Internet Business Share Discussion Threads

[coffeelito] 18/12/2007 09:38

Who else wants to vote Maz the worst Aim ceo of 2007?! Certainly the worst communicator! What a gargantuan balls up.

[hirschnathan] 17/12/2007 11:48

when are we tmn?

[niggle] 17/12/2007 11:41

Do you want them back Nath? I just think there is now little to discuss here? but if you want them back, or anyone else does then just let me know.
Rgds

[hirschnathan] 17/12/2007 11:13

nig

thanks for the charts

when is ibg past tense?

[omlaysause] 17/12/2007 00:30

..... and there was only one reason for that the RNS.
I've been pondering this all weekend and it still strikes me as being utterly bizarre.
I wonder if he'll be big enough to come on this board again as he did after killing the share price in the summer and explain his reasons behind the decision.

Somehow I doubt it .......

[coffeelito] 17/12/2007 00:23

When Maz spoke to shareholders earlier this year, the share price was about 15p and he said it was "in the toilet". Now he has flushed it away at 12.75p. How to make sense of such bizarre behaviour??

[hirschnathan] 16/12/2007 18:50

I must say on an optimistic note, I dont think af sales are onlu up 30%, they are, but I think that there is alot of pressure in regards to what to charge merchants. i think merchants are prob only paying 20% down from an average of about 25% last year. I imagine that percentage will level out, because no network would negotiate for less, that could be one of the reason for 30% growth, instead of the 50% as predicted.

[moob] 16/12/2007 15:39

Once Maz has sold out will he be like another awkward 14-year-olds ready to w^nk themselves into stumps over pictures of eva longoria. Can Harfreave Hale with their 8% holding stop the merger goin thru?

[the analyst] 16/12/2007 14:45

"with the withdrawal of taper relief from April its likely that money will move out of AIM and leave a lot of shares vitually untradeable due to liquidity."

It might be that liquidity drops until April, but then picks up because people will be able to trade AIM shares and only pay 18% tax instead of 40%. There will be no incentive to hold for 2 years anymore, but a big incentive to hold for short periods of time and take profits. Trading could increase liquidity a lot and people that currently trade using spread bets could be tempted to trade the shares themselves instead.

The other thing, is that Brown, (through his Darling puppet) looks likely to amend the proposed cgt reform. How he will do that, is unclear, but one of the proposals that I have seen is to introduce a 50% taper relief on the first £750k of 'Business Asset' sales. The idea being that small business owners can benefit personally from the sale of their companies, but not a big enough incentive for the huge multi-million pound transactions that were being scorned.

This would create an effective 9% cgt rate for AIM shares, as they are classed as business assets.

Fingers crossed...

[kenatbabken] 16/12/2007 12:55

Internet Business Group PLC
Shareholders

Shares in issue: 77.2m 1p Ords
Major Shareholders Amount % Holding
Maziar Darvish • 17,318,283 22.44
Hargreave Hale Nominees 6,761,000 8.78
TD Waterhouse Noms Ltd 4,095,710 5.32
Barclayshare Nominees Ltd 3,754,551 4.88
Daniel James Chick • 3,688,233 4.79
Babken Ltd 3,674,910 4.77
Osborne Inc 3,595,578 4.67
LR Noms Ltd 3,581,782 4.65
William Christopher Currie 2,650,000 3.44

Other Directors Amount % Holding
Nicola De Oliveira Costa • 1,923,243 2.492
Ricki Keith Bothamley • 1,224,722 1.591
Pierre-Jean De Villiers • 955,835 1.241
Andrew Doe • 200,000 0.260

[kenatbabken] 16/12/2007 12:52

With currently 51m shares in circulation there is a free float of around
30.6m shares and not a lot of director holdings.No wonder their share price has,nt held
up despite share buy backs

TMN Group PLC
Shareholders

Shares in issue: 51.1m 0.01p Ord
Major Shareholders Amount % Holding
W C Currie 5,000,000 9.79
Barclays PLC 3,964,000 7.76
BlackRock Inc 3,036,000 5.94
Schroder Investment Management Limited 2,200,000 4.31
Eaglet Investment Trust PLC 2,095,000 4.10
James Morris 1,874,112 3.67
Merrill Lynch International 1,533,597 3.08

Other Directors Amount % Holding
Vince R Smith • 291,841 0.604
Peter Martin Harkness • 60,000 0.117
Mark Darren Smith • 12,500 0.024

[moob] 16/12/2007 10:59

I think Maz is gerrin ready to dump his shares, imho. dyor.

