SRM Entertainment, Inc. (SRM) Risk Factors

From time to time, we may receive complaints from customers regarding the quality of goods purchased from us. We may in the future receive correspondence from customers requesting reimbursement. Certain dissatisfied customers may threaten legal action against us if no reimbursement is made. We may become subject to product liability lawsuits from customers alleging injury because of a purported defect in our products or services, claiming substantial damages and demanding payments from us. We are in the chain of title when we supply or distribute products, and therefore are subject to the risk of being held legally responsible for them. These claims may not be covered by our insurance policies. Any resulting litigation could be costly for us, divert management attention, and could result in increased costs of doing business, or otherwise have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and financial condition. Any negative publicity generated as a result of customer frustration with our products or services, or with our websites, could damage our reputation and diminish the value of our brand name, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and financial condition.

SRM faces competitors who are also constantly monitoring and attempting to anticipate consumer tastes, seeking ideas which will appeal to consumers, and introducing new products that compete with SRM's products. In addition, competition for access to entertainment properties has and may continue to lessen SRM's ability to secure, maintain, and renew popular licenses to entertainment products developed by other parties and licensed to SRM, or require SRM to pay licensors higher royalties and higher minimum guaranteed payments to obtain or retain these licenses. As a licensee of entertainment properties, SRM has no guarantee that a particular property or brand will translate into a successful toy, game, or other product. In addition, the barriers to entry for new participants in the toy products industry and entertainment industry are low. In a very short period of time, new market participants with a popular product idea or entertainment property can become a significant source of competition for SRM and its products. Reduced demand for SRM's brands, products, and product lines as a result of these factors may adversely affect SRM's business, financial condition, and results of operations. Some of our competitors may have greater resources than the Company. In order to compete successfully, SRM may have to lower prices and increase marketing expenses which could result in reduced margins.

The loss of recurring orders from any of our more significant retailers, distributors and other channel partners could cause our revenue and profitability to suffer. Our ability to attract new retailers, distributors and other channel partners will depend on a variety of factors, including the cost-effectiveness, reliability, scalability, breadth and depth of our products. In addition, a change in the mix of our retailers, distributors and other channel partners, or a change in the mix of direct and indirect sales, could adversely affect our revenue and gross margin. Although our financial performance may depend on large, recurring orders from certain retailers, distributors and other channel partners, we do not generally have binding commitments from them. For example: - our channel partner agreements generally do not require minimum purchases;         - our retailers, distributors and other channel partners can stop purchasing and stop marketing our products at any time; and         - our channel partner agreements generally are not exclusive. Because our expenses are based on our revenue forecasts, a substantial reduction or delay in sales of our products to, or unexpected returns from, channel partners, or the loss of any significant channel partners, could materially adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. Although our largest channel partners may vary from period to period, we anticipate that our results of operations for any given period will continue to depend on large orders from a small number of channel partners.

SRM has in the past announced, and in the future may announce, initiatives to reduce its costs, optimize its manufacturing footprint, increase its efficiency, improve the execution of its core business, globalize and extend SRM's brands, catch new trends, create new brands, offer new innovative products and improve existing products, enhance product safety, develop people, improve productivity, simplify processes, and maintain customer service levels, as well as initiatives designed to drive sales growth, capitalize on SRM's scale advantage, and improve its supply chain. These initiatives involve investment of capital and complex decision-making as well as extensive and intensive execution, and the success of these initiatives is not assured. Failure to achieve any of these initiatives could harm SRM's business, financial condition, and results of operations. From time to time, SRM anticipates introducing new products, product lines, or brands at a certain time in the future. There is no guarantee that SRM will be able to manufacture, source, ship, and distribute new or continuing products in a timely manner and on a cost-effective basis. Unforeseen delays or difficulties in the development process or significant increases in the planned cost of development for new SRM products may cause the introduction date for products to be later than anticipated or, in some situations, may cause a product or new product introduction to be discontinued. Failure to successfully implement any of these initiatives or launches, or the failure of any of these initiatives or launches to produce the results anticipated by management, could have an adverse effect on SRM's business, financial condition, and results of operations.

