Leisure & Gaming Share Discussion Threads

[the analyst] 16/9/2010 18:40

jmaccer,

You say "take what you can get now", but I wonder how much that would be

As an investment company (i.e. a cash shell), it will trade at well below the level of cash in the bank and with a huge spread. Chances are people will not be able to sell their shares in any quantity and if they do, they may be looking at 0.1p per share. After the first couple of punters have off-loaded a few thousand shares each, the price is likely to plummet, imo

It's also worth noting that as an investment company, there will still be operating costs going forward, listing costs and a management team that will need paying. I wonder how much cash there will be six months down the line if they still haven't found an investment. My guess would be almost no cash at all

Unfortunately, most of these badly funded cash shells fail to find acquisitions and end up going into administration, leaving nothing for investors.

So, I find your stance quite difficult to understand.

Do you have any concrete evidence that there will really be anything of real value for shareholders to take from this if the proposed deal goes through?

I'm sure long-term holders will be asking themselves why you have suddenly appeared as a new poster both on this board and the MF forum, telling them they should vote yes.

So, I wonder, are you in any way connected to Pefaco, Betshop or Newco, or have any sort of current or past relationship or dealings with Gabriel? It's the only explanation I can think of that would make sense of your posts...

[shanklin] 15/9/2010 16:36

Given that trading must be very solid at present, provided Pefaco are not intending to manipulating the turnover as discussed above, there is little likelihood of the full earnout not being payable in due course.

Given this situation, I don't see why Pefaco don't bite the bullet and offer the full amount up front. I would imagine most shareholders would vote for that as the whole situation has been extremely messy for months and management have not covered themselves in glory.

This would result in:
- Pefaco getting a highly profitable business, especially given they would have no listing or UK HO costs
- LNG being able to delist and close down immediately
- shareholders receiving funds immediately

Of course, if Pefaco intend to behave dishonourably, then such a change in the bid terms is not going to happen.

[burgerbarwomen] 15/9/2010 13:25

IG


I begged David to arrange an EGM at the end of May... I knew what was going on.

They could have had the BOD out by mid July and saved themselves.

Point is that unlike many other investor groups, I believe that the Fools had the skill sets/contacts to pull that off.

Probably too late now.

I'm sick of directors acting in this way though and really do hope the Fools pull a rabbit out of the hat.

[investmentguru] 15/9/2010 11:37

"I know David has said there isn't much point turning it down without a plan 'B' but I just don't buy that."

I'm genuinely surprised that the more vocal Fool shareholders like Davidosh & Cliffyburger haven't come up with a Plan B themselves in the 4 months or so since the situation came to light.

IG

[hiq] 15/9/2010 11:26

It won't be L&G but LNG EBT, surely? Ie won't vote no

[loglorry1] 15/9/2010 10:45

Cross posted from TMF

Clearly there is no point moaning about the situation we are in but it might be worth trying to see how much of the company might be open to voting no to the recent proposition at the EGM. From Mornngstar I have the following owners breakdown


La Mouette Assset Management - 7,327,125 7.76
L & G Employee Benefit Trust - 6,413,453 6.79
T J Smalley - 5,988,000 6.34
Meridian Trust Co Ltd - 5.70
Cliff d'Arcy - 5,327,902 5.66
Barclays PLC - 4,868,119 5.17
Gabriel Chaleplis - 4,245,594 4.50
Andrin Bachmann - 3,208,000 3.41
Edouard Mercier - 3,208,000 3.41
Neil Craven - - 3.40
Smith & Williamson - - 3.30
Zeme Elaiho - 2,850,000 3.02



This comes to 58.46% and I don't think it is wild stretch of the imagination to assume that Fools and other PIs hold say 20% of the rest of the stock Let's call them PIs. So let's assume Zeme, Cliff, Smalley, L&G and La Mousett, Barclays, Meridan all vote no at teh EGM we have 60.44% of no votes. In the RNS here the directors state that they control 3.3% of the stock (I guess through Neil Craven's holding).

To my shame I'm not sure what % of the vote at the EGM they need to get the resolution through but I'm sure others do.

In short therefore might it be worth contacting some of hte bigger holders and getting some sort of SHAG going.

I know David has said there isn't much point turning it down without a plan 'B' but I just don't buy that. The main reason for this is that there are two sides to a transaction. It isn't just what it is worth to the current holders (sellers) who only have one offer on the table (thanks to lame management) but also what it is worth to the buyers. For example if they were to take out the earn-out clause then presumably we'd all be much happier.

