Member Info for HeadInTheSand

There is no point talking up or talking down this share at the moment - because it's not listed, ergo not tradeable.

The last piece of talking up that occurred on this BB was when Amit offered his "opportunity" to existing PIs of paricipating in the "pre-IPO offer" - which some really ballsy geniuses/utter drooling morons (delete as you see appropriate) actually did decide to participate in. It's pretty easy to come up with a motive for some posters on this BB to talk CTAG up at that time.

So, the next piece of talking up I'd expect to see would be if another round of "pre-IPO" fundraising magically appears.

Failing that, it's simply wait and see time (as per usual) to see if ABH does finally make good on a commitment - this time one stating that CTAG will relist. If he does, it'll very definitely be be a first, but hey, who knows?

...or being forward sold at 3p because they're valued at 2.5p? That'd be the way that the quiet nod to friends usually works with AIM.

Don't know if this is having a suppressing effect on the BBB SP or not - but things are looking ever-increasingly bleak over at Avanti.

I'm not aware exactly of how much of BBB's Western European customer base is hung off Avanti, but I think it is a fair chunk.

Potentially interesting times...

I must agree that yesterday's two late big buys seem to have done nothing to affect overall downwards market sentiment.

IMO, either - as Cassius suggested - we're heading towards yet another AVN bail-out placing and someone somewhere knows something (as they always seem to do), or the market has finally lost patience and all confidence in this long-term and still ongoing cluster***.

I do have some slight sympathy for the new BoD though.... although that's tempered by the sure knowledge that they're getting pretty handsome salaries while in situ. Given the ludicrously over-geared and permanently "cliff edge" state that AVN was left in by the previous regime, I'm not at all sure they ever had a fighting chance to get this turned around dramatically and quickly enough.

The zealots have gone a bit quiet... I was honestly expecting a GCCRa post or two copy n pasting some irrelevant PR puff and nonsense and assuring everyone that at the current SP, AVN represents a blinding multibagger opportunity that we'd all be howling morons to miss out on.

Let's face it, that's what he's continually insisted on ever since the SP was in excess of £2.50 - but unfortunately, he's invariably been wrong. Rather than ever multibagging - or even fractionally bagging for that matter - the AVN SP today lies at a 98.82% drop from that £2.50 level...

I have asked myself at what level AVN deserves a quick in and out punt. Trouble is, I keep having to revise my entry price downwards as the SP circles ever closer to the plughole. And then I remember that, even if the worst does happen and there's an asset fire sale, the bondholders are still holding around $500m of bonds, so are still firmly at the head of the queue for any share out...

AIMO.

Anyone know what authorities the BoD have in place re total quantity of new shares they're already allowed to issue??

Brad, my sincerest condolences on your loss too.

Tyche, no backslapping here - well, not from me at least. You know what really winds me up? It's companies (and bulletin board morons) who continuouslly look to hustle PIs out of their hard-earned.

Now admittedly with AVN, since DW the fact-free blowhard got hoofed out, they've not done this much - but the IMV fatal damage was done back under the Williams regime with its endless "jam tomorrow" promises accompanied by massive levels of borrowing AVN was never going to be able to afford.

It matters not a damn to me that the company's British - all that matters (to me) is my evaluation of its history, its promises, the accuracy of its forecasts, its trustworthiness, its fundamentals and its prospects. In my book, AVN has seriously been found wanting against all of those criteria, despite the increasingly desperate (and entirely irrelevant) copy n pasting from the usual swivel-eyed zealots,

Case closed for me - it's all in the latest interims if you can be bothered to read the detail.

Brad, can I suggest you carefully read through the interim results RNS - and especially notes 6 & 7.

You're correct in pointing out that revenue rose from $29.9m from $24.3m in the previous equivalent period.

However, underlying costs of sale were largely static (at $20.6m - see note 6 and the masking effect of reversing the Indonesian bad debt provision).

Staff costs were up by $5.5m (from $9.8m to $15.3m).

Other operating expenses were largely static (at $7.1m).

So... leaving aside all the masking one-off items, AVN sold $29.9m in the half, but it cost them $43m to do so.

But - and this is the key point - this is BEFORE any depreciation of assets AND BEFORE any finance charges in terms of servicing AVN's remaining $500m of largely bond-based debts.

I estimate that those two elements would amount to at least roughly another $70m on the negative side of the P&L in any given half.

Which IMV is pretty much why the SP is going south and why the company is considered as critically ill by the market.

Typo . "...from a $15m loss to a $245m profit..".

What's completely bizarre about that pasted post from Dan, trumpeting an amazing $260m swing in profits (from a $1m loss to a $245m profit), is that - as anyone with half a braincell works out within a second or two - it's all as a result of a one time only event... the big D4E swap with the bond-holders, without which AVN would promptly have keeled over and sunk.

