[Logan]

BCG’s and the board’s many actions are the best examples of making simple things complicated.

What is the need for a joint auditor? That too when they won’t even share all the subsidiaries results with the auditor? Earlier they were sharing everything but after Daum case happened they stopped sharing and even though the subsidiaries are audited, SKR doesn’t want to share much with even the auditors and he wants to keep many things secret. The reason he gave for this was that he doesn’t want the competitors to know how the company is run. Maybe that’s why he kept his friends as auditors for years. No one can support this. All the companies also don’t want to share their secrets but they share everything with the auditors. If SKR/board is worried about the quality of the auditors then they should appoint a top 4 auditors to do the consolidating audit.

I know in the journey to become big companies many people will use short cuts to make sure that they don’t lose control over the company but in BCG’s case SKR has taken it to a stage where it looks silly and embarrassing.

He had the support of most investors which he should’ve used for good things but I don’t know when he will wake up and make the board also wake up. We are tired of seeing these silly things happening and getting repeated. Audit is full ready but the auditor resigned at the last minute etc looks so silly and pre planned. Board scheduled a meeting weeks before the date but that will be cancelled at the last minute because something came up. This looks like how small children give reasons for not completing homework on time. I’ve supported him many times for other things but I can never support him or the company for these things.

If he wanted total control then why did he come to public markets? He could’ve kept the company private and spared us all these emotional rollercoasters and tensions.

We have to wait till Sunday midnight to know why they want to appoint a joint auditor. You can be 200% sure that they will use fancy words to describe themselves and say how transparent they are and how this step (appointing joint auditors) is important. Of course the auditor might resign later but still the board will say that it’s good for the company (SKR said this when Murali & Co resigned as auditors) and spin everything as a positive.

[Logan]

Recently the company is showing proactiveness which was missing all these years. There were signs of improvement here and there but whenever those improvements were happening, one or other thing would overshadow and put the company under pressure. For ex, the company was improving a lot from 2021 (after the bad debt was closed) but the FA news overshadowed all that and they had to concentrate more on that and less on communications. Anything the company shared, most were not that interested in that and they were mostly asking about the FA (obviously that was very important). After the first SCN also there was a lot of improvement but the SCN2 put everything in a state of uncertainty.

I hope that there won’t be any events that would overshadow the progress happening. If any such thing happens then that will set the company back again and rebuilding that will take years.

It’s very good to see that they clarified about the BSE circular immediately and another good thing is that the new CS has signed that document.

[Logan]

It was a good initiative to start sharing the weekly updates but the latest update that they’ll be answering our queries starting this week is a greater initiative.

Let’s hope that the revocation of trading suspension happens on time and also they start resolving all the outstanding issues at the earliest.

Mr.Raghu and Mr.Kallol deserve credit for taking up the roles at the right time and for steadying the ship. SKR also deserves credit because it looks like it’s him who is doing all this.

[Logan]

I rarely write about naysayers and I’m least bothered about what they say but I’ve noticed that one PJ luck guy sometimes crosses the line and insults and disrespects many long term shareholders. Last time he had said that we had shut the forum so that the management can do one last dump. What the hell does he think about us? Does he think that we don’t have integrity and can’t think independently? We are not like him where someone needs to control us, he should know that our opinions are based on the developments happening and not based on other people’s comments. He thinks that everything is binary and people don’t have independent thinking.

He sold his shares so everything with the company is negative and everything is fake. This silly attitude guy is judging the characters of many shareholders. If he’s so sure that the company is fake then why doesn’t he go complain to the authorities about it.

There are many respected long term shareholders in this forum, and many follow it and some are senior citizens who share their wisdom, experience and knowledge with us and he’s labeling everyone as bad. Who gave him the right to judge other people? We are a country where we treat everyone with utmost respect (especially elders and senior citizens) and this guy is forgetting all that just because he couldn’t make money in the stock. Let him talk bad about the company, its management and SKR, no serious shareholder will give a damn but disrespecting long term shareholders is not good. I’m damn sure that his only agenda is to make everyone else sell their shares because he already has sold most of his.