[nghomi] 16/12/2007 10:48

Aleman is raising a good point. IBG-TMN are offering a different level of risk/reward ratio compared with what IBG was two or three years ago. Hence we are seeing that the type of investors who bought three years are exiting as the new emerging IBG-TMN is not the reason they bought IBG.

imo, this merger is more a defensive move as IBG management is probably worried about a potential downturn in the UK economy in the next 24 months. The question is whether a £40m (revenue) company is immune from such a situation. Whatever the answer, it is certainly a better position than a £16m company. IBG has reduced the downside risk as much as it has reduced the upside potential to the business. So if you are optimistic (like SteMis), then you would complain that the upside potential is now a lot less than before merger. But if you are more pessimistic, you would think that the downside risk is now reduced too. As Maz is the largest holder, surely he would do the best option for the benefit of the shareholders. imo, he is either seeing a big risk to the business in the next 24 months such that he has decided to reduced the risk by merging with TMN. Or he is planning to retire and this is the only way of selling his stake at a reasonable price.

[kenatbabken] 16/12/2007 10:46

"Once an indicative offer is made, it is as likely as not that when they get hold of the books they will see things they don't like and back out. That must have been the case here, or Maz would have sold for 40p, right?"

You,re most probably right Analyst the books could of looked as scary as Amy
Winehouse lets hope the prospective partner is not as scary as her husband!!

After the shock of Friday,The anger of yesterday I,m now resigned to our fate
but won,t GTFO whilst there is a hope of another bid.I,ll also do some in depth
research into TMN.From July next year 11% of TMN shares through the directors
of IBG will start to become available albeit on a supposed orderly market basis,This obviously is a concern to me if there is no takeup of those shares
and might see the share price flatline for some considerable time.

Aleman

Yes AIM stocks have taken a battering but with the withdrawal of taper relief
from April its likely that money will move out of AIM and leave a lot of
shares vitually untradeable due to liquidity.

Still no comments from LB and OBR !!

Ken

[jaka] 16/12/2007 03:09

BLNX looks unique to me. I'm drawn to it. Special.

[aleman] 16/12/2007 01:01

hirsch - thanks. I haven't lost anything in BLNX until I sell. I think they are worth a look for the type of investors who were interested in IBG or ASC before they hit profitability. If BLNX hit forecast they will 10/20-bag in 3 years. They probably won't but the news has been very positive so far. I wouldn't be put off by what shorters have done to the shares.


Ken - everyone sees AIM having a hard time. Most of the damage may be done already, in which case it could be time to start accumulating again.

[hirschnathan] 15/12/2007 22:19

Ken

I couldnt agree more and for that reason I think maybe some more hones management may do a good job.

Good luck

[the analyst] 15/12/2007 22:17

Unfortunately, indicative offers do not mean a thing Ken. I have to say, I really dislike the new trend I am seeing in directors talking about indicative offers as if they are real offers. It's very misleading.

Once an indicative offer is made, it is as likely as not that when they get hold of the books they will see things they don't like and back out. That must have been the case here, or Maz would have sold for 40p, right?

The fact is that the revenue in the final results was well below 'market' expectations and a whole world away from 'investor' expectations.

I think, that in order for IBG to grow, they need new management with a vision of the future. They need better PR and better communication too. Perhaps we now have that? I don't know, but I hope so.

Does anyone have access to the TMN broker reports?

It would be very useful for IBG holders thinking of selling out to try to understand the TMN management and business model.

[kenatbabken] 15/12/2007 21:29

hirsch

When I was told by Maz after the end of the strategic review with the share price at 28p
that the indicative offers did offer a significant premium for them to be put
before the board of directors and then 4 months later sell the company when
the share price is at its lowest for 3 years is not being what I,d call rational,Its
nothing to do with emotion just incandescant rage,Anyway I wish you well with
TMN whether I,ll stick with them is debatable,As aleman says there are now quite a few better looking investments especially off AIM which I see next year
having a hard time

Ken

[hirschnathan] 15/12/2007 18:49

I am glad that the tmn management seem to be able to communicate to shareholders alot better than maz and co.

