Big money starting to pile in...

One thing that I've always found curious is why champions (I nearly said rampers) of ADVFN bother to discuss the company on MoneyAM. If ADVFN is the runaway success of financial web sites and is attracting all the traffic, why would ADVFN holders patronise the competition?

Or is it that they simply like a more considered, better informed and sane forum than ADVFN to discuss such matters?

I think we should be told.

from todays telegraph...

Bulletin board posters sued for defamation
By Ben Bland
Last Updated: 12:59am GMT 13/01/2008



The dangers faced by investors who use internet message boards such as ADVFN and The Motley Fool are in the spotlight ahead of several forthcoming legal actions.

Nigel Smith, the private shareholder activist, is suing four retail investors for allegedly publishing defamatory remarks about him on ADVFN's bulletin boards. He has already received 20,000 in damages and costs from three other individuals.

Smith is threatening to bring legal actions against another 42 people who he claims defamed him on ADVFN. He is also suing ADVFN for allegedly failing to remove a number of defamatory posts in a timely fashion.

advertisementClem Chambers, managing director of ADVFN, dismissed any suggestion that ADVFN had acted irresponsibly. "We have removed thousands of posts and always try our hardest but we're only human and if we get thousands of requests, we might miss a few," he said.

Chambers believes the growth of litigation is a sign of the popularity of message boards. "Where there's a hit, there's a writ," he said.

Smith, who posted on ADVFN under the names 'Anomalous' and 'HannibaltheCannibal', used the message board to build the action group that is defending some shareholders in scandal-hit Langbar International.

However, he has "no qualms" about his legal actions against ADFVN and the investors, which he insists will benefit bulletin boards rather then harm them.

"I think litigation will provide a degree of responsibility and improve the quality of posts," he said.

edited MoneyAM

maestro,

No he doesn't, never has either.

i think he is you know...trying to be a gate keeper ...lets face it Hoodless tried their upmost to get private clients to buy Langbar...could be why GB left pretty quickly...posse after him

Complete investment disaster. Please am can you BUY the company and put us long suffering ADVFN shareholders out of our misery! You seem to have lots of cash from the sale of some magazines you sold a year or two back.

Incisive News
Acquisition of MSM International Limited
- 27 Nov 2006

Not for release, publication or distribution, in whole or in part, in or into the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland or Japan.
Incisive Media plc (Incisive Media), a leading provider of business information, is pleased to announce it has agreed to acquire the entire share capital of MSM International Limited(MSM) for a cash consideration of 22.5m, representing 18.1m for the business and a pound for pound payment for net assets including cash. Consideration is subject to adjustment following completion but shall not in any event exceed 23.0m.

Maybe moneyam could buy their servers.

lol

Finally, Results From ADVFN
It is often the practice of companies which have a profits warning, poor results, contracts losses and other such bad news, to release it to the market after hours in the hope that the City will not pick it up. In practice this simply does not work as inevitably the market expects that all statements released after the close to contain at least a minor caveat. Last night the financial data services provider ADVFN released its final results for the year to 30th June 2008 which were perhaps not all that its long suffering shareholders might have hoped for.

Although the bullet points at the top of the statement suggested a good performance revenues up 15%, losses per share down 38%, subscribers up 21% the results were in fact representative of a company that is struggling to grow as fast as its early promise suggests. Yes revenues and subscription numbers grew over the year but if we look at the pre-tax level losses actually worsened from 1.4 million to 1.5 million. The losses per share only improved due to the company receiving at tax rebate of 775,000. A look at the balance sheet reveals further problems. Strip out intangibles and goodwill of around 4.2 million and the company actually has net assets of just 2.1 million, a lot lower than the current market capitalisation of 5.34 million. Net cash stood at just over 1.5 million at the end of the period but arguably could be said to be just 936,000 if we strip out the difference between creditors and debtors. You could knock off another 100,000 or so for lease commitments if you wished to be picky.

The full annual report for the year has not been released as yet but we note that in 2007 the directors were paid very generously. In total the board were paid 496,000 in salaries over the year with Chairman, Michael Hodges, Finance Director, David Crump and CEO, Clem Chambers all getting additional 12,000 contributions paid into their pensions. Hodges and Chambers also received bonuses of 30,000 each. So that makes a total of almost 600,000. For what exactly? Running a loss making company? We also note that all directors are on contracts with a three year notice period. Now that strikes me as a trifle long it means that any predator buying this company would have to pay not only whatever the shares were worth but an extra 1.8 million to get rid of the board. Most PLC directors have only 12 month contracts.
After almost a decade as a quoted company, ADVFN has yet to show that its business model can generate cash for its shareholders as well as its directors. The results note that ADVFN operates with very high fixed overheads (staff) and one fears that if advertising revenues (its main profits centre) ease even only modestly then the remaining cash that ADVFN had at 30th June might not last all that long.

The Company that must not be discussed, even on its own site!

How queer.

Looks like they've done this to every thread ever created about ADVFN, On-Line and All-IPO.

jgpgw (ADVFN) - 3 Dec'08 - 12:09 - 28967 of 28968

There was a management decision made to take the AFN threads out of the intial search results on our BBs. They can still be found and accessed though if you have the URL.

Regards,

John

mitzy

How dare you call Clem queer?

I've no idea if he's queer, but he certainly seems to be paranoid.

Also, you can mention ADVFN on MoneyAM, but not vice versa. Sad.

ADVFN

Tried it

Big Al 39 - 4 Dec'08 - 20:57 - 46481 of 46481 edit


an ADVFN competitor

That used to happen a few years ago (6 to be exact?).

It's a bit sad if that's still in force. Jeez!


Earlier on all the threads on ADVFN went nuts and some geezer shut down many of them. In face the whole BB seemed like he'd posted en masse. Very feckin' weird.

Right back to the footie.

Hmmmm - Closing this whilst leaving this open seems a bit odd

LOL!

The ultimate irony: the only place where AFN shareholders can discuss the company is MoneyAM.