Being invested in an online advertising company (I’m sure he still holds shares in the company), he should know how the online world functions/works and also how websites work. Our forum faced technical issues which is common in WordPress websites/blogs and it’s very basic to understand but he thinks that we did it deliberately. Imagine if he were a doctor and someone had health issues or met with an accident and went to him, I’m sure that he’d have accused and disrespected the patient saying that the patient is faking it.

I remember once I had shared a conference call transcript which was available on Yahoo and that guy was asking everyone on MMB to share the link with him. He doesn’t even know how to do a simple Google search but he’s writing stories about an online advertising company. One time he says everything is fake but other times he says that SKR will transfer good things (like OMS, other subsidiaries) to his own companies. If negative things happen or if the stock is in LC, he’ll come and say everything is fake and if real developments happen then he will say SKR will transfer everything to his private companies. Like mentioned above, if he’s sure about all these then why hasn’t he complained to the authorities still?

He behaves like a dead clock which refuses to accept reality. Come on dude, have one opinion and stick to it and have integrity, don’t be a chameleon. (Dead clocks can also be right 2 times in a day but that doesn’t mean those are the only truths).

Every shareholder has put his/her hard earned money and like him they have the rights to share their opinions and thoughts. We don’t need some chameleon to judge our characters. We have asked the management directly about many important points, including PW topic, SKR’s actions, auditors, etc. If we see there are issues then we’ll follow the right path and we’ll go and complain to the concerned authorities. It’s our wish whether we support the company or whether we are against it, we don’t need some chameleon advising us what to do. Let SEBI and the honorable judge at the SAT decide SKR’s fate.

[Logan]

@admin, please block many spam IDs. Their job is only to go to many WordPress blogs like ours and spam there.

Please disable registering unverified IDs also. Many nonsense people come and post many messages.

[Logan]

Thank God they clarified about Trenova and that all the subsidiaries will be owned by BCG.

A lot of credit goes to Mr.Kallol and Mr.Raghunath but we can’t deny SKR’s silent role in the developments happening. SKR seemed like he cared about retail investors but he took us for granted also. He never cancelled a single conference call and was answering each and every question no matter how tough the questions were. But I can’t figure out why he did the PW fraud, was it just to increase his holdings? If only that was the case then why did he give free stocks to other people who dumped immediately (and made thousands of crores)? He might deny that but we can’t say there was no fraud without the company sharing evidence for his arguments (maybe we’ll have to check the 187 page reply the company filed at the SAT to understand more but we don’t have access to that). Other companies will reply to SEBI’s orders and appeal at the SAT immediately where the judge will give more time and the people who get SEBI’s ban orders will stay for longer (for months and sometimes for years) but SKR resigned immediately.

When I look at all these, the way things were handled and the way the company took shareholders for granted, I don’t want SKR to be back as the CEO/Chairman but looking at the future, the changes in the tech industry, the big roles of AI and Quantum computing and the growth in audio streaming (music and podcasts), I want SKR to be back in the company as he’s very important for the company to not only grow but to survive also. Let the honourable judge at the SAT decide what to do with SKR. We can only hope that Mr.Raghunath and Mr.Kallol will get us to good places in the future (with or without SKR).

It’s sad to see Mr.Ram Sharma’s resignation as an independent director. He has mentioned that his main role was to help the company with the compliance part and looks like he’s resigning after making sure that is completed. I had high hopes and expectations on him and it’s good to know that he’ll continue to be associated with the company as a General Counsel (Advisory).

They talked about appointing a KMP also but there’s no update on that.

[Logan]

They’ve uploaded the AGM video on their website. This is a really good move and I appreciate them for that.

