[Logan]

When the SCN 2 came, I thought there’s no way for SKR to come back and the company had no option but to move on from him but even after one year I haven’t seen any real progress happening in the company (they share only those useless PPTs and other updates where they say that they care about shareholders but don’t take any action and use fancy words).

In my opinion (obviously these are guesses and not facts), everything will depend on SKR whether we like it or not. The company never intended to appoint any other person for CEO role (and for CFO role also). It’s just that they were buying time saying that they were/are looking for suitable candidates. If they were serious they’d have appointed someone by now or at least would’ve appointed someone on an interim basis. Both Mr Kallol and Mr Raghu are SKR’s friends and they’ll just follow him and I don’t think they are taking decisions on their own. Even the words/sentences that the company shares in those useless updates look like they are SKR’s.

A real leader wouldn’t have caused depression to lakhs of shareholders, he wouldn’t have let the company have complete dependency on him and most importantly he wouldn’t have taken reckless decisions and created such a mess but SKR is okay if lakhs of shareholders suffer, he doesn’t care about the negative publicity or suspension of trading and he’ll even be okay if the company goes out of business. It’s so embarrassing that the company hasn’t even paid the listing fees.

I think any of the below mentioned things might happen and obviously these are guesses.

1. SKR will get somewhat favorable verdict or temporary relief at the SAT and he will come back to his previous role as CEO and fixes the company only after getting back.
(If the company recovers then it’ll show how much selfish he is and to what extent he will go)

2. SAT will not give any favorable verdict to SKR but his friends will fix the company.
(This will show that SKR and his friends have good intentions and are ready to take care of shareholders)

3. SAT will not give favorable verdict and SKR and his friends will cause the company to delist.
(Buyback or other things will not work because they will show that the they were not able to recover the business and say it will go out of business etc)

4. SEBI/Government will intervene like it did with Satyam and arrange some party to buy BCG.
(Satyam was a major IT company which employed thousands of employees but BCG is not similar to Satyam and also, our country has grown a lot since then. There was a recession also happening when Satyam case happened)

5. Shareholders appoint an independent director and get the management to fix the company.

(I don’t see the current situation changing even if this happens as independent directors can’t change much)

6. Majority of the shareholders vote out the current board/management and appoint a new board and management.
(This is an herculean task for retail investors and this works mostly when there are big institutions holding shares. The hard fact is that no one cares about retail investors and this also involves money and resources which retail investors can’t afford)

Also, I don’t see any other company buying BCG because if anyone was interested, they’d have already bought it by now and many adtech companies went out of business or were sold for peanuts and no one came to rescue those companies. It’s a very dynamic industry which requires different skills which I’ve already mentioned many times before. Many people think adtech companies as typical IT companies but in reality it’s far from that. Every industry/company will have it’s pros and cons. I’m not saying adtech CEOs are better than other CEOs but I’m just saying running adtech companies requires different skills and mindset. IT is mostly stable and you get good free cash flow to do buyback or pay dividends but adtech companies should always invest in technology and will always have difficult period as one bad decision will make the company go out of business. Check what’s happening with Perion Network recently.

I’ll let SEBI and SAT decide what to do with SKR. I want the company to come out of the mess created by SKR and I want all shareholders to get good value for their stocks which they bought with their hard earned money. If SKR really cares about shareholders then he should let go of his ego and should take decisions which will benefit all shareholders.

[Logan]

The presentation looks good but I don’t see the difference between this and the old presentations about Brightcom. They started the subsidiary recently but they’re claiming that they are already working with leading brands/advertisers and publishers and are saying that in future their plan is to continue many things. Also, if those companies were already clients of Brightcom then are they agreeing to be partners with Brightcom (Trenova) in new regions – APAC and EMEA? If that is the case then why not use the Brightcom brand only?

Also, we want more details and not just PPTs. We saw many PPTs on audio ads but looks like it’s completely dead (as mentioned few times before).

We want details like how many people have they hired, how many employees are on roll, where’s the website, is the new company handled by the Israeli team (with 44 Ventures) or is it handled by a different team or a new team?

Most importantly, since it’s a new company, will they appoint a reputed auditor to audit the financials? Will they concentrate more on our country or only other parts of APAC?

