I'll pass it over to the executive team.
Thank you. Thanks for joining. We're here today to present the LGL Group, listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol LGL. I am happy to be here today presenting. We've presented at previous Sidoti conferences, and we're certainly excited to be a listed microcap. With me today, I welcome Jason Lam, our Chief Executive Officer, and we're excited to work together again on behalf of LGL shareholders. I pass it to Jason to give a brief introduction.
Really excited to join the team here at LGL Group. I've spent about two-thirds of my career inside government in the Navy as a Navy SEAL, and then the last 10 years focused on defense technology and growing companies in the defense space, so looking forward to growing value for shareholders at LGL. It's an unprecedented time for national security capabilities. We look to grow both organically and inorganically at LGL. All the change in both foreign policy and domestic policy and investment creates unique opportunities to grow here, and I've worked with Marc and really a lot of the team members at LGL for over six years on various projects, looking forward to doing it full-time now, and hoping to meet all the investors in New York City at our investor conference later on this year. Thanks for the opportunity.
Thanks, Jason. We'll hear more from Jason as the year evolves, and we're privileged to have him join working on behalf of LGL shareholders for all of you. Let's first cover some basics and safe harbor statements. The information included by reference in this presentation may contain forward-looking statements. For example, we announced the results of our warrant exercise, and the results of the warrant exercise, both to the balance sheet and the share count, are not included in our previously filed financial statements. Those will come out in the 10-K. We do, in fact, reference some of those. So, words like should, may, expect, anticipate or believe, or project, or the negative of these words or variations involve assumptions and should not be used to make investment decisions.
Please refer to specifically our financials as reported, and the rest of this statement an investor should reference and read, please. Let's talk about the company. LGL Group was formed in 1917, and it went listed in 1946, which was then called the New York Curb Exchange. Since 1985, our group has been involved with the company, acquired 32 businesses, sold 11, spun off 3. In 2022, many shareholders of the company today participated in receiving shares of MtronPTI, which went public at $13 a share. So LGL Group has been a publicly traded business involved in various sectors with a strong value creation heritage in New York Stock Exchange governance. So today, what is the profile?
As I mentioned earlier in the Safe Harbor statements, today shares outstanding pro forma as a result of the 1,051,000 shares issued with the warrant are 6.39 million shares outstanding, giving us a market cap of roughly $43 million and a pro forma estimated book value of about $7.25 a share. Our principal operating facility and business is based in Wakefield, Massachusetts. We'll talk about that. It's PTF in the radio frequency area, and the platform of the business today is positioned for long-term value opportunities. If we think of the template of LGL Group, new business initiatives will flow through ultimately four quadrants: vehicles organized for investment, SPVs, our core operating business, M&A, and then new initiatives, which would be organically grown or acquired, and will have developmental horizons that should manifest into long-term value creation.
The defense sector remains an important area for our focus as we look into 2026 and beyond. There are many attributes associated with defense that we're excited about and continue to be excited about, and we welcome our shareholders to please engage with us as we have, as Jason mentioned, shareholder meetings looking forward into the second quarter of the year. We'd like to meet with everyone in New York and discuss some of these developments and opportunities to invest. The new business initiatives that we will be discussing over the year, initially in our current financials, as reported, are not material, but they will involve the use of our balance sheet, and we will articulate that as the year unfolds.
If we look at the little diagram on the bottom, our view is through underpinnings of research, bottom-up research, advisory, investment, transactional brokerage mindset, and activities, will manifest a long-term ownership and ultimately deliver value to the LGL shareholder. If we think of it, the deployment of our ultimate strategic priorities over the next 12 months, developing our own and operating businesses through acquisition as well as organically, will take hold and will consume balance sheet resources, we expect. Secondly, the development of our merchant investment vehicles, including special purpose vehicles, SPACs, for example, which the company has a history of investing in, venture opportunities, both direct and through design vehicles to collect and deliver and advise other investors' assets, and our merchant investment vehicles under the same premise will be our second and important priority of capital.
Clearly, capital deployed here has still a liquid component associated with it, more liquid than the development of our own and operating businesses. In the medium term, analyzing our strategic priorities, we have decided to put our Morgan Group share acquisition on hold. That acquisition was still undergoing diligence, and we are working with the stakeholders of Morgan Group to continue the dialogue. But in the meantime, we've put that acquisition, million shares at $2, on hold for reevaluation, taken into context later in the year. If I could now pass this to Jason. Just quickly, Jason, you recently joined, and maybe you can just talk about Precision Time and Frequency based in Wakefield, Massachusetts.
