Mbl Share Discussion Threads

[kimboy2] 04/2/2011 11:03

Well on the JA issue I just don't think it is corrupt. If the objective was as boaf says to get money to JA then I think that there would have been a lot of easier ways to do it.

He could have set up an ebay site such as xbite that he mentioned. That seems to be doing pretty well.

PC also said he had examined the transactions and found them kosher.

I think the more serious problem was about inventories;

Morrisons will not be taking the stock holding that is held in Leyland over the next 6 months. On their stock list is a lot of back catalogue overstocked titles that are worth a fraction of the original dealer price.

I have no real idea as to the value of the stock. However for a company that sold £194m of goods last year £21m of stock does not seem unreasonable.

[typo56] 04/2/2011 10:57

I'm not sure any of the "nasties" are new news. I think the issues have been raised here in the past but, such is the nature of the ADVFN boards, the posts are soon overlooked and forgotten.

[timesmoney] 04/2/2011 10:47

And... when the going is good, no one looks or cares, when things are not so rosy they look. Some rocks are being lifted here and there appears to be some nasties underneath. The company or their advisers would be well advised to deal with these issue head on rather than have posts removed from the BB.

[timesmoney] 04/2/2011 10:45

Boaf, may well have an agenda, but no one is saying that the issues raised were either wrong or previously properly disclosed or exposed by the company.
A number of serious inferences have been made and removing the posts does not stop the lingering smell.

[jeffian] 04/2/2011 10:40

You sure you spelt that right, Typo?

8-)

[typo56] 04/2/2011 10:39

So Birdsofafeather has been plucked! Would the same have happened if he/she had posted unsubstantiated postive rumours?

[fmcalorum] 04/2/2011 10:35

Boaf may just be playing a game for whatever reason!

[jeffian] 04/2/2011 10:29

I think that's right. One never knows the 'agenda' of anonymous avatars posting on a free bb, but the solution is in the hands of the MBL Board - be a bit more informative and less oblique in those comments you do make.

[kimboy2] 04/2/2011 10:25

Interesting that boaf's comments have been removed. I presume that there has been a complaint from the company. I thought that may happen so I also took the precaution of copying them.

IMV bb comments such as that as solely the result of the companies lack of transparency and appalling PR. I would like to think they will do something about it.

[kimboy2] 04/2/2011 10:22

Hi Typo
1a) The 2009 Sales Media Solutions accounts say;

The company was insolvent as at 30th June 2009 and has continued to trade with the ongoing support of its director and shareholder. The company will cease trading in 2010 and once all of its debts have been collected and liabilities dealt with, it will be struck off.

On the question of why HMRC should prevent it being struck off I can't see how it could be struck off. The objection was on the 4/2/09 but on the 30/6/09 the company still had over £1m in the bank and unpaid debts.

How does that work ? Is it possible to strike a company off in these circumstances ? I am not surprised there was an objection from a creditor, and I presume that HMRC was/is a creditor.

b) I have no idea why SMS went insolvent. Obviously if MUBL were funding it then the company was allowed to go bust.

The MUBL 2010 AR says that SMS owed it £359k at 31/3/10. This was over a year after they tried to be struck off the register.

SMS owed £1,682,578 and had cash and debtors of £1,544,685 at 30th June 2009.

There has been no administration order so I presume that there are some sort of negotiations going on with creditors and HMRC.

c) The question of whther James Allan was creaming off profit from MUBL I can't answer because there is no P&L account to see what was going in admin etc.

However if it was it was for a short time and if the company went bust it would suggest it was pretty incompetent.

It may be as boaf said set up as a scheme to get supplies from companies that wouldn't/couldn't supply MBL for whatever reason. If JA was assisting with that he was entitled to be paid.

It is all just less than transparent, but then if the objective was to deceive a supplier then perhaps that was necessarily so.

d) On the question of advance payments I would say that if this was a conduit for MBL then it was not unreasinable the MBL financed it.

2. Media Sales Direct was set up on 25/6/09 and TA resigned as a director on the 20/8/09. I suspect he resigned before it began trading and I don't know whether in these circumstances he was required to report this.

I have no financial figures for MSD but presume the raison d'etre is much the same as SMS. The only additional layer of intrigue for me was that the shares were owned by a Jersey crew.

3. CD4ME
boaf stated;

CD4ME is the brand name they use on third party video game accessories that they sell into Morrisons

This may have been true at some stage but hasn't been true IMV for at least 3 years.

[jonc] 04/2/2011 10:21

I copied them.

[someuwin] 04/2/2011 10:19

Hmmm - looks like all Birdsofafeather's posts from yesterday have been removed. Tells me the MBL board are monitoring this bb and didn't like what he was saying. So it must have been true.

[jeffian] 04/2/2011 09:51

Hasn't been mentioned for a while in all the latest excitement, but what happened to Best Buy? At the time, the deal was heralded as a great coup for MBL to be selected by one of US's major retailers, but the Best Buy roll-out programme seems to have been fraught with problems with 3(?) top execs leaving within the last few months and it has dropped off the radar entirely in the last few trading statement from MBL. Anyone know what is going on there?