I will be holding, tmn and would even vote for the takeover. I think ibg shareholders are to emotionally attached to ibg, I think its time to move on and see what tmn can do for af.

Aleman good luck with your move, dont want to rub it in, but I hope you havent lost too much with blikx.

[yump] 15/12/2007 11:34

imo a lot of this goes all the way back to the debate about the quality of merchant acquisition - thats possibly 2 years ago. AF had a large collection of smaller merchants with a few prestige ones. It was not easy to say firmly whether that was right or wrong at the time.

Possibly a lot of smaller 'new' merchants is right for a period when a lot of early users are online because they'll be prepared to shop at those merchants.

But perhaps its a weakness when the bulk of the population start to shop online, heading for the brands they recognise.

Interesting looking at ASOS - they got going at a time when early users were influential in online buying. So they were well established when the broadband 'rush' of bulk buying started to get going. I wonder if they would succeed starting from scratch now ?

The AF sectors with the larger merchants were quite volatile and very competitive as well: Mobiles and Travel featured heavily.

Just as an example, they never really had any major toy shops. 80% of our commissions over the last 2 months have come from the major toy shops. Its a nice stable, relatively predictable source of revenue. Another 15% on its own has come from general sales from one big, stable, branded merchant that AF lost a year or so ago.

Businesses can be the victim of accidental bad timing in a strategy, which you can only really see with hindsight. Perhaps that's the case here ?

[niggle] 15/12/2007 10:59

I think the problem was that Maz was uncomfortable in his role as a the head of a publicly traded company. He could never get his message across and ultimatly bottled it.

He has let a lot of shareholders down, including Ken which I find utterly disgraceful. When I met him a couple of years ago he giggled as he told me that he had never even met Ken (I'm not even certain if the comment included never speaking to him?, maybe not), who at the time owned around over 6% of IBG.

But fellas, we all knew his failings yet allowed him to piddle our handsome profits down the drain. If ever there was a more apt use of the phrase buyer beware!

If you saw it coming and bailed out before this then good luck to you and well done, if not then I feel for you.

For the future we should all learn from this that no matter how good the company is it is the strength of management that counts. Maz is no Nick Robertson and that shows.

Sorry Maz, I think you come across as a nice bloke but as I was saying to someone only last week, 'nice' blokes don't make it.

One last point, thanks to IBG I built up enough equity to provide the start up capital for my own e-tail business, so without those share gains to invest we would not be trading now, so thanks Maz, with or without you we seem to have a profitable business, we just had to modify the business plan a little after performing our own 'stress anaysis' ;O)

[stemis] 15/12/2007 08:07

ta,

I can see the rationale of AF being part of a larger broader-based internet marketing/media offering and I like the general space that this would constitute. There are some huge marketing companies out their, for who a few £100m would be pocket money. If I were TMN I'd be trying to create something one of them would strategically want to buy. Maybe they see IBG as part of that process.

[outsider] 15/12/2007 03:43

Whilst the IBG Directors remain confident as to the medium to long-term
prospects of IBG, they believe that there are potential disadvantages
associated with remaining at its current size. These include:

● Reduced client influence as a result of relative size compared with larger
competitors

● Competitive disadvantage for IBG resulting from only being able to offer one
element (affiliate marketing) of the overall online marketing activities of
most clients.

The IBG Directors believe that their strategy of creating a substantially
larger advertising and media operation can best be achieved at this time by
means of the Acquisition. This will allow the IBG Directors the opportunity to
focus on growing the business within the TMN Group and without the distraction
to operational matters that the on-going requirements of being a smaller
independently quoted business bring.

TMN operates in the complementary areas of operating media assets, e-mail
campaign management, e-mail sales representation and market research and has
demonstrable expertise in both sales and account management. In addition, TMN
owns complementary technology and know-how in the lead generation market.

In addition, there is little cross-over at present between the TMN and IBG
customer bases, providing potential opportunities to cross-sell products and
services.