The questions asked in the AGM were also good. I thank the shareholders who asked those questions. I appreciate Mr.Raghunath also for giving answers and he was not deflecting the questions. Hope this continues and we see more transparency in the future. The conference call was bad but the AGM was good.

Please find the video in the below link. There’s the AGM video link and PPT Vivek, click on the AGM video.
(Investors page in Brightcom Group website)

AGM Video Link

[Logan]

I’m not sure why BCG’s management call it investors conference call, it should be called management lecture call. The management people talked more than 90% about boasting themselves and even though Mr.Kallol’s part was very less, he looked more honest and sincere than the other two. Mr.Raghunath was spinning every negative as positive but Mr.Kallol was more realistic and honest. Though topics like AI, audio advertising and quantum computing are very important, I’m tired of listening to the same prepared statements which are repeated in every conference calls.

What was the use of having Mr.Sreedhar on the call when he just repeated whatever Mr.Peshwa was saying in previous calls? Everything is theory and nothing is done yet.

I like people like Mr.Kallol who are more honest and realistic. I don’t want to listen to statements boasting about themselves when there’s no actual work done on ground level.

Mr.Kallol mentioned that BCG’s subsidiaries will be shifted to Trenova and he mentioned that Mr.Raghunath talked about this in the AGM. I couldn’t attend the AGM, can anyone please explain about this? I remember SKR wanted to consolidate all the subsidiaries into one US entity and that BCG would hold that entity. Is it the case with Trenova also or are they spinning off Trenova separately. If latter is the case then there’ll be no value left in the parent company. I don’t want to comment on it without knowing anything about it. The whole reason I’ve stayed invested in BCG is because of the subsidiaries (mainly OMS) and if it’s not part of BCG then there’ll be no value left.

Why didn’t they talk about Trenova and clarify about it in the conference call? They should share an update on it through the exchanges and should share the transcript of the AGM so that investors who couldn’t attend the AGM can know what was discussed (other than the main agenda of course).

[Logan]

I think the @admin is busy and might not have sent the questions to the IR.

I request all the shareholders to include my questions also along with yours (which I’ve added in the Questions to ask / Post-Conference Update thread). Please make sure that the management team provides proper answers to all your queries. Ask specifically about the PW fraud and the future plans.

[Logan]

@admin, please send the above questions to the company for both – the AGM and the conference call. If they miss addressing these in the AGM then they should at least address these in the conference call.

If you don’t mind please send it today and also send it on Thursday so that the management will not forget about it. If we send only today then they might not pick these for Friday call. I’ll add more questions once they share the Q4 results.

[Logan]

Thanks @Longplay55, and I totally understand your views and perspective.

If you remember I had massive respect for SKR and that was because he had the never die attitude and he had always dedicated himself to the company (initially he didn’t have much commitment towards shareholders but later on he was changing that attitude and from early 2019 there was a massive improvement). I’m not sure what made him do that PW fraud, was it pure greed or was it a misstep but that one bad decision made lakhs of people suffer. And to know that the PW allottees didn’t pay a single rupee is like rubbing salt to our wounds. If he wanted only money then all shareholders would’ve voted yes for him to increase his shareholding and no one would’ve objected if he took crores of salary.

SKR has taken few wise decisions, like starting programmatic advertising sooner than most in the market, getting into audio advertising and though the AI trend has picked up from 2022, SKR was talking about it from 2015-16 or maybe even earlier and he had started projects on it but he has also taken decisions that have hurt shareholders badly and the bad decisions overshadow the good decisions.

If you notice, one of the main reasons (not the only reason obviously) for Donald Trump to win the elections is because of his participation in podcasts. Even here podcast trend is growing but it’s very big in the US. With podcasts you can connect with people and you can understand the trend that’s going on. The growth of audio streaming (music and podcasts) is high and SKR wanted to get into that at the right time. Unfortunately I think the audio ad JV with Consumables Inc might be dead and that’s because of SKR only. I don’t know whether he used the acquisition news to do pump and dump but that industry has good growth and is expected to grow even more in the coming years.

