The next focusIR Investor Webinar takes places on 14th May with guest speakers from Blue Whale Growth Fund, Taseko Mines, Kavango Resources and CQS Natural Resources fund. Please register here.
Glosman, unless I’ve missed something all that has been said is the proceeds from the licensing deal are in escrow. That doesn’t mean the DaaP proceeds aren’t but usually things are worded in a specific way to give a specific meaning. If Cloudtag had actually received the proceeds of the DaaP sale (rather than escrow) I am pretty sure Amit would have announced it.
One thing I can guarantee is if there is a problem it will be something completely beyond Amit’s control - he successfully delivered, all processes were complete etc etc but the NDAs will prevent the details of the other party/parties.
People keep asking why carry it on and it was a very popular view that his family may be bailing him out to preserve the family name. Very unlikely at face value with the sums involved, but if there is a twist it could be about closing the whole charade down with Amit claiming defeat was snatched from the jaws of victory - rather than the black mark that would have remained if he’d left it to fade away.
Just a thought, and plenty have asked ‘why string it out?’
What might happen if the company pulled out? Only the licensing proceeds are confirmed to be in escrow and may not be a substantial part of the total. What could Amit suggest? Using them to start legal proceedings - with perhaps an additional donation from shareholders.
Hopefully not, but perhaps prepare for the worst and what transpires may not be so bad..
19:05 And?
I’d suggest that ‘paying out’ implies a spread bet rather than an actual short position involving selling borrowed shares in the market in the hope of buying them back cheaper to return the borrow.
On the subject of actual short positions in CTAG (if there are any) and the impending ‘payday’ (if there is one) my take is this will either go to the lender of the shares or the borrower in the form of a dividend. It is pretty obvious that the purchaser of the shares who has lent them out would expect to benefit from the payout. If they don’t receive it directly then it would go to the person who has borrowed the shares - and all they would then need to do was remit it to the owner of the shares and all would be well. There is no suggestion there is any value in the company other than the announced deals or that the shares are going to be traded again.
Perhaps the $275 million was a typo?
No I wasn’t serious, but there again the company updates do perhaps ‘hallucinate’ facts and references unless read very carefully..
As I posted previously, perhaps ChatGPT are supplying the updates? Even one of the diehard supporters of Amit refers to the information issued by the company as ‘this nonsense’ and rightly so.
Stevielad, if you miss off the word ‘process’ from ‘…..financial settlement’ you will get a completely different meaning. He promised an update on the ‘financial settlement process’. As I posted soon after the 4th May update, it was a rather pointless exercise about a back office process which left the news about the DaaP announcement hanging. What forms will be in use to claim (he has basically said the agent will take care of supplying forms - but of course there are no details of who they are) is rather academic when, if you read what has been put in the updates at face value then it is not confirmed the DaaP proceeds are even in escrow.
Stevielad, the last line of the latest update specifically addresses the point about the Daap sale - the announcement will be made by the end of the month. That would seem to confirm, at least to me, that it hasn’t been made already.
As for the rest of the update, that was given over to the financial settlement process, paper certification, nominee and confirming agents will deal with documentation. That is outlining the process which is what was promised on 4th May.
Of course you will be disappointed if you took the view that it was going to be details of the financial settlement - that’s the problem of following others who can’t follow the meaning of what is a clear statement.
Whether this will actually lead to anything is still unclear.
18:44, conrad- where has he said he has the money? My understanding is the licensing proceeds are in escrow as stated. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have the rest of the money but as he hasn’t confirmed it, it is unlikely.
As someone posted a while back, the licensing proceeds could be small in relation to the Daap and possibly involving ongoing revenue.
I don’t think it controversial to say everyone should apply a strict literal interpretation to exactly what is said, has Amit ever been known to under promise and over deliver?
Amit, next Tuesday morning; “Hey ChatGPT, give me a new Cloudtag update - and no dates please this time!”
There obviously isn’t a one size fits all NDA. It seems the faithful are taking the lack of any public information on the deal to be the NDA prohibits this (rather as Meghan Markle, Harvey Weinstein etc use NDAs). There was a distinct impression given in the 30th March Cloudtag update that there would be an announcement. My read on that (and I certainly wasn’t the only one) was the NDA was in place to prevent any information leaking before the party’s involved authorised an announcement. In terms of the NDA being ‘strict’, well - I can tell you there is a licensing deal and a separate sale deal and the combined value is $ 275 m. Find me another NDA where the settlement figure had been trumpeted.
