Internet Business Share Discussion Threads

[aleman] 25/6/2007 20:58

Blinkx added. Lots of news lately but a bit of a leap of faith with regard to revenues. Seems to work well.

[yump] 25/6/2007 20:48

I counted 17 MP3 players on mp3playerdeals.co.uk, unless I'm missing a whole chunk of the site. Thats just not enough.

There are squillions on advancedmp3players.co.uk

Whats the point of spending any time running the site ?
I think that's one of the contributing factors to doubts.

[aleman] 25/6/2007 20:32

Won't travel merchants cut the price of holidays and raise commissions to shift the surplus?

[muffinhead] 25/6/2007 19:43

TUI and First Choice Group AF merchants mentioned...........seems to collate with Maz's statement about second half


Gloomy travel companies fear an even worse summer than last year
Sunday Telegraph




(Not a shareholder)

[muffinhead] 25/6/2007 19:40

Archos AV400 20GB on sale for £380 at www.mp3playerdeals.co.uk

Pay £163 on Amazon.com

Other 2 e-commerce sites havin a good sale

Hope consumer slowdown doesn't leave too much stock to clear

[68steve] 25/6/2007 12:28

OK cheers reggie,probably knocking IBG a bit too much but have been left gobsmacked by the wording of the RNS.(walks around contiually shaking head).

[clond] 25/6/2007 12:26

Always worth topping up at 2005 prices for a company that is miles better off than it was in 2005 !

[upthetic] 25/6/2007 11:59

I agree Ken. But the recovery has to begin now. The interims better have some bloody good narrative to help rectify the damage done.

It does give some peace of mind that many long termers are still here. No matter whether you own £10000 or £1m of shares we have every right to feel let down by the board.

We have no day to day control of how IBG performs...the directors do. They knew the position well in advance of any announcement and in this case should have devoted a lot more than 2 miserable hours in an attempt to protect all of our interests.

Compliance is one thing, blind stupidity and lack of foresight is another. In this case we have seen both and been hurt financially as a result. The IBG board I feel will not repeat this shambolic state of affairs. They will have learned harsh lessons since last week and hopefully they now realise that good PR is worth every penny and can prevent the anger and damage caused last week.

[reggieperrin] 25/6/2007 11:44

68steve - it seems pretty clear that they did receive indicative offers but the directors decided they would not recommend them so they did not proceed ... further the 'profit warning' seems to be mostly down to the decision, following the strategic review, to invest an element cashflow from current operations in expansion projects over the next couple of years which will reduce earnings in the short term in order to increase them further out ... this would be irrelevant to a bidder as they would set strategy once they took control ...

[kenatbabken] 25/6/2007 11:40

Upthetic

Out of all the posts since Thursday yours best sums up what the small investor
feels and in a sense my holding on to a large portion of my shares in IBG most
likely gave you some confidence to hold your shares,However you are not holding
shares in a Non profit making organisation and I,ve every confidence that the share price will recover.An example would be Valueclick in the US who missed their numbers a couple of years back and look at them now

Ken

[68steve] 25/6/2007 11:07

Just as well nobody made a bid "Ohh by the way we are just about to announce a profit warning" would not of gone down to well...

[reggieperrin] 25/6/2007 10:59

i don't think the wording of the rns (although i agree it was badly handled) was the main reason for the fall but rather the announcement of a 'strategic review' followed by a 'no recommended bid' announcement ... a lot of stale bulls will have sold shares on the spike when the review was announced and they were bought by short termers looking for a quick profit from a takeover ... they all jumped as soon as it was announced there would not be a takeover and the share price collapsed ...

... what i would be interested to know is the level of the indicative bids received ... given that the share price was around 30p when the review was announced i would assume that they were north of that but not by that much ... so if maz and the board have decided not to recommend a bid at, say, the 35-40p range on the basis that they can deliver more value for shareholders they have some work to do given that the share price is now at 17p ... and as they now seem to be looking at a 2 year timeframe they will have to deliver much more than 40p in 2 years for their decision not to recommend a bid to be vindicated ...

[zapa] 25/6/2007 10:53

My son has an honours in theoretical physics but cannot make a decent cup-of -tea.

[upthetic] 25/6/2007 10:49

Its all very well Maz giving us some reassurance but what percentage of shareholders actually read this BB. Too little too late. The damage was done last week and over many months of non-communication before that.