On the subject of the earnout anyone stupid enough to think that LNG/Betshop will hit it's revenues under new owners and thus trigger such a large payment is clearly dillutional. They will just sit back and let the business tick along just under the limit until the time period expires. The trigger is on turnover so they just need to adjust margins to put off punters a bit but make sure the bets they do take are highly profitable.

On the subject of Plan 'B' - surely there is another option which is a rights issue or placement. With just short of 3m shares in issue raising 1p a share would generate funds of about £1M (if I've got my sums right). This should allow LNG to boot out management sell off the freehold property (200K?) and continue trading for another year. I've only got a small holding in LNG but if I could be convinced there is a viable business underneath then I'd happily fund it in this way. It might even not require that much funding or at any rate not initially until we see what is going on.

I'd have thought Zeme and Cliff would be wildly in favour of trying to get this car accident back on the road. They might even want to be appointed directors after the clearout?

C'mon guys let's not let apathy win here!

Log

[bleepy] 14/9/2010 23:14

jmaccer

missed the plane

[burgerbarwomen] 14/9/2010 22:27

Uefa Champions League

Barcelona 5-1 Panathinaikos .......... bad for LNG

FC Twente 2-2 Inter Milan ........... good for LNG

Man Utd 0-0 Rangers ............... good for LNG


what sickens me is that we know from previous quarterly performance that LNG can easily clear 1.5m profit Q4 and Q1.

we know the punters go for trebles upwards so they got stuffed tonight

[hiq] 14/9/2010 20:15

The TMF dolts are assuming that without key personnel, the franchise is near worthless.

Dopes.

Anybody with balls could make the business idea work if it has legs

[saturdaygirl] 14/9/2010 19:48

Shares in a nominee account .. do i have to ask for the vote form or instuct by phone ?

hiq - 14 Sep'10 - 19:31 - 2916 of 2917 (Filtered)

[hiq] 14/9/2010 19:31

Why not just sack anybody incompetent & useless?

No payout

[oneillshaun] 14/9/2010 19:15

Guys just a note on Goalslive it works off feed so this site has nothing do with a data centre in Cyprus is is simply an xml or rss feeds with live scores it cost a few grand a month, we have it, so the site could be sold for a pretty fair price as i am sure it has a lot of players tied to it.

By the way is RC still working for LNG?? I assume another months salary will paid very soon.

[burgerbarwomen] 14/9/2010 17:02

agreed ldm... you've been right all the time, I applaud you.

i just wish certain Fools would post once and acknowledge that fact

i'll be watching out for a fantastic jazzy goalslive website suddenly appear in october

now that would be funny!

it's simply so dreadful all of this.... BOD could easily have sorted a rights issue at 1p... NO PROBLEM

[ldmachin] 14/9/2010 16:46

burgerbarwomen,

In that post, in Cliffy's list of assets, he also forgets to mention:

1. The value of the gaming licenses LNG has bought (must be a good 1m euros worth which still have a few years to run).
2. Goalslive.com (is this part of the deal? - I would think it is seeing as it runs off of the Betshop research centre data generated in Cyprus i believe, and can't really exist without the Betshop data). I thought Goalslive.com was profitable and had a good number of regular visitors making money via SMS subscription?
3. Don't forget the 500k euro+ that Betshop spent on 'software development' also.

All the above are assets and should be considered in the sale price.

I told you Gabriel C would try and get Betshop for an absolute song. Weren't some on here talking about an offer worth around 15p a share recently?

Seriously...

Inside job... makes 9/11 look amatuerish.

[burgerbarwomen] 14/9/2010 16:12

Cunning Cliff speaks out again on the Fool site... read his views now!

[burgerbarwomen] 14/9/2010 14:11

lol

I'm feeling good after burning off 476 cals on the bike just now so may I say I hope Cliff gets back say 2p... so he can stay in the game but at the same time learn a hard lesson

we've all been there and pray it never happens to anyone on this thread ever again

god bless

[bleepy] 14/9/2010 13:31

IG

I believe the business model is sound,on the other hand the business decisions taken to this point is revealing otherwise.
Those responsible must go,if there was even a thread of decency amongst them we should be seeing resignations.
Nothing wrong with self motivation but greed at the expense of others is deplorable.

[investmentguru] 14/9/2010 13:07

LDMachin has called it right all along, he got a lot of grief for doing so over the last couple of years, but it looks as though everyone has finally taken off their rose tinted spectacles (even Cliffyburger and Davidosh) and seen this company for the disaster it is.

[bleepy] 14/9/2010 11:53

lol......that's exactly how i feel,a complete pratt