The value of SRM's business depends on its ability to protect its intellectual property and information, including its trademarks, trade names, copyrights, patents, trade secrets, and rights under intellectual property license agreements and other agreements with third parties, in the United States and around the world, as well as its customer, employee, and consumer data. From time to time, third parties may in the future try to challenge, SRM's ownership of its intellectual property in the United States and around the world. Responding to any infringement claim, regardless of its validity, may be costly and time-consuming and may divert management and key personnel from business operations. Findings of infringement on the intellectual property rights of any third party by SRM, its distributors, its licensors, or its manufacturers may require obtaining a license to use those rights, which may not be obtainable on reasonable terms, if at all. In addition, SRM's business is subject to the risk of third parties counterfeiting its products or infringing on its intellectual property rights. The steps SRM has taken may not prevent unauthorized use of its intellectual property, particularly in foreign countries where the laws may not protect its intellectual property as fully as in the United States. SRM may resort to litigation to protect its intellectual property rights, which could result in substantial costs and diversion of resources. SRM's failure to protect its proprietary intellectual property and information, including with respect to any successful challenge to SRM's ownership of its intellectual property or significant infringements of its intellectual property, could have an adverse effect on SRM's business, financial condition, and results of operations. We rely on a combination of copyright, trademark, patent and trade secret laws, nondisclosure agreements with employees, consultants and suppliers and other contractual provisions to establish, maintain and protect our intellectual property and technology. Despite efforts to protect our intellectual property, unauthorized third parties may attempt to design around, copy aspects of our product design or obtain and use technology or other intellectual property associated with our products. Furthermore, our competitors may independently develop similar technology or design around our intellectual property. Our inability to secure and protect our intellectual property rights could materially adversely affect our brand and business, results of operations and financial condition.

We are an "emerging growth company" as defined in the JOBS Act, and, for as long as we continue to be an emerging growth company, we may choose to take advantage of exemptions from various reporting requirements applicable to other public companies including, but (i) not limited to, not being required to comply with the auditor attestation requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, (ii) not being required to comply with any new requirements adopted by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (the "PCAOB"), requiring mandatory audit firm rotation or a supplement to the auditor's report in which the auditor would be required to provide additional information about the audit and the financial statements of the issuer, (iii) not being required to comply with any new audit rules adopted by the PCAOB after April 5, 2012 unless the SEC determines otherwise, (iv) reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation in our periodic reports and proxy statements, and (v) exemptions from the requirements of holding a nonbinding advisory vote on executive compensation and stockholder approval of any golden parachute payments not previously approved. We could remain an emerging growth company until the earlier of: (i) the last day of the fiscal year in which we have total annual gross revenues of $1.24 billion or more; (ii) the last day of our fiscal year following the fifth anniversary of the date of our first sale of common equity securities pursuant to an effective registration statement; (iii) the date on which we have issued more than $1.0 billion in nonconvertible debt during the previous three years; or (iv) the date on which we are deemed to be a large accelerated filer. We cannot predict if investors will find our securities less attractive if we choose to rely on these exemptions. If some investors find our securities less attractive as a result of any choices to reduce future disclosure, there may be a less active trading market for our securities and our stock price may be more volatile. Further, as a result of these scaled regulatory requirements, our disclosure may be more limited than that of other public companies and you may not have the same protections afforded to stockholders of such companies. Section 107 of the JOBS Act also provides that an emerging growth company can take advantage of the extended transition period provided in Section 7(a)(2)(B) of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"), for complying with new or revised accounting standards. We have opted for taking advantage of the extended transition period for complying with new or revised accounting standards pursuant to Section 107(b) of the Jobs Act. - We are required to comply with various regulatory and reporting requirements, including those required by the SEC. Complying with these reporting and other regulatory requirements is time-consuming and results in increased costs to us and could have a negative effect on our results of operations, financial condition or business.         - Certain of our stockholders hold a significant percentage of our outstanding voting securities, which could reduce the ability of minority stockholders to effect certain corporate actions.

