[Logan]

@odysee, my fear is that SKR is looking at things only from his perspective and is least bothered about the shareholders and the actual well being of the company. He’s highlighting shareholders suffering only to make case for himself as his only agenda is to get back to the company.

If this drags on and if they don’t focus on the business then we all will suffer and looks like SKR is willing to destroy the company he built from scratch instead of handing over the responsibility to an able person.

I don’t think Sebi will be okay with him coming back to his previous roles even with a hefty fine as it would set a bad example. Imagine thousands of companies doing the same and getting away with whatever they do. It’s SKR who cheated lakhs of shareholders and it’s because of him the shareholders are suffering and not because of Sebi. If he really cared about shareholders like he’s pretending he is then he wouldn’t have given away crores of shares for free in the first place and he wouldn’t have let those people dump their shares on retail investors when the lock in ended. One of the main reasons the stock crashed so much is because those evil people dumped their shares not caring about the value.

In every conference call he lied to us about not knowing why PW holders dumped their shares. He didn’t inform about FA, and the investigation on PW allotment.

[Logan]

I don’t know whether it’s only for me or for everyone else but they’ve removed audited financials of all the subsidiaries from BCG’s website.

And, recently they had upgraded Brightcom’s website (not the parent company’s website) where it looked good and details of all the important profiles were mentioned but they’ve changed that also and there’s nothing important in that now.

SKR is trying to do something here. My fear is that if he doesn’t get what he wants then he may find cunning ways to sell important subsidiaries and he may announce that the parent company can’t function anymore etc. My biggest fear is losing OMS, Israel. The main reason I stayed invested is because of Brightcom’s presence in Israel (and because I trusted SKR) and if SKR does something to OMS then it’ll be like kicking shareholders when they’re already down.

(I’m repeating this again)
Many times he has called shareholders as family and when the second SCN came, he told us (through notification on exchanges) that they’ll make sure that the company, and the shareholders will navigate through this tough situation etc but if he does anything different and if he thinks only about him forgetting lakhs of shareholders then he’ll be one of the cruelest persons to have lived. I know it’s hard for someone to leave their company which they’ve started from scratch but it’s him who decided to do all those shenanigans and lied to everyone and he has to respectfully step down and leave the company to someone who is honest. I want this drama to end as it’s taking a toll on my health.

[Logan]

@Saach, I think both VK and Mr Peshwa don’t want to face the shareholders when AGM happens. Maybe Mr Peshwa doesn’t want to jeopardize his career or future opportunities by being associated with a tainted company and VK being VK, is running away from responsibilities. It’s common that employees and directors quitting when companies are in trouble. They do it for many reasons – to escape from the situation (if they are involved in scams), to make sure not to jeopardize their careers by being associated with tainted companies, some will not be very involved in the operations/decisions, some don’t want to take more responsibilities etc etc.

Regarding Mr Shankar Sharma, I think the situation will be bad for any shareholder if he/she can’t sell their shares whenever they want. Mr Sharma has said many times that this is a 4am stock and the future is uncertain and that he won’t be emotional with his investments. I don’t think anyone has read the petition filed by BCG, expect Mint and few others and Mint is highlighting the thing mentioned in the petition which will interest more people. Mentioning Mr Sharma will get more highlights than mentioning other details.

I don’t know or can’t guess what SKR really wants. Like mentioned before, he didn’t appeal at the SAT when Sebi’s order came which would’ve given him more time back then but he’s doing it now (and hired top lawyers too). Not sure why he waited 4 months for that.

[Logan]

Now VK has resigned and the company/board is left with no executive directors. I knew this (and Mr.Peshwa’ resignation) would happen as I’ve never seen VK involved in anything. I just saw his LinkedIn profile where he has mentioned he worked at BCG only till November 2023. Mr.Peshwa distanced himself from the company as soon as SEBI’s order came. Both the founders are responsible for the current pathetic state of the company and have caused the company to lose respect and one is running away from taking responsibilities when shareholders needed him the most. What did they get at the end by doing all this? Only time will tell. I’m praying that it’ll turn out good for all the shareholders.

I’m not understanding what SKR’s angle is. He resigned immediately after SEBI’s order came and didn’t appeal at the SAT but is appealing now. Now he has appointed few top lawyers in the country to represent the company and of course represent him as well. I’m guessing the PW allottees (who deserve to go a place worse than hell) paid the required money once they started dumping their shares (immediately after the lock in period ended). So, I’m guessing SKR may use that and show that the money was paid later etc. If they haven’t paid and still if he’s appealing then SKR will be the stupidest person in the world.