[Logan]

I’d like to clearly mention that I will never support anyone who criticizes SEBI in BCG’s case. I respect and appreciated @vidyashankar’s efforts in making the management share results but I’ll never support his stance on SEBI.

Also, I don’t understand why someone would criticize SEBI when all the fault is with SKR. It’s him who went against the rule of law and committed fraud. He’s the one who submitted forged documents and he’s the one who lied about many things.

[Logan]

@vidyashankar sir, please be informed that I don’t have access nor authorization to delete your posts in this forum. Please don’t use my name to share something that’s false (I’m talking about one of your posts in MMB). If you need any clarifications or assistance regarding your posts then please reach out to the admin.

Also, I don’t have any agenda like you’re imagining. Is it fair that you can criticize the company/SKR whenever you want but we shouldn’t criticize them just because you have changed? Yesterday I criticized them because they were no updates or actions from them but today I appreciated them because they shared an update and showing intent to take actions. It’s simple as that. My views and opinions change based on actions taken by the management (or lack thereof).

I remember you were criticizing SKR and the company constantly before. You even were saying that you’d fight to get him extradited. What happened to all that?

What agenda did you have back then? So, is it only you can change but others can’t? You can change whenever you want but others should just follow you? We should be happy if you’re happy and we should be sad if you’re sad? What if you start criticizing the company again? Should we also do that?

It looks so silly and immature that if someone criticizes the company then they must be having some agenda. I don’t know when you started investing in BCG but most of us are veteran investors and some investors who are criticizing have held shares for more than a decade. We deserve to share our views and opinions when we have been through hell all these years. Every shareholder has put their hard earned money and we expect the company to look after the interests of shareholders. It’s the bare minimum that they can do.

I continue to respect you and appreciate your work. Thank you.

[Logan]

The company has shared a PPT about updates and plans, titled Weekly Updates. It’s good to see that they’ve applied for revocation of suspension of trading. They’ve also mentioned that they’re finalizing paperwork for conducting AGM. This is a good update.

This is what we need from them, regular updates on where the company stands and the progress happening. If they do this regularly and take actions then our frustrations will also reduce.

[Logan]

Yes, all the problem is happening because of shareholders who imagine everything and accuse innocent and down to earth SKR who didn’t do anything wrong. All the progress is happening in the company and the CEO, CFO, CS are all working very well, sharing everything with the auditor and auditors haven’t resigned, we’ve only imagined that just like we imagined many board member resigning. There’s no suspension of trading also as trading is happening everyday, it’s just that we are imagining that it’s not happening which is the actual problem.

SKR informed the market immediately when the FA news came, he didn’t lie about his shareholding, he didn’t give away free shares and his friends didn’t make thousands of crores not paying a single rupee, SKR didn’t do forgery. We all are imagining that.

Wait a minute, is it true or am I just imagining that someone else also was very critical on SKR very recently? They were calling SKR SOAB also. Even I’m very angry at SKR and very critical also but I haven’t used that type of word.

They’ve made a complete U-turn now. It’s noble when they criticize but it’s a crime when others do it. This holier than thou attitude is the reason for causing division.

[Logan]

It’s sad to see that one person’s (SKR) ego, selfishness and recklessness is creating division and enmity among shareholders. It’s good to have debate and different views and opinions but division and enmity among shareholders is never good.

More than 95% of my time as a shareholder of BCG has been spent without calm or peace and the past one year has been a nightmare and it’s all because of one man. I don’t know when this nightmare will end and when shareholders will see good days. I hope it comes sooner but that man (SKR) will not let it happen if he’s not in control and he’d be okay to see lakhs of shareholders suffer than do the right thing.

[Logan]

@vidyashankar sir, maybe my mind needs mending but who will mend SKR’s mind/brain which is what’s needed the most, he’s the person who was supposed to look after the interests of shareholders but seems like he’s looking only after his interests and he’s least bothered about shareholders, who will fix that?

Everyone knows that two wrongs don’t make a right but SKR is trying to do that now and and he does that all the time. He’s the type of person who sees a big hole when it’s dark (night) but goes and falls in it when there’s light (day time).

