Member Info for Silverblade

Nice to have your views again SJL - been missing your thoughts. From the accounts $3m of the .vip Chinese sales in 2017 have now been provided for as bad debts. Possibly some of the remaining $5m now sits as deferred revenue (there is $13m in total). It is shambolic to have such financial issues in the business. Without making it personal - i have reviewed the history of our current CFO - and note his tenure at ICANN ended on a bad note - digital glitches, mishandling and technical failures of the early gtld programme he was in charge of and which appears to be the reason for his departure (although this is taken from the ICANN wiki page so i cannot verify its accuracy. If this is the case, it might explain some of the horrendous issues which constantly appear here. SB

Mick - 61% of the company (just over 550m shares) is currently owned by our six largest II's and Guy Elliott. I suspect there are probably a few II's sitting just below the 3% declaration threshold - so the 61% II holding is likely even higher. I see where you get the 45% from - i'm not sure but this might include fully diluted shares - there are 65m of those subject to various vesting conditions (and most would be under control of TH and MS). Point being - if it was a 75% target to take it private - they are pretty close. The British Virgin Islands has a separate takeover code for this type of activity - which is minimal - although companies usually follow best practice in line with their main trading markets (Europe, US). Even if they only had 61%, 130m shares (£5.2m current value) would take them to 75%. SB

Looks like today could be the day we go sub 4p. Quite incredible - and alongside all the anger and disbelief we are at this point - It’s just a sad reflection of what could have been. All credibility has gone. We are close to ground zero - for some reason we are being priced for failure due to the levels of incompetence judged to have occurred here. Surely it cannot be as bad as the current market opinion - what on Earth has gone so wrong. SB

There’s quite a few candidates to choose from at Hotel FT who could make a claim to run our business better than current performers - you missed the Colonel and the moose in the hall. Although the thought of basil paying our team a visit with a large gnome under his arm brings some light relief to our current predicament. SB

We’ve spent more money on our acquisition, bad debts, onerous partner payments, impairments and buy backs than the company is now worth in its entirety. And we’re about to launch another gtld without any market communication. You simply can’t make this up, it’s like fawlty towers does domaining. SB

Not everything Macc - my blood pressure is reasonably high.....madness. SB

Unless the revenue issue is resolved without further collateral damage to the business I would be surprised if the tender offer will continue. We have seen the share price decimated this year - we are trading at 50% of January 2020. Irrespective - would you tender your shares for c.5p - it’s become a complete embarrassment for everyone invested here. SB

Maybe - " The company (mmx exec directors - TH and MS) ) announces that the board (non exec directors - GE, HT and BD) is commencing a formal investigation". Or the board (TH, MS, GE, HT and BD) are formally investigating contractual arrangements put in place? BD is the only true non exec - GE and HT both represent II shareholders. But yes - guessing as to what's going on is not exactly ideal. SB

Emails to the company are being re-directed to John West at Belvedere. I have been in contact with John and as expected he is only able to respond with a polite holding notice that the board will "communicate with the market as soon as soon as they are able to". In the current circumstances this is likely all that can be communicated - like it or not. Whether these emails are being forwarded automatically from senior management company email addresses to Belvedere or whether TH and others are sending on for responses would be an interesting piece of knowledge. SB

* For CFO position (currently MS) - we have Chief Revenue Officer (Vaughn Liley) - interestingly VL was previously sales director at ICM; Or Financial Controller (Deep Shah). Although perhaps they are part of the revenue issue......SB

