In October 6, 1971 minutes, the directors proceeded to reorganize SBL Inc. (an American company) which had been organized at a prior time.
Soon thereafter, because of differences in vision and expectations, the directors of SBL decided to explore selling the SBL Canadian company. In a three-page folio (apparently prepared by Travers), SBL was described as:
The assets listed on the attached sheet have been put together as a result of an idea or dream to give service to the cattle industry in North America. The main objective in mind was to breed and select the highest producing beef cattle possible, using as a base the cattle available on this continent to introduce the Simmental from Europe.A “Statement of Assets ...” formed the third page of the folio:
We have a program that has developed over the past five years to the point where we have a fair size facility in Switzerland and two men working for us there full time, including Mr. Hans Ulrich Sr., one of the outstanding cattlemen in Europe. Mr. Ulrich selects the cattle for us and manages the facility. This year we had 65 head of cattle pre-selected in the station but the demand was so great we should have had over 200 animals for the 1971-72 importation. We were able to select a total of over 110 head of calves for ourselves and other importers. We feel this program is of great value to this company now and will continue to do so in the future.
After the middle of December, 1971, the ranch operation we have developed will consist only of half blood Simmental females. This program has a two fold purpose. One is for evaluation of our sires, and the other is to select only the best of the high producing females to use in an upgrading program in accordance with the rules of both the Canadian and American Simmental Associations. With the opportunity of selecting and culling from such a large number of high producing animals, we will come up with some outstanding sires for semen production.
To aid in our sire evaluation program, we have two large herds of commercial cows in the State of Montana that have been bred A.I. using semen from all of our sires. The results of this program will provide us with sound information as to our sires standing as herd improvers.
Our purebred program is gaining impetus, and we will have about 22 to 24 head of females to calve this coming spring. As a result of our import work, we will have approximately 50 head of purebred calves born in the spring of 1973. Due to our sire evaluation program, we feel we can produce in the near future far better bulls from this purebred herd that we can obtain in Europe, because we are beginning to find out what our cows and sires can really produce. We foresee that within four years we will have well over 100 head of purebred Simmental cows.
Our promotion has included newspaper and magazine advertising and the printing of a four color brochure that has created a great deal of interest. A new brochure, listing additional bulls, has now gone to press. We have exhibited some of our top bulls in shows clear across the United States.
Our large mailing list contains the names of persons who are interested in using Simmental. This is a real asset to our business.
We feel that overall we have a first class management team carrying on our business and ranch operations. This group of people would be an asset to any organization and they are informed of the objectives and hopes of a continuing Simmental breed program at SBL.
It is our opinion that, with a combination of the various programs outlined herein, any company acquiring this business would receive a boost in the cattle breeding industry which they could not obtain by any other move.