Our results of operations are difficult to predict and may fluctuate substantially from quarter-to-quarter or year-to-year for a variety of reasons, many of which are beyond our control. If our actual results were to fall below our estimates or the expectations of public market analysts or investors, our quarterly and annual results would be negatively impacted and the price of our stock could decline. Other factors that could affect our quarterly and annual operating results include, but are not limited to: - changes in the pricing policies of, or the introduction of new products by, us or our competitors;         - introductions of new technologies and changes in consumer preferences that result in either unanticipated or unexpectedly rapid product category shifts;         - slow or negative growth in the toy, souvenir, theme park, and related markets;         - seasonal shifts in end-market demand for our products;         - delays in the introduction of new products by us or market acceptance of these products;         - unanticipated decreases or delays in purchases of our products by our significant retailers, distributors and other channel partners;         - supply constraints from our vendors;- unanticipated increases in costs, including air freight, associated with shipping and delivery of our products;         - the inability to maintain stable operations by our suppliers and other parties with whom we have commercial relationships;         - discovery of security vulnerabilities in our products, services or systems, leading to negative publicity, decreased demand or potential liability;         - foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations in the jurisdictions where we transact sales and expenditures in local currency;         - excess levels of inventory and low turns;         - changes in or consolidation of our sales channels and wholesale distributor relationships or failure to manage our sales channel inventory and warehousing requirements;         - delay or failure to fulfill orders for our products on a timely basis;         - delay or failure of our retailers, distributors and other channel partners to purchase at their historic volumes or at the volumes that they or we forecast;         - changes in tax rates or adverse changes in tax laws that expose us to additional income tax liabilities;         - changes in U.S. and international tax policy, including changes that adversely affect customs, tax or duty rates, as well as income tax legislation and regulations that affect the countries where we conduct business;         - operational disruptions, such as transportation delays or failure of our order processing system, particularly if they occur at the end of a fiscal quarter;         - disruptions or delays related to our financial and enterprise resource planning systems;         - our inability to accurately forecast product demand, resulting in increased inventory exposure;         - allowance for doubtful accounts exposure with our existing retailers, distributors and other channel partners and new retailers, distributors and other channel partners, particularly as we expand into new international markets;         - geopolitical disruption, including sudden changes in immigration policies, leading to disruption in our workforce or delay or even stoppage of our operations in manufacturing, transportation, technical support and research and development;         - terms of our contracts with channel partners or suppliers that cause us to incur additional expenses or assume additional liabilities;         - an increase in price protection claims, redemptions of marketing rebates, product warranty and stock rotation returns or allowance for doubtful accounts;         - litigation involving alleged patent infringement;         - epidemic or widespread product failure, or unanticipated safety issues, in one or more of our products;         - failure to effectively manage our third-party customer support partners, which may result in customer complaints and/or harm to the SRM brand;         - our inability to monitor and ensure compliance with our code of ethics, our anti-corruption compliance program and domestic and international anti-corruption laws and regulations, whether in relation to our employees or with our suppliers or retailers, distributors or other channel partners;- labor unrest at facilities managed by our third-party manufacturers;         - workplace or human rights violations in certain countries in which our third-party manufacturers or suppliers operate, which may affect the SRM brand and negatively affect our products' acceptance by consumers;         - unanticipated shifts or declines in profit by geographical region that would adversely impact our tax rate;         - failure to implement and maintain the appropriate internal controls over financial reporting, which may result in restatements of our financial statements; and         - any changes in accounting rules. As a result, period-to-period comparisons of our results of operations may not be meaningful, and you should not rely on them as an indication of our future performance.

From time to time, we may undertake acquisitions to add new product and service lines and technologies, acquire talent, gain new sales channels or enter into new sales territories. Acquisitions involve numerous risks and challenges, including relating to the successful integration of the acquired business, entering into new territories or markets with which we have limited or no prior experience, establishing or maintaining business relationships with new retailers, distributors or other channel partners, vendors and suppliers and potential post-closing disputes. We cannot ensure that we will be successful in selecting, executing and integrating acquisitions. Failure to manage and successfully integrate acquisitions could materially harm our business, financial condition and results of operations. In addition, if stock market analysts or our stockholders do not support or believe in the value of the acquisitions that we choose to undertake, our stock price may decline.

Our results can be impacted by a number of macroeconomic factors, including but not limited to consumer confidence and spending levels, tax rates, unemployment, consumer credit availability, raw materials costs, pandemics (such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic) and natural disasters, fuel and energy costs (including oil prices), and credit market conditions. A general economic slowdown or recession resulting in a decrease in discretionary spending could adversely affect the frequency with which guests choose to visit our parks and the amount that our guests spend when they visit. Additionally, difficult economic conditions throughout the world, including global supply chain issues, could impact our ability to obtain supplies, services and credit as well as the ability of third parties to meet their obligations to us, including, for example, manufacturers' ability to supply rides, payment of claims by our insurance carriers, funding of our lines of credit, or payment by our international agreement partner. Changes in exchange rates for foreign currencies could increase our labor and supply costs or reduce the U.S. dollar value of revenue we earn in other markets, including, but not limited to, Beijing, Japan, and Europe. In addition, availability of our products from third-party manufacturers and our ability to distribute our products into non-U.S. jurisdictions may be impacted by factors such as an increase in duties, tariffs or other restrictions on trade; raw material shortages, work stoppages, strikes and political unrest; economic crises and international disputes or conflicts; changes in leadership and the political climate in countries from which we import products; and failure of the United States to maintain normal trade relations with China and other countries. While China currently enjoys "most favored nation" trading status with the United States, the ability of the United States to revoke that status and to impose higher tariffs on products imported from China, could materially adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Because most of our products are sold at parks, and attendance at parks may be adversely affected by bad or extreme weather conditions and forecasts that may be a result of climate change, such bad or extreme weather conditions and forecasts may negatively affect our revenues. The effects of bad weather on attendance can be more pronounced at waterparks. We believe our operating results in certain years were adversely affected by abnormally hot, cold and/or wet weather in a number of our major U.S. markets. In addition, since a number of products are featured in parks geographically concentrated in portions of the United States, a weather pattern that affects those respective areas could adversely affect a number of our parks and disproportionately impact our results of operations. Bad weather and forecasts of bad weather on weekends, holidays or other peak periods will typically have a greater negative impact on our revenues and could disproportionately impact our results of operations.