You’re saying that all old wrongs can be corrected but my point is why do that wrong thing in the first place? If it were the first time then I’d have understood but we have seen many such examples of him doing something wrong and try to correct it later. He has the experience with the LGS debt, Lycos case with Daum, etc but still he hasn’t learned anything from the past. Lycos case went on for more than 6 years and if we leave it to him, he’ll drag this also for years and the company will be like a headless chicken running all over the place with no direction.

If he really didn’t do anything wrong then he wouldn’t have resigned and would’ve appealed at the SAT immediately. Why did he take 3-4 months to appeal? If he appealed immediately then he would’ve continued for few months and could’ve reduced the dependency on him and the revenues and profits wouldn’t have declined so much.

His friends sold (dumped) all their shares at higher prices as soon as their lock in ended and lakhs of shareholders who bought those shares trusting him are suffering now and seems he’s least bothered about the plight of those shareholders.

They couldn’t even declare results on time, still there’s no update on shareholding pattern and many things are pending and we’re not seeing any intent from them on resolving the pending issues sooner.

Maybe I’m emotional and maybe this is also a rant but whatever I’m saying is not false. Anyways, everyone has their own opinions and you can ignore my opinions/rants if you think those don’t make sense. I only want what all the shareholders want – BCG coming out of the current situation and having good future. I know you’re putting efforts to get the company out of the current situation and you’ll always have my respect and appreciation for that. Thank you.

[Logan]

Thanks @vidyashankar sir.

I don’t know whether SKR is right or wrong but looking at the developments happening, it looks like he made a big mess of the whole situation instead of doing it in a simple way and it’s the shareholders who are suffering because of his actions. See how much bad press the situation has created and everyone is making fun of the company everywhere.

He should’ve been straight forward and running a global company, he should know that honesty is the best policy, and following that is the best approach. (It was the best approach 1000 years back and it’ll be the best approach 1000 years from now also).

I feel that he’s someone who shoots himself in the foot and later goes to the doctor and says everything is fine but the doctor might say otherwise and the doctor might say they may have to remove his leg. My point is, why do something which looks messy initially from day one and then try to fix it after executing it? He need not have to execute that only. He could’ve taken tens/hundreds of crores salary and paid back all his debt. He could’ve subscribed to ESOP and gotten good shareholding also. 2% holding without trouble and anxiety is better than 20% holding with lots of trouble and having the feeling all the time that you might lose it anytime because of the shortcut route taken.

[Logan]

Thanks @vidyashankar sir for the updates. I understand that you can’t share more details considering the sensitive nature of the topic.

I’d like to thank you and the other members of the BGSHA for all your efforts and hard work. Please contribute more in this forum and share details which you think can be shared.

[Logan]

Thanks @vidyashankar sir for the updates.

I have few follow up questions on the above. Request you to please share your opinions on those and also, if you don’t mind, can you please share more details on your interactions with the board/management?

(I know it’s not fair that I’m not doing anything but just sitting at home and asking you questions on few topics where you and others have put so much effort and hard work but it’d be very helpful for many shareholders and we will forever be grateful to you if you can share your opinions on those topics)

If SKR did everything legally then why did he resign when the order came? He could’ve replied to SEBI and appealed at the SAT immediately, right?

What about shares to himself through LLPs? Did he pay money to the company to get those shares?

There’s no law saying that you shouldn’t give shares for debt but here we’re talking about personal debt and not the company debt. If it were the company’s debt then he can argue but here he gave shares for people from whom he had taken personal loan. Why wasn’t this informed to shareholders?

Regarding forgery, he and the CFO both showed documents which were forged. For example, Mr Shankar Sharma paid money in the later months but they showed that they received money from him in March.

Another question on a different topic, I can see on NSE that the company hasn’t even paid the listing fee, do you know anything about this?

Thanks in advance.

[Logan]

@vidyashankar, I have few questions on PW and other topics, please share your opinions on those. It’d be better for everyone if you can answer these here in this forum instead of on telegram or other channels because most of us are not there on other channels.

1. I’m guessing SKR might show that the company received money from some of the PW allottees through him and that he gave them shares (as per confirmatory order issued by SEBI) but that is not fair for shareholders and isn’t ethical also. He can’t just give away shares to whoever he wants and a proper process has to be followed and should be approved by the shareholders. He didn’t want to give cash to them because that would hurt cash flow, okay that’s fair but why not give them shares following proper procedure? That money would be considered as debt and should’ve been converted to equity.

