Ryan Mee, CEO of Fulcrum Metals, reviews FY23 and progress on the Gold Tailings Hub in Canada. Watch the video here.
"to the greatest extent possible". The clue is in that last cruicial word. If you see an ad for broadband offering "up to20Mb" it does not mean that everyone will get 20Mb. If you see an advert for a sale with "up to 50% off" it does not mean everything has 50% off. Thre are so many posts on different boards from "the market is rigged, the price is being manipulated" and messages that anyone with a contrarian view other than the rose tinted must be a paid employee of a boiler house or even daft ideas that members of the BOD post on boards like this. I don't wish to sound rude but comments like that are typical of novice investors who thought there was easy money to be made and who have got burned. I made the same mistakes in my early days of "investing" and it was actually a good wake up call. When you start posting messages like this, you have become emotionally attached to a share or company and emotions and the stock market are very poor bed mates. It doesn't really matter now but the important thing is has anyone here actually learned any lessons from this?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/media/10454770/Hibu-administration-threat-sparks-anger.html Hibu shareholders fear their campaign to force the directors to account for decisions leading up to the collapse of the Yellow Pages publisher will be foiled by moves next week to call in administrators. At an Emergency General Meeting scheduled for December 4, a series of motions will call on Bob Wigley, the chairman of Hibu, and other board members to give details of their role in the business. Lenders won control of Hibu in July in a debt for equity deal that left shareholders with nothing. Hibu was £2.3bn in debt following an acquisition spree in the 2000s before the present management team or Mr Wigley were in place. About 700 private shareholders have banded together to force the EGM after Hibu said their consent was not required to turn the business over to lenders, who agreed to an £800m haircut. But it is understood that talks to take the company into administration before it re-emerges as a new company focused on the internet are well advanced and likely to be completed before the scheduled confrontation. The new Hibu will be owned by the old company’s creditors. Waqas Chaudhry, a member of the Hibu Shareholders Group steering committee, said: “We fully understand that sometimes you win and sometimes you lose but, if this company is allowed to do this, it will set a very dangerous precedent in this country.” He claimed Hibu directors had failed to comply with duties to call a meeting when the company’s liabilities massively outstripped its assets after a £2bn goodwill write-down earlier this year. The activists also aim to install their own directors, which Hibu claims would be pointless because its deal with creditors means the board have to act in their interests, not those of shareholders. A Hibu spokesman said Mr Wigley had been “completely open” about his dealing and had lost a significant amount of money on Hibu. The company said it had complied with the law on calling meetings. Mr Wigley has said the directors tried to secure some return for shareholders but that the deal as planned will safeguard a future for the company and its 12,000 staff.
Yes - hibu have revenue, but it is fast declining. The golden goose IS the book - this is what has kept the old boat afloat. The digital revenues are increasing - as a percentage - because the book is declining so quickly now. What of hibu life? What is it? What new does it offer? Remember the massive workforce that has to be paid and don't forget that elephant in the room - the massive debt. The thing is that you guys seem very emotionally attached to this company. I made that mistake in my early years and it was a hard lesson learned. Don't ever get emotionally involved so far as the stock market is concerned because your heart WILL rule your head and that is not clever investing. I am not gloating and yr=es, it would be great if you got something back. I just cannot help thinking that if some people had put as much effort into research and looking at other companies as they have trying to claw their losses back here then they would all sleep more soundly at night.
Have you actually seen the size of the new yellow pages? It is tiny and for very many catagories there are only a handfull of businesses listed - it is just no longer useful to people. I don't know about being used by millions of people but what counts is what revenue does it pull in? Just a fast declining database of long standing customers who are no longer prepared to pay for zero or little benefit. You talk about web sites but Yell have been pushing poor quality overpriced web sites for goodness knows how long. Piler It is nothing new that the big cheeses tend to do rather well whatever the outcome. Wake up and have a look around. Certainly putting all your investment faith in a CEO without keeping your eyes open would seem to be thoroughly foolhardy in my book. I don't know - the amount of bleeting that went on when the emarketplace was announced - what a brilliant idea etc etc. For an idea that clearly would never get off the ground.
The problem is that shareholders still believe that hibu actually have a product that works and that people want to buy when in reality they don't. There is nothing new - nothing tangiable. All they have done is to launch half baked "new" products that they have continually thrust down the throats of existing customers. I don't know what the HSG think they can achieve by putting their own directors in place. To my mind, it is for their own selfish needs to try and claw back something from their awful investment decisions. They were quite happy to ramp this share to newcomers - buy buy buy.
deedee Whilst I am sure that yellow pages and yell.com still works for some people, they are fewer and further between. The fact is that the products yelllow pages have been offering have been outdated, overpriced and not terribly good - that is why droves of customers have walked. All a bit immaterial now as once the debt for equity deal is completed, I imagine the first priority of the new owners will be to slash the enourmous workforce and try to make a profit on their investment.
Erm - look after shareholders? That typifies the selfish posts on this and every board. What about the poor customers whao have and continue to be fleeced with poor products and no advertising? People on here whine about losing their investments because they were greedy, did no homework and had their eyes closed. None of them whine about the lack of suport to loyal customers.