Let’s see whether Mr.Raghunath, Mr.Kallol and the board can revive the company and get it back to previous levels. I never wanted BCG without SKR but his betrayal of shareholders made me change my mind. Let SEBI and the honourable judge at the SAT decide what to do with him but we need his guidance for the company to grow. I still want the board to have him on a consultant role because looking at the way the tech world is going (AI especially), we need people like SKR to advise the company.

The negatives are that, if he could manipulate the bank statements then he can manipulate the subsidiaries numbers also and the numbers might not be what was reported previously. This risk is also there but SEBI didn’t say anything about fake revenues when it did the forensic audit.

I hope that everything is real and that we see good days ahead. All shareholders have supported the company through thick and thin and the management should make sure that we see good days ahead.

[Logan]

@Longplay55, my health issues are totally unrelated to BCG and I’ve had it from a long time. Though BCG is a good part of my portfolio, I’ve not put all or majority of my eggs in BCG basket. I’ve diversified sufficiently.

You might think that I’m ranting here but what I’m asking for is accountability from the management. If you remember Mr.Kallol said he’d share the Q2FY24 results in the first week of March but when did the company actually share it? It’s not as if they’re sharing the Q2FY25 results and they had run into some issue and had to delay the results. They’re sharing the Q4FY24 results (which they were supposed to share 6 months back). I know we are seeing progress but how many times have we seen them go back on their words? They said they’d never allow trading suspension to happen but what happened later? What happened to CEO, CFO and CS appointments?

I support the company and support Mr.Raghunath for taking up the role when the company was/is in trouble. I’m not worried about the stock price also, I’ve seen both happening since the day I started investing in BCG – all time lows and all time highs.

I appreciate Mr.Raghunath, Mr.Kallol and the board for taking massive responsibilities at hard times. Others wouldn’t even join companies when the companies are in trouble but these people not only have joined but they’ve also taken the responsibilities and I have massive respect for that but only thing that they have to improve on is being accountable and do what they say.

(History has shown us that if the management isn’t held accountable then they’ll think they can do whatever they want and get away with it. If you remember, we supported SKR all these years and year after year we kept on supporting him even if he wasn’t improving. He not only became lazy but took shareholders for granted and did the fraud. If he were accountable, he’d not have lied to us about his shareholding and he’d not committed the PW fraud. See how much shareholders are suffering because of him and the company’s revenues have also declined massively because of him. Mr.Raghunath, the board and BCG’s employees are also suffering because of SKR’s actions)

[Logan]

I thought they’d finally do what they say but again there’s postponement of results (not the Q2 of FY25 or Q1 of FY25 but Q4 of FY24) which they were supposed to share 6 months back. There’s no point in having hopes or expectations at all, we’ll be sure that we’ll get disappointment later. It’s only in words that they say they care about shareholders but in reality it’s different.

[Logan]

These are my 1st set of queries for the conference call and the AGM, I will add more queries once they announce Q4 results. I might have missed adding few queries, I’ll review these once again today and send the updated list by EOD or tomorrow.

Thank you for organizing the conference call. We appreciate Mr.Raghunath, Mr.Kallol and the board for taking up the roles when the company is in trouble/crisis. We have prepared the following questions keeping all the shareholders in mind. We request you not to skip any of the questions and answer each and every question.

