Member Info for HeadInTheSand

What hasn't been covered is.... where's the $46m (or the $86m) needed to keep the lights on coming from? Fund raising? Borrowing? More bonds?

If tickets are being sold for Amit's Ball, I think plenty of disgruntled PIs will hope it's a raffle and not a dance.

I guessed that DougB's McSpeak PoW was "proof of work", rather than "prisoner of war", but one can never be sure with the sporraned soothsayer...

39MA, honestly, how very dare you rank any posts not made by me higher than my own beautifully crafted bons mots! Shocking... I demand a stewards' enquiry. In fact two. As to what a "nonce" is, I know what the word means, but I have no clue how it made an appearance into DougB's Fri 18:25 post. I presumed it was a predictive text clanger, but as I fairly often have trouble understanding what the ever-cryptic DougB's banging on about, I wasn't sure. Maybe it's his impish and largely unintelligible north of the border sense of humour? (After all, you seriously need a good SoH to live in Mac-land...) Security on communicating medical devices has been a hot topic for a while - at least the last 5 years. Google a guy called Barnaby Jack, an extremely talented white hat hacker. Among his many legendary achievements, he demonstrated how it would be possible to kill at a distance by wifi-ing into pacemakers and insulin pumps and issuing fatal (literally) commands. And especially for the conspiracy theorists among you, this extremely fit young man (into extreme sports, healthy living and the like) was found dead in his Vegas hotel room the night before he was due to present at a major security conference... allegedly of a drugs cocktail overdose... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnaby_Jack Make of that what you will. (Cue Twilight Zone theme tune...)

Scandic's original list detailing the typical behaviours of those who ramp is spot on... however IMV they're rarely paid by 3rd parties. Here's how it works for them. 1. Research and find a languishing stock that's got a spinnable exciting tale behind it. Could be solving obesity, or a new way of enhancing drug efficiency, UK onshore oil, or whatever. If that stock has an overly excitable and loose-lipped CEO, so much the better. 2. Buy in - say �20ks worth. 3. Get on social media and the BBs and start ramping the living bejaysus out of said stock, using the exact methods that Scandic laid out. Prove if necessary that you've bought �20ks worth by showing documentation. Hey, you must be genuine, right? 4. The job's made easier, because the ramper will be treated like a hero by all long-suffering long-term holders of that share. A true and fearless champion... their voices will join his as eagerly as a dying man inn the desert gulps down water. 5. The ramper will do his/her level best to discredit and drown out any negative opinions, conjuring up the mythical spectre of the Evil Global Shorting Conspiracy routine. The faithful will chime in. "Burn shorters, burn!" is a typical whipped-up chorus. What a neat hustle, eh? The very people the ramper's busily and surreptitiously fleecing are delightedly helping out. 6. Hopefully the SP rises, courtesy of the ramper's incredibly busy efforts to generate positive sentiment and hopefully a feeding frenzy among the faithful/less experienced. 7. Once the SP has met the ramper's target (say a 20%) rise, he sells all his shares quietly, then if he/she thinks there's still legs in ramping the share, he/she buys back �20ks worth. �4k banked... and another share purchase to show... a big �20k top-up and the ramper's apparently doubled his holding! What a hero! He's really got faith and is backing that up by putting his money where his mouth is... (not) 8. Rinse and repeat as often as possible. Then once the bubble looks like it's about to burst, the ramper sells out entirely and won't be seen again, having bought, then sold shares repeatedly to the unwary ... until maybe the SP is scraping along the bottom again. Happens all the time on AIM. Beware the all too vociferous and aggressive BB heroes. I'm not saying that deramping doesn't ever happen - it does - but it is far FAR less prevalent. Shorting in almost all cases is a marginal and short-term game that's only for the experienced, given that it offers unlimited losses (unless stop-lossed) but only a maximum possible 100% gain. So, shorters tend to be in and out over a month or two, max - and there's far less of that sort of activity. AIMO.

Heh. If I were prepared to take your 50 quid and give you odds of 2/1 against H1, would that make me a shorter, I wonder?

It is a fair comment to say anybody who's had sight of a 2017 set of accounts (so, to year-end Sep 2017), would have much more up to date info - albeit almost certainly unaudited - on CTAG than the vast majority of PIs... for whatever that's worth (and IMV probably not much, as it happens, as per recent agreement with DougB). Anyway, if WM or anybody else actually has had sight of such figures, good luck to them. Well done. Or if WM or anyone else is confused and merely referring to the figures relating to year end Sep 16, as generally released over a year ago at end Mar 17 in CTAG's last ever RNS, then they're just working with the same info anyone else is. Again, good luck to them. �50 says that this thread also reaches Andrex length...