True, ain't it Veeks. Those that kept on yapping on that this was a no brainer - and You still do. The biggest joker I EVER came accross on any share board. Keep it up mate please because the entertainment value you provide us with truly is priceless.
That's it Veeks - you tell him. After all, you have been right on the money with share all along, telling people to buy from 20p+ all the way down! To be fair - Veeks has been the most accurate share de-tipster I have ever come accross. Just do the opposite of what he says and you won't go far wrong! TCG anyone?!
I am sorry that I do not have the answers you are seeking. As already mentioned, I haven't seen any products to date that have been innovative - well not to my eye anyway. Hibu life I suppose may be innovative but it is going to take a very long time to get that off the ground and make it a place that advertisers and businesses are goint to want to flock to. What other products do they have that you feell are innovative? The problem HAS been the massive debt obligations that they have. The banks wanted out and sold on the debt cheaply so they could get out. Those that have done so have done so as a bit of a gamblle and they will try to scrape as much of their investment back as possible. Ordinary shareholders are at the bottom of the food chain and a liabillity that they do not need or want. Sure - fight if you feel hard done by but when you look at northern rock and marconi and the like, it reallly was game over. So far as other people profiting - well that is big business for you. Big cheeses being rewarded with massive payouts and bonuses, even if they don't do well. And they can wallk out of one job and into the next no problem at all. It is what it is.
I don't know the answer to why they didn't launch hibu life. Maybe they could see it wasn't going to be a winner? And I don't know why they didn't spend some money supporting their existing customers. That is actually pretty shameful but fairly typicall of the arrogant way that Yell has always dealt with it's customers. They have done very little to bring in new business, preferring instead to thrust waves of unsuccesfull products down the throats of their existing customer base. I have never believed in pocock and shuddered the moment he arrived because he has done nothing particularly worthwhile in his previous short tenures except leave with armfullls of cash. Maybe it IS that they are all incompetent? Who knows. But they did warn that sharehollders were going to be wiped out and I am astounded at the number of people who stuck their fingers in their ears and said this was because they were playing a clever game with the lenders and the outcome would work out welll for sharehoders. Anyone who treated this as anything but a totall gamble at that point were always going to be disappointed.
Sorry i leave you feeling sad :-( I am afraid that I am a total realist and over the past few years, Yell/Hibu have produced nothing to date that has made me remotely interested in going long. Trustedplaces was a farce, emarketplace is one of the daftest ideas I ever heard of and I just cannot see what Hibulife could offer people (that would keep them coming back AND generate income). This strategy may work as a start up (which is what pocock said it should be thought as) but they were never going to be able to instantly pull enough trade in to make up for the huge declline in revenues from the book. To be remotely succesfull, they will have to dramatically cut their work force and sadly, this is what I can see happening next. Properly manage the declline of the book and then hive off Hibu and sell it to venture capitalists who I imagine will refloat it. After so many massive corporations who have folded before them, I pay littlle or notice to what BODs and accountants have to say, and find my own gut instinct to be a far better judge. I do hope that you guys can salvage something, but I cannot help thinking it will be so little as to not be worth the trouble. I would prefer to put my energies into making my losses back elsewhere.
I made the very points you have raised here, to you some time back - and I seem to remember you agreed with me? Yet you still decided to "invest" here? It is a bit late in the day to start whining about this. I was going to say, after the horse has bolted but I think it would be more apt to describe it as after the poor old nag has fallen down for the last time. Sadly, those that have lost money here quite simply failed to keep their eyes open. I do hope that those that have lost have also learned a valuablle lesson.
Best to stick vicodine on ignore because he/she/it posts daft buy and sell recomendations alll over the place. In the case of Yelll/Hibu he has been posting buy recomendations from +20p and all the way down. The 4p figure is some random number plucked out of thin air with no supporting information.. I would keep your eyes open (as you seem to have been) and listen to the news reports that have been published and not listen to the losers who are keen to try to ramp the price up so that they can try to recoup a llittle of their losses. In short - no - nothing has changed.
http://www.standard.co.uk/business/business-news/hibu-puts-results-on-hold-8627249.html Hibu puts results on hold The uncertain future of Yellow Pages directories publisher Hibu today took yet another twist as the debt-laden company unexpectedly delayed its annual results. Hibu had been due to report to the stock market this week but a statement on the company’s website said that a date would now be “advised in due course”. A source close to the company said that it wanted to delay the results until it is ready to announce plans for a capital restructuring — although the saga over Hibu’s £2 billion debt load has been dragging on since at least October last year, with no obvious sign of a resolution. One industry insider claimed recent trading at Hibu has been “dire” and the company admitted in its last quarterly results that revenues had plunged by 14% as it struggles to adapt to the internet age. Shareholders have already been wiped out as Hibu’s stock-market value has crashed to £10 million and the company has breached bank covenants after missing £74 million in loan payments in February and March. Hibu chief executive Mike Pocock has been dogged by problems recently. He fired two senior US executives in March amid speculation that they were plotting a buyout. Then he controversially paid bonuses to 2500 staff two months earlier than usual in April despite the crisis. Lenders, which include Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays, are set to seize control in a debt-for-equity swap.