Member Info for HenryRearden

Kat, Could you elaborate on when exactly the BoD "dump[ed] investors and debt holders" before? This info would help me to make the right decision. Thanks in advance.

I would be interested in joining the Telegram account too

After-hours-reported £487.5K buy!!! It happened just before the SP slipped... Thoughts?

People here (LF in particular) very frequently say "get rid of those CLNs in June" or something like that, so it creates an impression that CLNs are only valid until June. Is it true (I don't think so)?

I think Melody gets money from N&G until the end of June, but there is no obligation for N&G to convert at that time. It seems N&G can continue their game and push the SP after June. Are you aware of any deadline for them to call for conversion?

https://youtu.be/6CNvU54IMGU?t=30

https://www.bemorechillmusical.com/

Runs from 30 June 2021 and only for 10-weeks. Could it be that the MelodyVR app got an extension because of the comeback of our musical business partner? He still holds...

I knew this phrase is eye-catchy. I was right! Derampers did say it :)
Enjoy your day, londondan!

I think there is a lot of hype around Driift. Yes, cumulatively, Driift managed to sell 1 million $15-dollar tickets in 2020. Driift's largest concert had 130K tickets sold for Niall Horan (but only on paper/press -- I am not sure how many tickets were bought by the actual public rather than by "partners" as it happened with Dua Lipa's concert earlier). If compared to Driift, MVR did well -- 35K tickets have been sold for Liam Gallaher's gig in Dec. Derampers would say that this is approx 4 times smaller than the Driift's number. But I think it is a good result as Liam's fan base is about 4 times smaller than Niall Horan's one, judging by the number of Twitter followers.

The virtual concert field is just in its infancy, was not even born yet. There was a good free white paper from MIDEM in February regarding the virtual concert field. MIDEM mentioned that currently there are about 30 startups aiming to get a piece of the "virtual concerts" pie (which has not been baked yet as the oven is cold due to concerts on hold thanks to covid). For example, there is LiveNow, which managed to get 1 million viewers for Gorillaz's live stream in Dec. Have you heard of LiveNow? Have they teamed with Spotify?

Obviously, Spotify will enter this field, Spotify indicated the intention in Sept 2020 (there was an article on FT.com). It took them 9 months to just find a partner (Driift)! Quite slow, isn't it? Melody at least doing the new app. Spotify is not planning even for the app integration: just web browser (remember: this decision took them 9 months).

https://www.economist.com/briefing/2021/05/08/the-new-rules-of-the-creator-economy

TL; DR: The article describes the current trend which is a shift of power from content aggregator companies (such as Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, etc) to content creators (writers, musicians, gamers, photographers, etc). There is a risk for conventional aggregator companies to become just a platform for advertising for content creators and be kicked out of finance chains they are part of now. That is why it is more than ever important for conventional aggregators to create an all-in-one solution to get an edge over startup rivals to which content creators are leaving from aggregators now.

Hi HorseGob

You are saying that the MVR app is lacking functionality. What functionality would you like to see?

I found this interesting that there are even smaller music streaming companies with the less-known brand than Napster and a very simple product. And these companies are successfully raising money. Example: Qobuz that had 200k paid subscriptions in 2019.

https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2019/08/15/qobuz-us-subscription-numbers/
https://musically.com/2021/04/16/hi-res-streaming-service-qobuz-expands-into-more-countries/
https://musically.com/2020/09/22/hi-res-streaming-service-qobuz-raises-e10m-funding-round/

Does anybody know anything about Qobuz? I wonder what their financials are. Do they have any other source of revenue apart from subscriptions?

Speaking about the timing of the app release, Wireless was postponed until September this year. Interesting, as Naps is supposed to release the new app in the Autumn...

Rikki, 18p in 2018 was based purely on the 'vibes' and nothing else. So, the market does use vibes all the time! Moreover, in 2018, the company was much far a way from a clear plan from monetization they have now (they were saying about subscription service but nobody was saying how it would work).

There is nothing new in the fact that RN poorly managed Napster during the last few years. Bill Patrizio was appointed in 2018 to fix things but he is not a magician and can't fix Napster without additional money (though he made it cash neutral but frost all activities). The M&A with MelodyVR and $40m could change things a lot.

What I liked about the presentation is that they mentioned that by the end of 2020 the number of Napster paid subscriptions is about 400K. This is a good number because the AD says that the number was the same by the end of June 2020 which means that the churn has stopped.

I would not say that a 5x increase is a joke...

Personally, I like the fact that the only debt NAPS has is owned by its largest shareholder, and (soon to be) a member of the BoD. In my opinion, if other parties would be involved this increases the risk of conflict of interest during refinancing as debt holders are (usually) keen on getting control of the company and oust the shareholders. Using CLNs avoid this outcome but comes at the price of increased dilution which is given the expected SP of 12.5p seems well-justified to me.

The situation is that there are only two significant milestone dates for NAPS' deliverables: 1) delivery of the app in November 2021; and 2) becoming profitable, getting the number of subscribers to 3m, and refinancing the DC $20m debt -- all three at the end of 2022. As a result, I don't expect any substantial update from the company until either of these two dates. The only thing I would like is RNS saying that they are on track with the plan (no delays, no extra spendings). Occasionally, there might be RNSes about a new telco deal, new appointments, etc. but not more than that. People who constantly criticizing investor relationships, what updates/RNS would you like to see?

According to the presentation, by the end of 2022, they are going to have a similar number of subscribers as Tidal has now. This allows us to estimate what would be our market cap if everything goes according to the presented plan. Tidal's majority stake was bought for circa $300m recently, which means that Tidal's Mcap is about $600m (£430).
Now, let's count how many warrants left to exercise. There are $20m at 3.75p kept by DC, $9m at 15p -- by JG, about $9m of N&G CLN left, and about $18m -- by record labels (expiring in mid-2022). All of them executed would result in DC - 381m, JG - 52m, N&G- 320m (assuming bad conversion rate at 2p), 130m - record labels. The current number of shares is 2560m. When all options are exercised, the total number of shares would be about 3450m shares. Now, if the MCap of the company them is £430, this gives us SP 12.5p. This does not include debts but as far as I see, all debt can be covered by money from option exercise. Your comments are welcome.

In the presentation, when AM introduces Grant Dollens, he is stressing Grant's funding experience and mentions NASDAQ...

LF, I would say that the Admission Document is a more credible source of information then a website as the website can be outdated or have a mistake. All, IMO.

As per AD, Napster is no longer doing business with Iheartradio. So, I guess these numbers are irrelevant now.