2. Why did he give away shares to people from whom he had taken personal loans? He was a CEO and chairman but that didn’t give him the right to do whatever he wanted. Like mentioned above, this is not fair or ethical.

3. If the company did receive money then why did he do forgery and not tell the truth?

4. You’ve mentioned that there’s no BCG without SKR but what if he doesn’t get a favorable verdict from SAT? What’s the plan B? Will the company go out of business in that case? Why didn’t he appoint or nurture someone to be his successor in case of bad events?

[Logan]

@vidyashankar, what if the SAT agrees with SEBI and bans SKR for say 3-5 years (or maybe more)? What plans does the company have in that case? What is the Plan B or C or D? Will the company go out of business?

The fraud which SKR has committed is not small and can’t be gotten away just by showing that there’s dependency on him. Can he show the money which the company didn’t receive for PWs?

The dependency shows one very important point which we have to consider, how can a person who has so much dependency on him commit such frauds knowing that if he gets caught the whole company will not survive? How can he be so reckless and put lakhs of shareholders in danger? I was one of the biggest supporters of SKR before but I can’t digest the fact that he’s blackmailing us and telling us that the company will survive only if he’s back. That’s not a trait of a good leader.

One realistic option which the company has is that it has to move on from SKR and considering the dependency on him and the interests of lakhs of shareholders, he can become a consultant now and depending on what judgement SAT/SEBI give, he can come back to the company later.

[Logan]

Thanks @sknatani and @Akhil.

The root cause for all the problems are the bad and stupid decisions taken by SKR. He’s not a good/real leader as any good leader would’ve made sure that the company would not be impacted if he/she were to leave. They would’ve made sure that the company had less dependency on them and never would’ve held shareholders hostage and blackmailed everyone saying that only if he/she comes back the company would survive.

What if SEBI didn’t remove him but he had to leave the company for other reasons? Like he had some health issues and couldn’t continue in his role, would he have done the same thing and held everyone hostage in that case too?

And see how dumb he is, he would’ve stayed in his role for at least few weeks/months if he had appealed at the SAT immediately after SEBI’s order came instead of doing it after months. I’m not saying he should’ve done it but many others who get such orders will mostly appeal immediately. SKR lives in his own fantasy world and thinks he can get away after committing such a big fraud.

I’m guessing that he will drag this like how he did with the Lycos case with Daum. He has no concerns about shareholders who have stood by him through thick and thin. Many have stayed with the company for more than 10 years. He’s selfish to the core and I don’t know how he gets sleep at night or how he can even eat food without feeling any guilt. Gods should punish him for cheating shareholders.

One year has passed since the order came and there’s zero progress. There’s no CEO, CFO or a CS and to distract us from all this they share updates like Trenova etc and use words like transparent, cleanliness, honest etc but take no actions.

[Logan]

Thanks @saach, @AdUp and @Akhil for the support, encouragement and kind words. Your messages encourage me to continue writing in this forum.

The post by that person looks silly and shows lack of understanding of the risks involved in investing. I don’t want any enmity with my fellow investors but sometimes people want to show their frustrations on someone and they’ll target me or others. Yesterday it was me but another day it’ll be someone else and that type of behaviour is very common in the investing world. But thankfully, most investors are not like that as they know and understand the complexities involved in investing. There’s no free lunch in this world – especially in the investing world and each and every investor has to put efforts to succeed and there’s no other option.

Sometimes people will just write randomly that I (or others) are wrong but they don’t tell us why we’re wrong and they base everything on their emotions and not practical thinking. All the information/data that I have shared here are available on public domain and I have not invented something on my own to give a positive or negative spin. I have talked about both positives and negatives of the company and I have shared many examples of adtech companies failing and have mentioned that BCG would also end up like that if right decisions are not taken at the right time but people forget that and concentrate only on other things. SKR/Company’s recent actions is an example of not taking right decisions and it puts everything at risk and creates uncertainty.

The person (SKR) who was supposed to look after the interests of all the shareholders has betrayed us and now we have to figure out what to do with our investments. We have only two options – sell and forget the stock or try to figure out whether there is value in the company. To try to figure out whether there’s value, we can do it on our own or with a group of link minded people with common goals and I believe that the latter is the better option because one person can’t know everything about everything and different opinions will give us more ideas and solutions. We need to base our decisions on solid research and not just by looking at messages and basing all our decisions on those messages – positive or negative but some people don’t understand that and it’s not our fault if they have that attitude.

