Yoga Shelter to feature celebrity trainer Eric Paskel’s Xflowsion
uKarma Corporation (OTCBB: UKMA), a lifestyle multimedia and consumer products company focused on health, wellness and personal development, announced today that they have entered into a letter of intent (LOI) to acquire Yoga Shelter, LLC. uKarma will purchase Yoga Shelter with it’s common stock.
Yoga Shelter currently operates four yoga and fitness studios in Michigan, three of which are corporately owned and one is jointly owned with an outside party pursuant to a licensing agreement. Yoga Shelter offers yoga and fitness classes, yoga teacher training programs, and travel and retreats throughout the world.
In addition, Yoga Shelter owns Yoga Medics, LLC which provides customized and cost-effective medically based yoga programs to prevent injuries, prepare patients for surgery, rehabilitate them after surgery, and treat various ailments and conditions. All YogaMedics protocols are evidence-based, consistent with traditional clinical treatment models, and delivered by trained and certified YogaMedics expert professionals.
One of Yoga Shelter’s members and investors is Hannan Lis, former COO of Weight Watchers. Lis will be active in helping uKarma expand retail Xflowsion and Yoga Shelter studios as he did with Weight Watchers retail locations, along with providing strategic advisory to uKarma for its weight loss and fitness products.
“uKarma’s pending acquisition of Yoga Shelter presents an exciting opportunity for reaching consumers in their pursuit of healthy living on a larger scale,” remarked Lis.
“Yoga Shelter fits perfectly into uKarma’s vertical integration strategy” said Bill Glaser, CEO of uKarma Corp. “uKarma will use Yoga Shelter as a platform to offer Xflowsion teacher training and retreats as well as expand our rapidly growing brand.”
Once the deal is finalized, Steve Feldman, president of Yoga Shelter will become VP of uKarma and Yoga Shelter will offer Xflowsion classes in all its studio locations. This announcement comes on the heels of uKarma’s first Xflowsion fitness studio, home DVD series and infomercial.
Xflowsion, with its revolutionary Triple Training®, is the only exercise program that efficiently and effectively combines the best elements of three proven workouts: martial arts, power yoga, and dance, into one convenient and fun workout, producing jaw-dropping results in one-third the time.
The Xflowsion DVD series is currently available online via www.xflowsion.com.
Profile
uKarma Corporation is a lifestyle multimedia and consumer products and services company focused on health, wellness and personal development. Our mission is to enrich peoples’ lives and well being through the creation of exceptional DVDs, CDs, books and other proprietary products and services. Our focus is developing products that are fun, entertaining, and engaging so our customers are empowered to reduce stress, lose weight, build fitness, improve nutrition, enhance personal relationships, and become environmentally friendly. Our goal is to provide our customers with tools and information that can help them achieve total health, happiness, and prosperity that can last a lifetime. For all of your healthy living pursuits, we aspire to be All U Need(tm)
Why Invest in uKarma Corporation?
- uKarma Corporation is a lifestyle multimedia and consumer products company focused on health, wellness and personal development, and the creator of the innovative XFLOWSION(tm) DVD series
- Entered into international distribution agreement for Xflowsion DVDs with Northern Response (International), LTD, one of the largest distributor of direct response products worldwide. Based on Northern Response’s sales of other similar products, this agreement can mean up to $25 million in sales alone.
- Northern Response (International), Ltd., has begun international sales of uKarma's innovative Xflowsion DVD series. Northern Response is responsible for some of the most successful lifestyle DVD sales around the world.
- Xflowsion will be distributed in up to 90 countries. uKarma Corp expects that Northern Response will use their distribution channels to dramatically grow international sales.
- As recently announced in the acquisition of Yoga Shelter Fitness Studios, one of Yoga Shelter’s members and investors is Hannan Lis, former COO of Weight Watchers. Lis will be active in helping uKarma expand retail Xflowsion and Yoga Shelter studios as he did with Weight Watchers retail locations, along with providing strategic advisory to uKarma for its weight loss and fitness products. As the chief operating officer and director of Weight Watchers Group, Lis was responsible for the day-to-day management of all company operations, the supervision of key corporate and field executives, as well as strategic planning. Hannan Lis, along with Florine Mark, founder and CEO of the Weight Watchers Group, sold their collective interest in Weight Watchers to the Weight Watchers parent company for over $180 million. Prior to joining Weight Watchers, Mr. Lis was co-founder, president and CEO of Amrael Building Corporation, a commercial construction firm.
- Vertically integrated business model – we plan to vertically integrate our product sales with a variety of extensions to their respective brands. For Xflowsion, in addition to DVD sales, we will channel demand into teacher training and retreats, along with retail studios. A fitness brand called Zumba has sold DVDs direct to consumer and as a result, has trained over 15,000 instructors as an example. With respect to our diet book that we’re self publishing and marketing to consumers called The Karma Diet, along with the sales of books, we intend to extend the brand into food delivery service (like Jenny Craig and Zone Chef’s Diet which was extended from The Zone Diet book), nutritional supplements, and other diet products like prepackaged meal replacements and energy bars. LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) market is a fast growing $220 billion market. Our business is focused on one of the fastest growing sectors in the economy.
- Xflowsion, with its revolutionary Triple Training(r), is the only exercise program that efficiently and effectively combines the best elements of three proven workouts: martial arts, power yoga, and dance, into one convenient and fun workout to produce jaw-dropping results from head to toe, inside and out.
- Xflowsion is unlike any fitness DVD available as it was filmed in gorgeous high definition with 5.1 surround sound and has a live rocking band, making you feel like you're at a concert and a party while working out. This attention to detail and entertainment value, along with the dynamic and inspiring personality of Eric Paskel, who has shaped up some of the hottest bodies in Hollywood, keeps you from getting bored and makes working out fun.
- No other fitness DVD gets you moving with exclusive, original rocking tracks performed by a world class live band, plus a diverse playlist that satisfies a wide variety of musical tastes. People everywhere are saying it's virtually addictive!
- After test-marketing Xflowsion and receiving very favorable feedback from consumers and the media alike, uKarma is now ready to rollout their recently completed infomercial. Over time, uKarma anticipates buying more national television media and plans to introduce a variety of complementary marketing resources including online and press to grow dales worldwide.
- Xflowsion infomercial just launched nationally. The infomercial was produced by one of the country’s top direct response production companies, having produced infomercials for Guthy-Renker, Neutrogena, L’Oreal, Quiznos, Bare Escentuals and other leading brands and products.
- Xflowsion is differentiated on many levels (only fitness DVD series to be shot in high definition, have 5.1 surround sound, and have a live band) and has already receive press coverage in many consumer publications (Shape, Self, US Weekly, In Touch, In Style, etc.) and has much upcoming press plan in publications and on TV shows.
- uKarma will be launching new products in 3rd and 4th quarters (a diet book called the Karma Diet, and an audio series called Dreams Realized).
- Multimedia products such as DVDs, CDs and books are very cheap to produce. Once production costs are expended for our DVD and CD products, the margins are huge. Our expected gross margins are approximately 35% on sales sold via infomercials. For sales generated via other marketing, our gross margins are expected to be as high as 60%. Since we’re selling our products direct to consumer, once we’ve acquired our customers, our margins for subsequent sales to those consumers will greatly rise.
- Patent pending on a proprietary yoga mat – we’re developing the prototype for a unique yoga mat that we expect will have widespread acceptance and will be introduced during the 1st 1/4 of 2009. The market for products and services related to the yoga market is estimated to be as high as $27 billion (LULU is a perfect example of the market size and growth). It’s estimated that up to 25 million people in the US regularly practice yoga.
