, among other operating companies, rose 188% to 23 cents in the five trading days ending Feb. 28.
A week ago, US Lighting said its Cortes Camper unit had shipped its first 17-foot, molded fiberglass travel trailer to RV Center Idaho.
The company also said Cortes Campers is scheduled to ship its second camper in the first week of March with a goal of shipping 20 campers per week by the beginning of the fourth quarter.
A salesman at Kamper Korner RV in Roseville, Oregon, said he expects his dealership's Cortes Camper shipment in mid-March.
"I don't know a lot about them," said the salesman, Dillon Davenport.
But because Cortes Campers uses clamshell molds that produce a two-part camper body, "the chances of them leaking are slim to none,' Davenport said.
Cortes Campers uses 100% molded fiberglass and marine gelcoats to produce a trailer that is about 50% lighter than conventional travel trailers, according to the company's website.
Water leakage is a problem for travel trailers that are made from wood and steel, said Patricia Salaciak, marketing director for Cortes Campers and its sister companies.
"They’re heavy," Salaciak said of conventional travel trailers. "The second thing is, wood rots if it gets wet. And they mold."
Cortes Campers also is different in its industry because it is "setting up a dealer network across the US to sell the trailers," Salaciak said.
"We plan to have one primary dealer in every state," she said.
US Lighting's other two subsidiaries are developing personal watercraft and speedboats, as well as houses, all made from molded fiberglass.
The holding company has seen a lot of change in the last year.
In May, US Lighting sold its Intellitronix unit, which produces LED lighting and microprocessor-controlled LED gauges for automobiles. (That's where the name "US Lighting" originated.)
And a month later, Paul Spivak, formerly CEO of US Lighting, was arrested for conspiracy to commit securities fraud.
In its criminal complaint, the U.S. government alleges Spivak used a "pump-and-dump scheme" to profit from selling stock in his company.
"Mr. Spivak obtained and concealed beneficial ownership in free trading shares in US Lighting Group stock and then conspired to promote the stock by coordinating press releases with planned promotional programs aimed at raising the share price and trading volume so he and his alleged co-conspirators could then sell the stock at an artificially high price," the complaint states.
In August, Spivak, who was US Lighting's sole corporate director, appointed Olga Smirnova, his wife, and Anthony Corpora as directors of the company and named Corpora as US Lighting's new CEO, president and treasurer, according to a regulatory filing.
Spivak then resigned his positions with US Lighting, the filing states.
In October, a superseding indictment was unsealed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio that included charges against several people, including Spivak and Smirnova, according to a regulatory filing.
As of the Oct. 8 filing, US Lighting had been advised that Spivak pleaded not guilty to the charges, and Smirnova intended to plead not guilty to the charges, the filing states.
Spivak owned more than 50 million shares of US Lighting stock in November 2020, according to his latest insider transactions filing made with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
US Lighting shares (OTC: USLG) were up about 8% to 24.9 cents a share in mid-afternoon trading on Tuesday.