[Logan]

@explorer, thank you for your suggestions sir. Please do share all the facts sir so that I and others can come to conclusion and we can have all our discussions based on the facts shared by you or better I and others can stop writing in this forum completely. No one will waste their time speculating this and that.

Please remember sir that like you, even we are humans with emotions, like you, even we have put our hard earned money and we can also share our opinions just like you. I just want to know, how much of your posts are facts sir, is it 100% ? If it isn’t 100% (or at least 50%) then even you are also speculating, right sir?

The main point which you are conveying is this – if you’re positive about the company, we should be positive too and if you’re negative, we should be negative but you are saying it in a different way, that’s it. You forget all the facts when you’re happy/positive and I’m sure sir that if the same stock had quoted at higher prices you’d be very positive now and it would be you who would be telling everyone that BCG will be like Nvidia, not me. I might not be as brilliant as you but I’m not an idiot to say something like that, that too looking at the current pathetic situation of the company. (I wouldn’t have BCG with Nvidia even if everything was alright)

Also, where in my previous post have I mentioned something that would raise hopes? I have clearly mentioned that SKR is manipulating and making all shareholders suffer. In your message you have mentioned that you hope that there’s value left in the company but it’s bad if I or others hoping about the same?

In the past, you were positive sometimes and negative sometimes but did I ever tell you to stop writing?

Regarding my messages and buying or selling, that can be said about your messages also, right? Even you don’t have all the proofs/facts and you change your views based on your moods which I have rarely done. I have clearly mentioned every time that if anyone has any doubts then it’s better to contact SEBI. I have never given any targets or speculated where the price might go. From day one I have always mentioned that BCG has very bad corporate governance.

And sir, one very important point is that it was me who suggested that small investors form an association and make sure that our voices are heard. When others were asking for dividends, I was asking for big 4 auditors. Being a long term shareholder, I know what’s important and what’s not and I have always cared for shareholders sir.

One humble request sir, even though we might have different opinions, it’s always better to stay united and fight for our rights as shareholders instead of targeting one another which looks very silly. I don’t want to have any arguments with my fellow investors who have been through hell all these years.

[Logan]

First of all, I want to thank the members of BGSHA and @radhutheoptimist for their efforts in making the management announce results. Without them, I think the board (aka SKR) would’ve delayed the results further.

Regarding the results, like I previously mentioned, SKR will hold us hostage until he gets back to his previous positions in the company. I think it’s a long shot but maybe that’s the reason he’s asking for adjournment in the SAT as he might be negotiating with SEBI for a settlement. He might show that he gave money to the company and that he converted it to stock etc.

I had previously guessed they’d show decline in both revenue and profits (after reading the Livemint article) but didn’t except it to be this much. I always thought that at least OMS will be independent and others will be under SKR’s control (like the American subsidiaries) but SKR is showing us that he cares only about himself and is willing to let lakhs of shareholders suffer.

BCG makes money buying media space of publishers to run ads for advertisers. This might not be correct but I’m guessing they didn’t buy any media space in the last quarter after SKR left (removed) and that’s the reason the revenues are less. They want to show complete dependency on him. OMS people might have told their clients that the company is undergoing restructuring and to add to that there was a war in Israel also (they changed the name from Brightcom to OMS which shows restructuring).

There are many opinions which we can form on the latest developments. If you believe the numbers to be true then SKR/company can reverse this somewhat by putting more efforts and bring the company back to normalcy. SKR has done that before also. Few years back (till 2021), the results were flat/stagnant for many years but the revenues and profits almost doubled in 2022. Maybe he was waiting for the approvals for the PWs. And if you don’t believe the numbers to be true then you will think that this can’t be reversed and SKR previously had only done it on paper and nothing is real. I hope and pray that everything gets back to normal. Like I’ve said many times before, I invested in BCG because of the Israeli leadership and because of SKR and now I stayed invested (even after seeing horrible things happening at the company and to its stock) because of the Israeli leadership. All the respect I had for SKR is gone. It might come back a little if he stops acting selfish and if he starts genuinely caring about all the shareholders and not just by his words.