If you actually bother reading the Interim Results RNS, you'll see two extraordinary items resulting from the D4E swap - one titled "Exceptional gain on debt for equity swap" and the other titled "Exceptional gain on substantial modification of deb".

The clue's in the word "exceptional" there - and those two items total $310m of "paper only" profit. (Please tell me that PIs don't think this represents a cash income...)

Anyhow, remove those one-off and never to be repeated items and AVN would have posted a $63m loss for the period. Which is exactly why it's spiralling ever closer to the fast-approaching plughole IMV.

Bl**dy hell. 3p levels being tested (and I don't see them holding up for long). Market cap down to sub £65m. This is not looking any prettier.

(Cue GCCRa with a desperate and entirely irrelevant non-revenue bearing copy n paste from some substance-free Avanti press release detailing some news that is entirely non revenue generating... which is a bit like applying lipstick to a corpse, then wondering why it doesn't get up and start dancing).

As it happened, I worked with two guys back in the day who both previously worked on guidance systems for the Sea Wolf (and I think the Sea Dart?). Mind you, this was back in the early 90's when I worked with them... but they were both good Essex lads.

Not that I've ever been an electronics engineer - far from it. I was commercial, but they were both in associated design teams for a legendary Essex-based IT and CE company (now sadly defunct, but boy did I have 8 years of blinding fun there).

If you really wanted it written properly...

(((75 x 4) - (50 - 6)) x 4) - 25

Scuse the typo... 50 - 6 = 44, but 300 - 44 is still 256, so the solution is still good.

This is where having spent too long in IT helps.

75 x 4 = 300

50 - 6 = 46

300 - 46 = 256 (and here comes the IT bit)

256 x 4 = 1024

1024 - 25 = 999

It's almost sweet that there are still enough zealots here who are prepared to get posts banned.

In answer to the recently asked question "where", as a matter of factual record, CTAG is headquartered in the Cayman Islands, so outside the jurisdiction of UK legislation and regulation.

In answer to the recently asked question "what with", as a matter of factual record, CTAG has in the past raised in excess of £9m. It is unknown how much (if any) of said raised funds CTAG has left, prior to any forthcoming alleged IPO (or I guess, alleged RPO - repeated placement offer).

Semi-retired, apparently.

To answer your if's, I fully understand the tech and what it's good for (which - you may find shocking - isn't always what AVN has pretended it's good for), I don't dislike the company (now), but think it's fatally holed (and was a long long time ago), and as to whether I invest or not, it's a watching brief - there may come a point where a few quick in and outs may prove lucrative as the AVN pulse slows to its inevitable stop.

There's money occasionally to be made out of keeping a watchful eye on where the buzzards are circling IMO.

So Tyche... you've been in and out of AVN twice, both times at a loss. I'd rather rely on my alleged lack of experience of satcomms, thanks. It's saved me from investing in fatally holed outfits such as this one.

Plus, although it formed no part of my decision-making process on AVN as a stock, I wasn't at all impressed at either pitch that Taiwan Harry made when trying to tout for some business.

Tyche, it looks like my alleged lack of knowledge of the company and the satcomms industry as a whole has led me to what is very clearly a far FAR more realistic judgement on AVN than yourself,

If only you had the same levels of knowledge - you'd find your portfolio in a far healthier state.

However, I do note with a complete lack of shock your impotent refusal to answer any reasonably posed questions - quelle surprise.

Care to provide a timeline for starters of when you think AVN's revenues will be greater than its costs of sale plus other opex?

And then care to provide a further - and presumable far longer - timeline of when you think AVN will be capable of generating enough gross profit to cover off servicing the interest on its remaining c. $500m debt?

You might wish to factor rate of cash burn into your timeline predictions.

I thought with your quote "AVN will survive..." that you may have some information - but I'm betting on clearly not.

I have to admit that it's not looking at all good. I'm becoming more and more of the persuasion that AVN was actually irreparably holed below the waterline literally years ago - it's just that the market didn't notice during the DW ramptastic days of puff and spin (and massive borrowing/expenditure combined with chasing the wrong markets and next to no revenues).

I'm extremely unsure if it's not all too late, even despite the much more sensibly targeted efforts of the new BoD to go after more appropriate markets, A company where its outlays - and yes, prior to servicing its c. $500m of remaining debt and depreciating its assets - exceed its entire sales revenues? That's going to take one helluva turn-around - and it needs to happen very quickly.

Okay I know the bondholders who swapped their debt for equity pretty much had no choice (agree of AVN promptly goes belly up immediately)... but they can't be too happy. Swapping c. $500m of interest-bearing debt for a 92.5% holding in a company with a market cap now worth only £75m? Ouch.

I'm sure the circling vultures are full of ever-growing anticipation...