Absolutely. First day, I flew up to Wakefield to meet with the team there and get briefings on where they currently are as a business and where they're going. It's an outstanding business that drives connectivity in all kinds of systems throughout the defense enterprise and other businesses. It's amazing how time affects all different industries. In particular, in the defense industry, advanced precision navigation and timing is a huge area of investment for the Department of Defense, particularly looking in the Pacific, and I believe this company can help support large systems integrators and war fighters directly with their products. We're looking at a couple of reselling partnerships and advanced technology partnerships to increase the capability. There are inorganic and organic opportunities to grow this business. It'll be a great platform for us to work on, so looking forward to continuing to grow PTF throughout the year.
Really, I'll turn it over to Marc here, who's got a great case study about the opportunities for what this could look like to deliver shareholder value. Marc.
Thanks, Jason. Yeah. And a case study would be Mtron. I mentioned it earlier in the slide, and many of you have participated in this. Mtron Industries, MPTI. It's a company actually covered by Sidoti. It was spun off to shareholders in 2022 now, about three years and a few months ago at $13 a share. The stock is trading in the 60s. It has recently continued to strengthen its balance sheet and is a wonderful platform. That was spun off at $13 and has continued to grow in the markets. Mtron has a separate board and management team. I remain on the board. But as Jason said, it's an excellent template for where and how we believe LGL Group will continue to grow value for shareholders as we've done in the past over the last 30 years.
Financial engineering is tantamount over the long term for growth of all of your holdings in LGL. Stepping back, Axis is a great team with a proven track record. Our focus is on companies that would serve as a foundation to scale. Again, PTF currently in our portfolio is a good example of that. Our approach to looking at investments is bottom-up fundamental. We think about risks over the medium term and constantly evaluate our decisions in the context of how we can deliver value to you shareholders, with MtronPTI being an example of a spin-off tax-free to all of you. We bring to the table a broad network of origination and corporate access. With Jason joining as our Chief Executive, with multi-decades of service to this nation, we believe that the network continues to expand and is differentiated.
That balance of professionals that we've brought to the table over the years continues, and we're proud to meet with all of you as the year unfolds again with different initiatives at LGL Group. In sum, we're a listed microcap on the New York Stock Exchange with a long history of delivering value. PTF is a platform for growth around connectivity, signal technology, and with the prospect of artificial intelligence continuously coming to the front of value drivers for the customers. The business itself, LGL Group, is positioned for expansion, now moving into a stage with special purpose vehicles of various forms, both investing shareholder capital as well as raising capital through the capital markets or through private placement means. 2026, as we mentioned, the strategic priorities will be to continuously deploy the balance sheet and use that balance sheet for all of you.
I now move to questions, if we can. We have time for a few. I thank everyone for listening and participating. Anya, you tell me how you would like us to handle some of the questions, please.
Yes. So thank you so much for that overview. So, if you would like to submit a question, you can do so in the Q&A function at the bottom of your screen.
Anya, one question. Should we continue to share the screen?
You can keep that up there if you want to, or you can take it off. It's up to you.
Okay. Sorry. And Anya, in terms of managing the queue of questions, would that be all right if I handle some of that?
Sure. Go ahead.
Okay. Thank you very much. So the first question is about PTF, and I think it. It's coming from Chris Tuttle. PTF business seems a bit dated when compared to other firms like SiTime and Frequency Electronics. Is this division going to perk up with new products and more growth? Thank you, Chris, for that question. Certainly, Frequency Electronics is more akin to what you see at Mtron Industries than PTF. SiTime is certainly a good example and thank you for raising that. It's the combination of connectivity, RF designs, and assembled products combined with smart software and development. So we do think that's a good template, and we do think perking up is a good example of how you can describe the years ahead for this company. So, thank you for the question.
It will involve innovation, and we believe we have the right team to continue to drive that. So, thank you. A question came in from Isaac Dimitrovsky, and I apologize if I didn't pronounce that correctly, Isaac, but thank you for your question. His question is, "Are you still looking at the agricultural industrial sectors, or are you just concentrating on defense?" We are still, of course, looking to develop the agricultural business that we've mentioned earlier. We have some testing going on right now in the United States. We're working with affiliate partners to continue to drive that testing. We do believe that there are incremental capital investments that need to be made over the year, and those investments will also manifest with a direct relationship to the defense sector.
In other words, some of what we shared with you before in agriculture does have underpinnings to what could be used in the defense sector, both in the hardware and in the software side. So, agriculture, we think, is an excellent area, both ripe for growth as well as a complement to our existing activities. When you think of LGL Group, there are cluster benefits that are afforded to you, our shareholders, from some of our activities to the extent that we're developing that into actual shareholder value and manifest into something, whether it be a spinoff or just straight cash flow development. We're cognizant of both, and that's what we're working on. We have another question coming from Geert Campaert related to Morgan Group and the Morgan Group acquisition. Thank you for the question. Why was the Morgan Group acquisition put on hold? Great question.