[miamisteve] 04/2/2011 07:52

Outnow.co.uk with 8000 subscribers should have a TO of around 1m, although given that MBL were previously involved in fulfillment, a proportion of this would already be in the accounts.

I noticed that sainsburies, via nectar were offering a white label, lovefilms rental service, so there is definitely potential to ramp up the business.

I can't imagine they would have to hit a huge number of customers to attain critical mass.

Rather than talk of the hut putting us out of our misery, amazon might be a more likely suitor further down the road.

[typo56] 04/2/2011 06:58

Kimboy2

If you check Companies House records you will see that both Trevor Allan and James Allan were directors of Media Sales Direct. Trevor Allan resigned on 20 August 2009.

Remember the statement in the MBL 2010 Annual Report:

23. Related party transactions
During the year, Music Box Leisure Limited made purchases on normal commercial terms with Sales Media Solutions Limited of £2,832,000 (2009: £7,029,000) and Media Sales Direct Limited of £5,224,000 (2009: £Nil). James Allan, brother of Trevor Allan (Director of MBL Group plc), is a shareholder and director of both companies, and also a shareholder of MBL Group plc. At 31 March 2010, Music Box Leisure Limited was owed £359,000 (2009: payable of £1,122,121) by Sales Media Solutions Limited and £49,000 (2009: £Nil) by Media Sales Direct Limited. These balances represent payments on account for stock supply.

So why did Sales Media Solutions Ltd become insolvent? It seems it was receiving cash up front from Music Box for the supply of stock. Is this "a normal supply arrangement"?

Why was action taken by someone (HMRC?) to prevent Sales Media Solutions Ltd being struck off Companies House register when it was insolvent?

Why no mention of the related party transactions in the 2009 Annual Report?

Why no mention that Trevor Allan had also been a director of Media Sales Direct Ltd?

[kimboy2] 04/2/2011 00:56

I think the damaging allegations are to do with Sales Media Solutions, Media Sales Direct and CD4ME and the role of his brother in syphoning off profit from MBL.

I have no idea whether it is true or not though I seem to remember that PC started off with this in the conference call and said he had investigated and there was no truth in it.

1. Sales Media Solutions was formed on 14/5/2007 and seems to have ceased actual trading at the beginning of 2009.

The only accounts that I can see have been filed are to 30th June 2009. The balance sheet shows cash of £1.1m, debtors of £440k (MBL ?) and creditors of £1.68m. The company was insolvent and due to be wound up in 2010.

The only director appears to have been James Allan.

2. Media Sales Direct was formed on 25/6/2009. It has not filed any accounts so far. The only director again appears to be James Allan.

The shares in this company are owned by IFG Trustees Ltd and IFG Nominees Ltd

I believe they are;



They are based in Jersey.

3. CD4ME was formed on 3/3/1998 and it's business is described as wholesale. The latest accounts are described as 'overdue'.

The directors are given as TS Allan, CS Allan and TL Allan

I have the latest accounts that have been filed up to 31/3/09. The company has no assets or liabilities and was dormant during that year and the previous year.

I am not sure what is going on with these companies but I get the impression it is more Clousseau than Pink Panther.

[dangersimpson2] 03/2/2011 23:24

boaf,

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on what you think has gone wrong at MUBL.

A year or so ago the company was generating profits and cash-flow and while it was never going to be a great industry to be in it seemed to be well run, it survived the credit crunch and was taking advantage of the demise of some of its competitors.

Fast forward a year and they've had a strange investment into UExplore, issues with trading levels and margins and poor shareholder communication throughout. Added together these have led to a significant decline in the share price

Some of the decisions made just seem bizarre and while the size of the directors' salaries is not small compared to the market cap, they have large stake in the business so the drop in share price has cost them much, much more. Nobody likes to lose that sort of money so why did they make the decisions they did?

Are the acquisitions a last try to diversify an obselete industry into the 21st century, or was there actually a strong business case for them?

Is the poor communication designed to prevent competitors having the knowledge to undercut MUBL or is it just the way they do business?

Is it just poor trading in the run up to Christmas that was out of MUBL's control or did they make errors in stock selection or sales themselves?

If as you say they have large amounts of obselete inventory still valued at cost which should have been destined for Morrison's 'bargain bins', why do we not see these bargains available on bee.com?

Why did sainsbury's online & bee.com not deliver sales volume to offset the issues with the other parts of the business?

Cheers,

Danger

[davidosh] 03/2/2011 21:40

Boaf....Can you email me via the link to that post in Masurenguys post no. 3492. You simply reply to that post by unchecking the reply to boards box and putting the tick in the reply via email box. You may need to register on the TMF site if you are not already a member. Ideally if you can tell me anything about why Paul Ludlam left the company without making it public on a forum like this. Also what are your thoughts about GMV and its potential ?

[maxcashflow] 03/2/2011 18:53

Anyone know what this is about:

It's linked from the Affiliates pages on both OutNow and LidlFilm.

[jonc] 03/2/2011 18:22

Fair enough.

JC

[jonc] 03/2/2011 18:17

If you had a senior position my view is that your contract of employment would prevent you from making such disclosures.

Don't get me wrong I wouldn't touch MUBL with a bargepole.

Also don't forget that a FBB is not anonymous and you can be traced by MUBL if they wish to.