There are a number of things that worry me here until we get some communication. Firstly – the fear the investigation has kicked up other issues on revenue treatment affecting previous years. Secondly, that TH and MS have lost the confidence of the board (as they have with the majority of posters here) and are negotiating exit packages – although sometimes a clear out can have a positive impact on company performance it is still a disruptive event. Thirdly, the potential for our II’s to attempt to take the company private. They currently own 60% of the business (which I estimate has cost them in the region of c.£40m – averaging about 7.5p a share). That 60% is now worth today c.£25m – meaning the rest of the company is currently valued at c.£15m. The II’s could put in an offer at a premium to the current price (say 6p) – and see how many take up the offer – before forcing others to sell if they get 90%. What if they offered 10p a share - £36m would buy the remaining 40% of the business and pretty sure that would be accepted by a lot of us given the past 3,5,10 years. That would allow all these very public car crash events to be dealt with behind the scenes, sort the business out and sell it in a couple of years when reshaped. That would require II’s to act in concert – and let’s remember the coordinated purchase of SJL’s shares earlier his year – so they do talk. There may be a low risk of this happening – but if you were in their seat – you would be looking at all options; back the team and move on and hope that’s the last time this happens; move team on and replace (we have a COO and CFO who could step into roles overnight) and back to selling domains in preparation for sale in 12/18 months; attempt to take the company private; immediate sale in its current guise but that appears least palatable unless someone with deep pockets fancies taking on the challenge. SB

Well if there's a leak Scotty, its not a good one. The larger sales of 500K may be US based given the timing of their sales, but that's pure speculation. All we can do it wait and see what the outcome here is - or sell - with varying levels of loss depending on when we all bought. 4p is better than 2p, the same as 6p was better than 4p. It will be very difficult for the management team to remain in place with any credibility here imo - any talk of creating shareholder value has simply been PR - the reality is shareholder value has been significantly diminished in recent years. SB

Perhaps 007 - but we are all guessing as to what is happening given the communication lockdown - and at this point in time we can only go with what was communicated in the RNS. But I don't disagree the longer this takes the higher the possibility there are wider issues than just the $1m accounting issue - be that revenue or management related. Meanwhile back to our 10 year lows.....SB

Stranger things happen bakky - we might even see someone buying some shares....! At least we seem to have stabilised for now - albeit at this nonsense level. SB

SS - that's one of the the issues I have been struggling with - and why i think the investigation went 'formal'. Investors day Tuesday 6th, clanger Friday 9th. This questions not only the actual accounting error - but the willingness of management to press ahead with the event (and release the interims on 30th Sept) - potentially knowing there was an issue. That opens up a whole avenue of internal governances issues - and quite frankly management competencies - IF there was prior knowledge, and it seems a huge coincidence if not. SB

You can get away with it once. Twice in three years - that's not acceptable given the implied criticism of previous management regimes for poor financial performance. And without making it personal - our FD has been here for 8 years - and has been party to a lot of mistakes which have cost a lot on money imo - and have now crystallised in this lack of confidence and trust in the whole business. Not good. SB

Although i know where your coming from hucks - i personally would not invest any more until the company updates the market with further clarity on this this issue and implications for the business - both financial and management. But there again i have been purchasing shares here for more than 8 years in the belief that the gtld market was a good place to invest (indirectly) and that mmx was relatively safe bet. I imagine our collective losses here are significant - i know mine are and that's a horrible position to wake up to every day. SB

As five year plans go its not exactly very impressive to date.....looks your correct SS - the business has gone into lockdown. Never mind - we've got the £3m tender offer in two weeks!! Now worth a third of what we were three years ago. II's have (had) tens of millions invested here - I don't think for one second this will not be top of their list to determine what's going on here - henry and guy both represent major shareholders. SB

Morning SS, Hucks et al. I saw the 500K trade and hoped it was a purchase - but i'm not so sure - yesterday a trade at that level would have been a sell. It was also the first of the day - and the price dropped. Totally agree with all sentiment being expressed here - fear and contagion are driving this into oblivion. Does all sanity evaporate when the company issues as RNS of this type - a $1m 'accounting issue' has wiped £15m in value in less than two weeks. Why does the company not look to support the price - not a huge fan of buy backs - but surely some type of intervention is required. If any of our II's throw the towel in this could be extremely serious - not that it isn't already. No one from the company is available for comment - I have tried. Innovative, profitable, growing. Really? SB

Thanks for the update SS. I hope there is nothing to this other than an accounting issue - but given the companies history of own goals I would like that clarified ASAP. Even at these prices there is selling - that shows how spooked investors are. Our board have a shared and collective responsibility to sort this ongoing mess out. SB