The first thing, as you know, we announced it. It's taken over a year. Part of that was diligence related to our various, as you know, there's a highly regulated business. LGL Group is not in the regulated space. I personally am involved in various activities that are in the highly regulated area. So the first is to make sure that the due diligence was conducted in a way involving all stakeholders at Morgan Group, its client base, and in the context of LGL's activities. So as that due diligence was being conducted, lots of levels of approvals. That's taken time. We now have priorities during that time that have built up. And those priorities are going to mean let Morgan Group continue to develop and grow, but we don't believe that it's closed.
The Morgan Group opportunity and the opportunity to work with the brokerage firm and the relationships there will continue. It may take a different form or may take the same form. We don't know. It's not a significant amount of capital as it relates to the overall balance sheet. So we do have the wherewithal to do it, but we are using capital today for other strategic priorities, and we're putting it on hold. We think it's in the best interest for all of you, our shareholders, to do so. But thank you for the question. There's a handful of questions about acquisitions and acquisition pipeline. Those are all completely reasonable. What I can simply say is we're cognizant of adding value for each acquisition, and our return profile is looking at very much a venture capital-related weighted average cost of capital.
Our stock price is not volatile, so it's kind of irrelevant in thinking about designing hurdle rates into our return matrix. So we're thinking of earning returns as if we were running a venture fund. And that is the dynamic that you, as investors, should think about. But we're not going to get into details of our M&A pipeline. We certainly have a robust pipeline, and we do have several vehicles to use or instruments to use for M&A. Number one, it's relationships and what we can bring to the table through our network. Number two, and that is to the counterpart company. Number two, of course, we have cash. Cash is easy, but cash is a resource that we respect.
Number three is our shares, and we think our shares today, trading when you look at them relative to book, are also maybe not a primary source to use as an opportunity for M&A at this time. So, it's really our relationship mix and being smart about how we can bring value is the number one point. And we think we're accelerating that. Most of the questions, Anya, if I can, and you're able to scale through them, are around, again, M&A. I'll add one, if I may, and you might want to help me here, Anya, but there's one again about PTF, and it's a nice question asking about its proximity to MIT and the Lincoln Lab. We're obviously well aware of the clusters. The company as well, now with Jason joining, we're going to develop more of a cluster in the Virginia area.
So, Virginia, Baltimore, Washington, D.C. area is also another important cluster, both for engineers, technology, and then also deal flow. So that is something that will be forthcoming in the quarter, probably, if not into the second quarter, where we'll have more of a physical presence in the Washington, D.C. area. So, clusters matter, both in relationships as well as for engineering talent, and we're going to continue to drive that. So PTF does benefit from that cluster, and that needs to be re-accelerated. The old Mtron Industries, we had important clusters in the Florida area, in the defense sector, in relationships with several of those universities, and we're actually having active discussions with a handful of universities right now to help the business. So, we're aware of that. So, thank you for the question.
Anya, most of the questions I hear are around M&A, and I think that if not, we're going to put that on hold. I'll pass through two questions just on financial engineering. One is around buybacks, and the other is about more warrants. And we have one prospect, John Bair, is asking, "Would you consider more warrant offering with a similar profile?" And thank you, John, for that question. LGL Group actually has issued warrants a few times, so we don't have any plans for that, but there is a possibility that that may also come into fruition. Today, the stock, as you know, is relatively illiquid. Actually, Mtron Industries had a warrant issue with a similar template not too long ago. That was also fully exercised and subscribed to. It had a floating strike. But we welcome feedback, and we thank you for the question.
There's nothing planned at this time, but we constantly reevaluate ways to deliver value to you, and we do appreciate you following this little company. And this little company, we think, as Jason said in his opening remarks, is well-positioned to add value to our nation's defense. So if that's okay with you, Anya, I'd like to bring this to a close. If you might want to add any closing remarks.
Yes. No, thank you so much for that. This has been very informative. It seems like 2026 can be a very exciting year for LGL Group. And you mentioned in the beginning an investor day or shareholder meeting. Do you have any timeframe for that, roughly?
Sorry, Anya. I couldn't hear that last part.
No, you mentioned a shareholder meeting later this spring. Do you have a timeframe for that, or?
Thanks. Thank you for the question. Yes, the shareholder meeting will be around after we release our results, and we have the 10-K out. So we expect that in the second quarter, and we'll have that in New York City, and we welcome shareholders to come. Many of you have been with us for a long time, and we look forward to seeing you, and we look forward to seeing our new shareholders as well. So expected in the second quarter. Typically, it's going to be timed and aligned with our AGM. So, you'll see the releases coming as the quarter unfolds. So, thank you so much.
Okay. Great. No, I think we can wrap up here. So, I just want to hand it over to you, Marc, for some closing remarks before we close it down.
We're a small-cap company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and we thank everyone's participation today.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, everyone.
Thank you so much.