If he wants to share his thoughts, could these not have formed the basis of the RNS statement providing some reassurance instead of the RNS issued which had everyone reaching for a razor blade.

I am a small investor who has struggled to get by in other areas of my life whilst maintaining a level of investment hopefully for my future. IBG has been my long term play and to see my hard earned investment fund hacked away by an ill-considered RNS is sickening.

I am of the opinion that IBG continues to be an excellent investment but I have to question whether the RNS issued by the board was issued too hastily and in doing so Maz and his board acted in shareholders best interests. Lets face it, they didnt come to the Strategic Review conclusion overnight...would it really have mattered to delay the RNS by a few days and provide a more informative statement. A two hour discussion which halves a share price to me is a sackable offence.

[68steve] 25/6/2007 10:46

2 months ago they stated they were on course to meet market expectations now 10% lower forecasts and still 4 months of H2 left.If they have the foresight to lower forecasts now in 2 months time they might need to lower forecasts again.But as usual only time will tell,as always DYOR...

[exile] 25/6/2007 10:36

price has gone up on low volume so someone mopped up the shares people sold on the RNS ... no overhang ..looks good.

[omlaysause] 25/6/2007 10:29

Damned if you do and damned if you don't!
I think we all know that the RNS wasn't the best and more info was needed, better thought out etc etc.
So when the guy comes on here to explain things to us we're still not happy because it's not the done thing.
Well, the fact remains that a CEO came onto a BB board to help clarify a situation and put certain things into perspective for each and every one of us. As a shareholder I think it was a great move and one that should be applauded, whether it's the done thing or not.
And lets not forget he's also a major shareholder and has every right to post here if he wants.
I understand the frustration that this info should have been supplied before now but it's seems many sold as soon as the RNS came out and are possibly more p!ssed off that they maybe jumped the gun??

[yump] 25/6/2007 10:08

Well I'm flabbergasted.

Its a farce to have to come on a BB and explain an RNS and the share price's reaction to it.

The share price didn't drop specifically because of the RNS, it dropped because there has been a lack of clarity over quite a long period now, in fact since Plentypoints.

A lot of investors have been giving IBG the benefit of the doubt for quite some time, based on the good figures. You can put me in that camp.

There's been a lot of discussion over each apparent development and at the 'end' of the discussions, the general conclusion seems to have been that IBG are developing different ideas, the figures are OK and we will just have to trust them. Which is OK up to a point and for a limited time.

The AGM held a bit of a surprise in that there was going to be some sort of 'hit' to fund these new initiatives. Fair enough, bit vague, bit more trust required.

Then there was the debate about whether the 'profits in the second half' meant the extra profits, or the entirety of this years profits.

Remove the confidence in the figures and you remove the one thing that was keeping some investors going, while they were wondering about all the other developments.

Uncertainty is a killer for a share price and imo the strategic review was the straw that broke the camels back and if that wasn't, then the latest RNS was.

In the end you have to contrast this with clear statements from some companies which give absolute specifics about what exceptionals were for, how much they were, how much they are anticipated to be, what the money is going to be used for etc. etc.

I think all along it would have been better to keep all the experiments in the background and play them all down until something concrete was announceable.
Difficult with the internet and the information flying around I know.

But this is an investment BB, with all its vested interests and bias, not a company blog.

If I were Maz I would switch off the PC and never read a financial BB.

[clond] 25/6/2007 09:44

Oh well , guess he'll have to lend his family/friends a few thousand to get them for him !

[valustar1] 25/6/2007 09:28

They are in a close period

[james 2] 25/6/2007 09:22

Stegrego - 25 Jun'07 - 08:52 - 2394 of 2399

You are still basically congratulating someone for halving a share price in the space of a couple of months....

.....or giving a 6 bagger over a few years :o)

[lord buffett] 25/6/2007 09:18

Clond, much as he might like to, I'm fairly sure the company would be in a close period at the moment leading up to the interims.

[liarspoker] 25/6/2007 09:16

Stegrego - 25 Jun'07 - 08:34 - 2392 of 2396


I guess so - sorry

Am getting annoyed and not really much point now as ive sold (although had the RNS' and the whole process been conducted better i probably wouldn't have)

Best of luck


I know of a few people who sold their IBG shares upon reading the RNS. A number of those are in the same boat as you Stegrego - they would have held on if things were explained clearly and processes conducted better.