You are 100% correct on the ‘by’ meaning, I posted similar a few days ago re the ‘by the 5th May’. However there is a big difference between ‘settlement’ and ‘settlement process’. To my mind there was absolutely nothing to stop this information being included in an earlier release, it is obvious that if there is going to be a settlement there must be a process - did anyone think that Amit was personally going to mail cheques to addresses that may be years out of date.
None of the above prevents there being a settlement put in motion in the next week, but if there isn’t, all Amit needs to do is name the agent, answer the questions of ‘what do I do with my paper certificate’ and publish some forms to download and he will have complied fully with what he stated in the May 4th update.
The salient questions would then revert to what was said in the March 30th and remains unconfirmed.
I see the post that there is no legitimate deal and Amit’s family are paying over 200 mill dollars to atone for his behaviour after they have got ‘an awful lot back’ through his shareholding (good luck with that in those circumstances) seems to be very well received judging by the recommends (8 at time of writing). Looking at the general responses to posts, that number must include his supporters. What a vote of confidence!
13:50, any holding with ‘Nominee’ after it is held on behalf of investors, basically those on here with HL who haven’t been converted to paper certificates will be part of those figures. Love to be a fly on the wall to hear what senior management there think about all these announcements, (that’s if they are actually aware of the company’s continued existence) especially yesterdays announcement about a further announcement concerning the back office technicalities which seems to have distracted the majority from the nitty gritty in the 30th March now we are on the final day with no announcement from any party on the substance.
08:22, the only rational explanation, if the announcements are not based on fact, would be the sole director of Cloudtag, the private company, having completely lost grip of reality. As others have said, it cannot conceivably be of any benefit to Amit when the music eventually stops.
The announcement confirms the payment process will be confirmed by the 16th. It does not say that payment will be made by the 16th.
As nothing further has been said relating to the statements in the 30th March announcement, presumably this still stands. As I read it, money in escrow relating to the licensing, to be paid on announcement of the Daap sale together with those proceeds which I take to be not in escrow so presumably still with the buyer?
And even the stalwarts seemed not to expect anything to land on any of the days between the announcement and the 5th of May, which the word ‘by’ implies.
Presumably there is no comment or speculation in the trade circles and publications covering this area bearing in mind that the NDAs are not so strict that Cloudtag have put this announcement on the so called official company website. To my mind this is a bit like Prince Harry withholding the name of the lady involved in his ‘field manoeuvres’ but within the circles involved at the time, enough people knew who it was and she revealed her identity before she was named. Come to think of it, I remember Amit making the announcement about the hire he couldn’t name but then giving enough background so it could only be Hugh (can’t remember the second name).
On the assumption that the counterparty is a listed company and a deal of this nature could be said to be price sensitive, this sort of hiatus seems strange to me on the basis that all the processes are complete (according to Cloudtag) and it is just the announcement that needs to be made. Of course the exact rules on disclosure of such information would depend on what market the counterparty is listed on, but generally such practices as holding off on an announcement so insiders can load up etc are strictly illegal and why timely disclosure of price sensitive information to all shareholders through official channels is the norm.
09:22 I believe opinion is divided on whether Amit ‘played a blinder’ by taking the company off AIM or whether it was thrown off after the NOMAD was unable to fulfil the basic regulatory requirements relating to the running of the company. Obviously not such a blinder for those who lose their tax exemption within an ISA (whether CGT or dividend) as the share no longer qualifies and obviously not good if it was the way the company operated that caused it to lose the AIM listing with no replacement platform.
17:38, I would be inclined to agree if it was a disposal of the shares of Cloudtag, but that is not what the announcement says. If the shares are still held by individuals after the ‘payout’ and certainly if there is any remaining value in the company (however small) that doesn’t represent a disposal by individual shareholders (that would basically involve parting with the shares for a consideration) - it would be activity within the company which is a legal entity in its own right.
Remember, to report and pay CGT you need an exact cost of acquiring the asset and the exact proceeds on the disposal less allowable costs and expenses. That, to my mind, isn’t represented by the purchase price of CTAG shares when there was expenditure for unrelated development (supposedly) of the Onitor which doesn’t appear relevant to this deal. And if there isn’t a clean exchange of shares for cash, what figure goes in the disposal box?
All a bit longwinded, but basically if you are not in a position work out the exact gain (or at least enter the required figures in the relevant boxes on the self assessment return) you believe you need to pay CGT on, it perhaps isn’t CGT.