1.Please provide all we need to know about the Preferential Warrants/Shares topic. How much money did the company receive totally? If whatever SEBI says is true then how could the company betray shareholders like this? We trusted the company and the previous CEO Mr.Reddy a lot and had massive respect for him and we invested our hard earned money and part of our life savings because of that trust but seems like he took advantage of that and betrayed us and put the company and the shareholders in this bad position. The company lied to us that the people who were allotted stocks had paid the money. Those people were given stocks for free and dumped all those stocks as soon as their lock-in ended making thousands of crores of money (maybe more than 2-3k crores) whereas the small shareholders who bought the stocks in the company trusting the management/board have been made to go through hell from the past few years. We still haven’t recovered from last year’s shock and we are not seeing much progress from the company to address the issues. Still there’s no CEO, CFO and a CS and everyday we think the company might get delisted and we might lose all our hard earned money. How does the company justify these actions? How will you address SEBI’s observations?

2.We understand and respect Mr.Reddy’s role in growing and building the company and we have always appreciated that but how did the board let one person have so much control and give him free hand at everything? Why didn’t the board review basic checks? Why did the board leave everything in Mr.Reddy’s control?

3.As there’s talk in the market, it seems like everything was pre-planned. The company used the Mediamint and Audio Ad company acquisition news to attract small shareholders so that the people who were allotted stocks on preferential basis could dump their stocks to small retail shareholders. What is your comment on this observation?

4.How could the revenue and profits fall so much in last year’s 3rd quarter? A company making 1,800 crores the previous quarter made only 450 crores in the next quarter. You have said the reasons for that are the removal of the CEO and the war is Israel. We can understand the impact of the war but how did a tech company which has been in business for 25 years have all the dependency on one person and doesn’t have proper plans to protect the business when things like war happen? Being a multinational company with operations in many countries weren’t there proper back-ups? In the last few calls we asked the previous CEO of this very point i.e. what if he had to leave due to various reasons (including getting banned from being a director in BCG) and he had told us that the company had full plans in place if he were to leave and that nothing would impact the operations of the company (this was said in FY 23 Q4 conference call). How can the revenue fall suddenly and that too by so much? It’s hard to believe that a billion dollar revenue company relied on one person all these years and there were no reviews and checks to have less dependency on that person. What happened to all the plans which the company had if the CEO were to leave?

5.Why did the previous CEO gives stocks in the company to people who gave him personal loans? Isn’t this a betrayal of trust and doesn’t it look like he took shareholders and their hard earned money for granted? We also asked him about the PW allottees selling their stocks as soon as the lock-in ended and to that he had told us that he or the company doesn’t know anything about it but it’s very clear to us that he was involved with them from day one and knew everything about them selling.

6.Why isn’t there a progress happening on appointing people for the vacant and necessary roles? Are you waiting for the previous CEO and CFO to come back?

7.We never doubted the numbers of the company previously but after the SCN2 and the Q3 results, we are starting to have doubts. If everything was alright then why did previous executive director/promoter Mr.Vijay Kancharla dump almost all his stocks? Didn’t he see that the company he built had good future? If everything was alright then why did all the PW allottees dump all their stocks without even holding a single stock if the future of the company is bright? A company making thousands of crores in revenue couldn’t afford to pay back loans taken from various people and had to give stocks instead? Please share your comments on this.

8.How many employees are there in the company? How many are direct and how many are contract employees? How many are in each subsidiary? Why don’t we see about the employees on sites like LinkedIn etc?

9.What are your plans for reviving the business of the company and to have less dependency on the Israel team?

10.Why was the brand name of BCG’s products changed from Brightcom to OMS? Did SEBI’s order play a role?

11.What is the current progress on the JV with Consumables Inc? Is the JV dead?

12.Why isn’t the board appointing a top 4 auditor or one of the reputed auditors?

13.Small adtech companies show their products and sponsor many events but why doesn’t BCG (or its subsidiaries) do that? BCG has more revenues than companies like Magnite, Pubmatic etc but why doesn’t the company sponsor events? Won’t this bring extra business and revenues? Is this company’s strategy and that you want the company to be under the radar? Please explain the company’s strategy.

14.Why was Trenova started when you already have Brightcom and OMS brands? You’ve mentioned that Trenova will focus more on Europe and Asia. Doesn’t the company already have good business in Europe?