Jsmith, 4G is not YET the core of SSW's business. Two of their core and traditional markets are the UK and France (from memory generating 50%+ of overall revenue?) out of almost exclusively satellite broadband connections. Both of those markets are undergoing an extremely fast-paced evolution, with 4G being rolled out increasingly quickly. Technically speaking and performance/cost per GB wise, 4G leaves satellite way WAY behind. On that basis, it's absolutely the right move for SSW to bite the bullet and get involved with 4G (and presumably 5G to follow in a few years). It was either that or watch the subscriber base plummet in its two homegrown markets. Sure they'll still happily do satellite in areas where population density and geography make other network types economically unviable e.g. Australia, the Nordics and maybe some of the old Eastern bloc. But Western Europe? Apart from specific and specialist vertical opportunities, the writing's on the wall for Vsat, IMO.

Dougb again I largely agree. I can't speak for other posters and given the lack of confirmed info, I do get pretty much everyone's wide-ranging desire for clarity, rather than fog. Having said that, yes it's tough but brutally pragmatic to accept that "we are where we are" - so failing coke and hookers naughtiness being revealed, current value in knowing where CTAG spent PIs' hard-earned is a bit moot.

Today one of AVN's biggest UK customers, SSW (Europasat and Avonline) finally woke up, smelled the coffee and joined in offering 4G broadband from the usual MNOs (Vodafone in their case). That must have been a nastily jagged little pill for SSW to swallow - and was well late in the day too - but hey, I'm betting it was either do that or have precisely no remedy for the horrific churn rates being experienced in its home market on Vsat. This comes as absolutely no surprise to me. I've said before that the ever-accelerating speed at which satellite-delivered broadband is being marginalised in the UK and Western Europe as a whole is truly astonishing. It looks like the quiet word I got dropped about Viasat having already decided that their next gen 2020 bird now ain't going anywhere near Western Europe is very likely to be bang on accurate. So again for AVN, the African market, plus a few other major verticals, are going to be absolutely key.

So... the boys in Bicester have finally woken up and smelled the coffee - or at least have faced up to the inevitable. It's about bloody time. As of today, the Europasat UK-based website is also and newly offering 4G home broadband. Here's my take on the downsides and upsides of such a move. Downsides? They're at least a year late to that particular party, so have both a steep learning curve to go through and fast, plus a lot of catching up to do.. Their margins on 4G will be dramatically lower than they are used to. Possible difficulty explaining to the city why in one of their core markets (the UK generating approx 33% of their revenue) they've recently acquired a wireless ISP for a fair few million, only now to jump on a bandwagon (and network) that they neither own, manage or build. Upsides? Given the truly horrendous rate of churn and the ever-accelerating marginalisation of satellite delivered broadband in the UK and Western Europe as a whole, this was the only sensible move for SSW to make. The possibility of now having a solution that'll help retain existing customers via conversion from sat to 4G. Reduced margins are way better than the zero margins delivered by lost customers. In my view on balance then an overall positive - but it does make one wonder about the health and longevity of SSW's core traditional business - in geographies like Western Europe at least.

WO, since you seem to know the man, I actually rather liked good old Harry F. Bit of a throwback or dinosaur for sure, but quite nostalgic to meet his type once more, bless him. He then left us in the hands of French Nic, poor lamb (I doubt you'll know him), who tried and tried but was allowed to bring nothing new to the table, even when he was told point blank what he needed to match, let alone beat. But as you say, hopefully such days of misplaced arrogance and utterly mistaken thinking that AVN could call all the shots are long gone. Speaking of those in relatively lofty AVN positions, I also happen to have worked alongside Guy W for a couple of years a fair while back in one of his and my previous career incarnations.... it's all too often a surprisingly small world.

DougB that's a well-written, clear and well-argued post. If only others of a more positive frame of mind were even vaguely capable of the same, there'd be less toilet-roll long threads. To clarify however, what irks me isn't anyone having any specific and unshared knowledge - frankly,if they do, good luck to them. It'll come as no surprise that I distrust the source(s) of any such information in the first place, so it's all a bit moot in my book. However, any such info is of course open to anyone's personal interpretation as to how significant it may or may not be. No, what irks me is those who go out of the way to make out as if they're recipients of secrets that others don't have as a convenient reason for their (now goalpost-shifting) positivity. All that "there's such a lot you don't know" stuff... please. Spare me... it's playground stuff. Look, if people want to have faith, belief, trust or positivity in ABH, Bligh and CTAG based on the limited evidence available, by all means go to it. Just don't go dissimulating and pretending that there's any basis for doing so apart from one's own personal judgement on the generally available evidence. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with a personal judgement... for God's sakes, it's all any of us have got. No need to pretend otherwise.