[Logan]

One or two times it’s okay if the company doesn’t walk the talk but they do it every single time. Postponement of today’s board meeting shows that they only do the talk and not take actions. The meeting was not for this FY results but for last and that too Q3 of last FY. They were supposed to share it 6 months back but even now they are delaying it.

There are other important questions too, why was Kallol moved to a new subsidiary? He could’ve been in the parent company also. Now the parent company has only one executive director and what if he resigns tomorrow?

Positive changes happen when they acknowledge negative things about them and take action on it. Not just by saying this and that all the time using fancy words. Actions speak louder than words.

They have mentioned in the presentation that Trenova represents so many things (transparency, relevance, cleanliness etc) but what does the actions (or lack thereof) of the company and SKR represent? It represents betrayal, laziness, carelessness, inhumanity towards shareholders.

[Logan]

@vstvm, the company (mostly SKR) has the habit of hyping everything initially and become completely silent later. We have noticed that with Mediamint and audio ad deals. I find SKR to be a person who will mostly talk (90% of the time) and do the actual work only 10% of the time. You know how much they hyped the audio ad company and later said it’s a JV. They hyped it for over a year but all that was unnecessary if they were not sure of buying the entire company. Did he use that news so that his evil friends could sell the shares or was it a genuine thing? Only God knows.

Other companies will do the work (with or without hype) and get deals done but you can surely bet that any deal or update from BCG/SKR will rarely come to fruition and will always take a different turn.

I have asked about this in few of the conference calls also and he always used to say that they took decisions looking at the future. But my point is, why announce something and change it later? Things can be done without announcing initially and the announcement can be done when they are sure of executing it.

I never wanted BCG to focus more on Lycos and never gave much importance to it but I wanted them to get it done and dusted but what’s the progress on that? As expected it takes a different turn every time.

Entering into APAC is very important which should’ve been done years ago and it’s a very exciting update also and I’d be the happiest person if they walk the talk but history shows us that it’s better to have less expectations (I’m guessing the JV with Consumable Inc is completely dead and not sure whether it will be revived without SKR. So, it’s difficult to expect much from the new announcement as we don’t know what turn it may take).

I had massive respect for SKR and always thought that he’d be the right person to take BCG to new heights since it’s very difficult to manage adtech companies but his betrayal and selfishness overshadowed other good qualities of him. I don’t think the situation will change completely since Mr.Raghu is nothing but SKR’s proxy.

[Logan]

Thanks @saach.

I don’t know what SKR has in his mind and why they’ve decided to keep a different name. I think OMS is mostly independent (maybe the operations are under the control of 44 Ventures people) and SKR might not want to disturb that and he doesn’t want them to get involved in the mess created by him.

Regarding past name changes etc, BCG had to change the name twice because of the circumstances the company was in. (Other time when it changed to Lycos, it was to utilise the brand name of Lycos which was very big that time). It could no longer use USA Greetings while doing digital marketing since you’ll not get many clients, everyone would think the company as a greetings card company and not a technology company. Wipro’s original name was Western India Vegetable Products Limited and the company wouldn’t have got many clients if it used Vegetable in its name while doing IT/software/consulting/services business and it wouldn’t have been a major player in the IT sector. No matter how hard they tried, it wouldn’t have worked this well if they kept Vegetable in their name, people would assume it might be a commodity company or a vegetable oil company. I’m not comparing BCG with Wipro but only mentioning the obvious points.

Then again it couldn’t use the Lycos name because the company lost the case to Daum. It’ll be illegal to use the Lycos name.

I’m not supporting SKR or anyone here but name changes isn’t that serious in the tech world. Many companies do that and it’s very common. Sometimes they create products with new name or a new platform and give a different name. Recently Tremor International became Nexxen, Magnite previously was known as Rubicon and even Yahoo was changed to Oath Inc etc, Perion was previously known as IncrediMail. In BCG’s case it’s not like they want to bury the past like few fraud companies do, they mention about being called Lycos Internet in each and every notification. They’ll mention Brightcom Group (Previously Lycos Internet Limited) in most of the communications.

There are other serious matters which people have to give importance to like the management not providing complete details to the auditor, the company not appointing CEO or CFO or even a CS etc.

[Author]

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