[Logan]

Yes @AdUp, I’m also seeing maturity in their communication. Not sure whether it’s mostly SKR or maybe there’s contribution from Mr.Raghunath and the independent directors also. I’m glad that they’ve finally understood the importance of taking actions and not just saying words. The attitude of taking action only after getting into trouble should also stop.

They’ve mentioned that they’ll hire a KMP and I’m guessing it’ll mostly be for the CS role and not for any other roles. It’ll be a pleasant surprise if they hire a CEO or a CFO or an executive director but my expectations are very low now.

[Logan]

It’s good to see the company sharing regular updates and more important than that is that these aren’t just random updates but actual progress happening. I’m guessing SKR is behind all this but Mr.Raghunath and the board also deserve credit and respect. Though both Mr.Raghunath and Mr.Kallol look like they are SKR’s people, both deserve respect for taking up the responsibilities when others didn’t (like Vijay Kancharla and Mr.Peshwa). They didn’t always do things quickly and are partly responsible for the trading suspension and keeping investors in dark for more than a year but recent actions seem like they are finally ready to be serious and take necessary steps to revive the company.

They’ve mentioned that there’ll be a conference call on the 19th. I’ll try to share the questions list here ASAP. I request everyone to share their questions so that we can send it to the management team at once (like we always did before conference calls).

Also, whoever gets the chance to talk with the management in the call, please ask them tough questions and make sure that you get proper answers from them.

[Logan]

@admin,

I can’t thank you enough for creating this forum where we can share our opinions, comments and learn many things about the company.

Thank you once again on behalf of all the investors of BCG.

[Logan]

It’s good that they’re sharing weekly updates but we’re not seeing any actions taken by them. From one month they’re saying that they are working with the exchanges to make sure that the trading suspension will be revoked but why isn’t it done yet?

They’ve mentioned that there’s a significant progress in publishing the SHP. I don’t understand what’s so complicated about that. This culture of complicating simple things should change at the company.

I guess the reason for delay in everything is because they’re placing all their hopes on getting a favorable verdict at the SAT but what if the SAT doesn’t give a favorable verdict? They want to show that there’s no BCG if there’s no SKR in it.

[Logan]

SEBI is complaining that BCG doesn’t share things properly but still the board/management isn’t acting on that. They should have shared the Adjudication Order on both the exchanges by now but again they failed to do it.

This is where the CS’s role is very important. SKR and Raju are trying to come back, okay, but why can’t they hire a CS at least? And another important point is, why haven’t they shared the SHP yet?

It’s like in football where the referee gives red cards and your players have to walk out. From the past one year we are seeing one red card after another.

I have high expectations on Mr. Ram Sharma and he looks like a serious person who wants to make actual changes in the company. Hope he gets us out of this situation.

[Logan]

I think @vidyashankar sir is obsessed with me and he uses my name to share false things. I’m saying it again, I don’t have access nor authorization to ban anyone from this forum and I don’t have access to delete anyone’s posts either. The admin banned him and if he has any complaints then he should contact the admin.

My support is for the company and not for any individuals. Let the honorable judge at the SAT decide what to do with the individuals who have caused the company to be in this situation. It’s one thing to use short cuts and another thing to do unethical and illegal things. Many entrepreneurs will do the former but SKR did the latter.

And the important point that’s so worrying is that almost all retail investors have supported him through thick and thin but he still did things which harmed retail investors. He can survive for years without being associated with BCG as he has the resources to do so but what about shareholders who have bought his company’s shares with their hard earned money and life savings? All retail investors bought the shares which were dumped on us by SKR’s friends (which they got for free).

I’ve seen both the cycles, people hating me because I was supporting SKR and people hating me because I don’t support SKR. They don’t understand that my support changes based on SKR’s actions and not based on people’s mood. I will start supporting him again if he does ethical things and if he takes decisions which will help small investors.

[Author]

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