Room, steerable beams are as good thing but certainly not unique. GCC, your use of "we" with reference to AVN was interesting? Granted outreach opportunity wasn't large, but then again nor were/are Avanti's revenues. As to senior executive interest, Harry F turned up to the first set of meetings... The core problem was not bandwidth cost, in my view... although AVN came in too high, compared to offers from its direct competition. That's after all just a number to be negotiated. Nope as I've said already, it was the intransigence aand inflexibility of the offered business model which wasn't up for any negotiation - a thing which the same direct competition took gleeful advantage of and got the deal... Anyhow, hopefully current policies are a lot more savvy and market-aware.

WM... "There's such a lot you don't know", which mirrors DougB's "communication with some but not all shareholders." That old and tired implied arcane knowledge chestnut again? Always a good stalling tactic... H1? Hey what's the difference between June 30th and Aug 31st, really? Hell, why not make it Jan 1st 2019? What's the difference? Let's keep moving the goalposts... Listen,, I've not got the slightest issue with any PI doing his or her own independent research - but if information that has been obtained as a result of attending a meeting as a representative (explicit or tacit) of the wider Shareholder Action Group... and then not shared with such, I'd find that just a tad pernicious. Mind you, as I don't personally trust the originating source(s) of any arcane knowledge - those being ABH and Bligh - it hardly matters to be fair. So on that basis, feel free to move those goalposts as far and as frequently as your heart's desire.

I never like to disappoint WM... but being gallant, I shan't bang on about the plural of "pas" also being "pas". (After all, it's the French for "step" or "pace"... this is a public service announcement).

FFS K27M... give my OCD some bloody credit at least, I'd not have hyphenated "shortcomings". I'd have hyphenated "over-egotistical". I'd have spelled "persona" and "strategy" correctly. I'd never have constructed a phrase that reads "...to which ABH has proclaimed". I can safely say that nothing's paying off with anyone. (Cue howls of abuse from those who think the above is a serious post - but maybe that would be better than the next impending bunfight).

Rom, the sales payment plan you mention is not unusual at all. However, paying sales people commission on revenue alone is not the smartest move in my book. If you're doing that, then you'd better have ensured that your sales force has zero control over any pricing or price negotiation capability... or it'll be a race to zero margin. And is that zero control actually what you want them to have? Far better - if you're going to allow field sales to have the ability to weigh up and react to real-world opportunity by having price negotiation room - is to pay commission out on margin, rather than revenue. It keeps sales forces honest, while not making them mindless drones parroting a single message or offer. Revenue for vanity, profit for sanity, as the old cliche goes :)

Oh and WM... "Many investors who at that time were bullish were subjected to serious verbal abuse...." True, if one solely looks at a timeslot immediately post delist. However, prior to that point as is abundantly clear and easily proven, many investors and posters who in the 6 to 9 months prior to delist were expressing anything less than utter positivity were subjected to at the very least the same levels of relentless verbal abuse. The blade you highlight is certainly not one that just cuts the one way. "From the outside looking in- back then there were seemingly some underhand goings on..." Again given that that too is very much a two-sided coin as per above, I completely agree.

Wasn't there a rumour that ABH's personal John The Baptist St. Liam of Nicholas with his gospel blog got some not particularly pleasant threats? Is that who's being referred to? Okay I can see why some people may have felt suckered in by said blog, but there is absolutely no call for personal threats and I hope that any perpetrators (who were probably no more than furious keyboard warriors looking for someone to blame rather than taking responsibility for their own actions and decisions, but even so...) got dragged into an unpleasant conversation with the Plod at the very least. As it happens, I personally never had Liam down as someone who was any more than well-meaning but crashingly and overweeningly misguided. Unfortunately his labour of love blog was seized upon by one or two BB notables of much more malign motivation (IMV) and gleefully used to help further their own PI pickpocketing agendas (again IMV). Anyhow, without wishing to belittle the seriousness of any said threats in any way, that' episode's (hopefully) all a bit ancient history by now and won't see the light of day again (unless and until some TV company makes Cloudtag:The Miniseries).