fsa investigation?
ADVFN PLC
24 November 2006

ADVFN PLC (the 'Company')

Exercise of Options

The Company announces that options to subscribe for 150,002 ordinary shares of
one pence each in the Company have been exercised at a price of 1.25p per share.
These shares have been allotted and application for the shares to be admitted to
trading on AIM has been made to the London Stock Exchange. Admission of and
dealings in these shares are expected to commence on 1 December 2006.

Kayak,

"If the LSE are going around saying that providers are charging too much for level 2 then that is a little strange.

I was referring to a comment made in a private conversation.


Looking at the licence fees charged by the LSE, surely the private investor licence fee of 10,000 would apply?

Surely there is some deal that can be done that would allow a reduction in charges?

For those of us that invest rather than trade level ll is not a requirement, but for a reduced price I would take it as an add on.


I do agree with yourself and Haystack that a pay for bb would not work, and people would migrate to toher boards, unless of course all boards decided to charge!

Maybe an idea would be to charge those that post, whilst allowing the majority that lurk to continue to lurk for free? That way hits will remain the same, and some semblance of control and order would reign over the BB's?

It is difficult to see how ADVFN are going to survive long term on the current course, the majority of their free bb threads are being trashed by the same small group of people, and the number of quality threads is at an all time low IMO.

Something will have to change, or the current BB model looks to have a finite lifespan, IMO.

Talking of profitable sites, Sharecrazy seems to be doing well and last time I spoke on the board to the CEO it appears the company is profitable and going from strength to strength.

Similar business platform to money am and advfn but as its own in house broker the 'Sharecrazy Trading platform', provided by Hoodless B and 9 per trade but Hoodless actualy charge 7 so I guess the extra 2 is all profit bar a little admin cost.

I hear Winnies t1ps.co. uk is also doing the same from after xmas so there must be some profit in this area.

goldfinger,

Interesting, Sharecrazy and T1ps are thinking out of the box and leveraging their client base in a different way.

Maybe level ii could be offered in a package that included a brokerage deal?

Just a thought.

I am surprised ADVFN have not partnered with a broker, but I guess they run the risk of alienating the other brokers who may choose not to advertise, thus negatively impacting revenue.

Surely any company would prefer to get as much revenue as possible from whatever source and I am sure there are ways of doing that which, as yet, AFN have failed to exploit. There is, or should be, no sentiment in business and you ply your trade accordingly.

For instance if subscriptions/fees and brokers premiums were to realise say 5mil there would still be an awful lot of advertising AS WELL and to say there would be any drastic reduction in user/page hits is as much speculation as any other argument. At some stage in business you have to take a chance or two.

There are many people who have seen the recent turmoil at AFN who have stated that they would willingly pay a small fee rather than see the site close and I can understand that. People tend to make many faceless aquaintances via this media and would miss it if it weren't there. I know I would but I am a premium user on ADVFN,

We all know that the 'unique user numbers' spouted are somewhat farcical and we know why, but the present shareholders will not continue to keep paying for further share issues unless progress is SEEN to be being made. There is no easy fix but I am sure, given some intelligent forward thinking, a monetry system acceptable to users and condusive to the needs of AFN could be implemented.

Failing that how long will we have to wait until the promises of the past 4 years start to kick in. If Ever.

I often get the impression that non-shareholders and shareholders look at this site in different ways because non-shareholders couldn't give a damn what the shareprice is as long as they can tune in each morning.

One wonders who this large buyer is and whether perhaps they know something of what will be announced at the AGM Wednesday. Cost cutting and profit forecast - we can only dream.

Perhaps the pressure they have been put under may start to bear some fruit?

DD

Everyone seems to think that as from Wednesday everything in the garden will be rosy.

The last set of figures were so late in coming that we have already passed the 6 months stage, so, whatever they have to say at the AGM surely can only start to have an effect as from now, which means that the interims COULD well be no better than the last set of figures.

As for the pressure you refer to, I take it you refer to the action group, I doubt very much if they will ever put their hands up to that, or acknowledge it's significance. It will be more a case of "we realised spending had, for reasons of expansion, begun to creep unacceptably higher and have made certain adjustments in order to try to correct that situation. We are hopeful that these expenses will prove to have been exceptional and we are 'excited' about the prospect of increased revenue in the future."

They won't say from what, where, when or why or just how much their
'excitement' will improve shareholder value.

I've also bought back in as imo those huge exes must have been mainly one-off.

should get USA sites update tomoro and figures of subscribers...must have increased by 50% imho overall...lets see if Clem can be honest for once instead of trying to use smoke and mirror tactics to confuse investors...

Subscribers or registered users?

maestro - hard to break the habit of a lifetime ;)

he won't give us subscribers...that would be asking too much...personally i'd stick him on a rack until he confessed the actual subscribers... i hate bloody secrets!

offer above 3p...amazing!..Clem has got to deliver tomoro or i can see him getting a good rogering

what price cupid?

DatingDirect bought by European rival for 27m By Staff
09-01-2007 09:36 AM
Related:
UK-based online dating service Dating Direct is to be sold to Meetic, continental Europe's leading online dating agency, for a deal worth 27.3m.
DatingDirect was formed by Darren Richards and Andrew Pike in 1999, and now has has more than 4.5m members.

Commenting on the deal, Darren Richards, DatingDirect CEO, said: "Our commitment to developing a real opportunity for people to find real relationships has made DatingDirect.com the most popular dating destination in the UK, and now hopefully this will continue into Europe."

Meetic hopes the takeover will allow the company to enter the UK market without the need for an expensive brand building campaign.

Marc Simoncini, founder and chairman of Meetic, said "Thanks to this acquisition we will have conquered in less than five years the leading position on most of the international markets on which we operate."

The group, already present in 14 European countries and China and Brazil, planned to expand further in 2007, he added.

Meetic had sales in 2005 of 43 million euros. It is due to publish final 2006 figures on February 13. DatingDirect had sales in 2006 of 16 million euros, Meetic said.

Cupid had sales of ...?

Blimey for once maestro you are right.

Whats going on???????????????????????????????

kayak...yeah be nice to know by having properly audited accounts

gf...it is the biggest dating site in UK though but having said that cupidbay isn't that far behind in the alexa rankings...if its worth a couple of million its not to be sniffed at

Is this meeting tomorrow then ?

Looking at the accounts and I am a past accountant, I can only say the first thing that strikes me is the increase in admin charges, whats going on here?

To be honest I dont have to take it any further at the moment, the increase in admin charges needs investigation.

does the admin charges include the purchase of siliconinvestor and investorhub?..if not i think we want some explanaTIONS TOMORO

Hey??????????????????????????