These are my opinions and should not be taken for buy or sell calls. I hope and pray that sufferings of all the shareholders will end soon and we’ll have good years ahead.

[Logan]

There’s a saying that someone’s character will not change even after they die and SKR is the prime example of that. He had many opportunities to correct himself and make the company more transparent but he never did that. Most of his shares were sold but he lied to us for years, FA was initiated in September 2021 but he chose to inform us in March next year, same with the FA on preferential shares, we didn’t know about it until Sebi issued the interim order/SCN. Satish Cheeti who was the head of audio division must have left the company in April but SKR or the company never informed us, recently, the board members are signing all the documents instead of the company secratary and I’m guessing he must have also quit because of feeling betrayed by SKR.

SKR at the helm is like Newton’s first law, (An object at rest remains at rest, and an object in motion remains in motion at constant speed and in a straight line unless acted on by an unbalanced force). Only when sebi put maximum pressure, SKR started showing some improvements.

If he has any shred of humanity left, he’ll make sure that he doesn’t drag the company and its shareholders with him when he goes down. It was him who decided to reward his rich friends and made sure they made hundreds/thousands of crores not paying a single rupee at the expense of retail shareholders who put their hard earned money and life savings. He’s the one who chose to do forgery instead of telling what the truth is. He’s the one who lost his shares and lied to us for years. He should take responsibility for his actions and should handover the company to an honest and able person who will look after shareholders best interests.

[Logan]

Is there a way to get access to that petition filed by BCG?

I seriously don’t know when this drama will end. SKR is making shareholders lives miserable and looks like he won’t learn his lessons and instead of resolving the issue, he may have other plans. It’s hard to imagine Sebi or SAT saying okay to him coming back as chairman/CEO and I’m not sure what he really wants.

(Previously SKR had said that he or anyone in the company will make sure that the company will grow no matter what but now he’s saying that the survival/existence of the company is at stake)

It’s really sad to see the current state of affairs at the company. No one is there in the top management posts and every responsibility is placed on the independent directors. SKR took our trust for granted and is killing the dreams of lakhs of shareholders who trusted him through thick and thin.

SKR, along with other main promoter, VK, made us fools and now VK is also slipping away silently when he was supposed to take more responsibilities.

I hope and pray that we come out of this mess created by SKR and see bright days ahead.

[Logan]

@odysee, you are 100% right and I agree with you on all the points completely. I’ve highlighted these concerns in my recent posts as well.

SKR has put everyone in trouble with his reckless, selfish and stupid decisions and now it will take time to get out of the mess. It’s too much for the current independent board members to handle and to make matters worse, the executive board members are not bothered and seems don’t care for the well being of the shareholders and the company.

I’m not excepting much from the company/board, and don’t have any other choice but to be ready for both best and worst outcomes. We have only two options – one is wait till the board get the company out of the mess and the other is shareholders should get together and appoint board members who later will clean up the mess. Also, these two depend on how much of the business is real. The former will take time and the latter is very difficult to do.

BCG’s management, which was mostly SKR, is known only for talking and not taking actions. This has to change and the board should make sure not to appoint a same person for both the CEO and chairman posts. The CEO’s main task (other than running the operations) should be to take the board’s orders and the board’s only job should be to look after shareholders’ best interests.

I had great respect for SKR but he did the worst thing to shareholders and he should not get away with it. He should be sent to jail and the company should come out of his influence and not be associated with him. He may have built the company but that didn’t give him the right to play however he wanted. I still can’t digest the fact that his rich friends made hundreds of crores (maybe thousands) not even paying a single rupee and retail investors who had so much trust in him and the management became poor everyday. If the business is real then the board and we (all the shareholders) should make sure that the company is run professionally and follow each and every rule and regulation.

[Logan]

Many people want binary solutions for everything and they expect only those scenarios to happen i.e. either boom or bust but people who understand probabilities will not have the same opinions. For positive people the stock will always reach higher value and they influence others to take decisions based on their positivity and for negative people, it’s always bust and the stock will either go to zero or end up getting delisted.

Some people say that the stock is worthless and the company has zero business and it’s value is zero but they also say that SKR is stopping the stock reach it’s true potential. If the stock is worthless and if the business is zero, how does SKR’s or other people’s actions matter? It will eventually be worthless right? Sooner or later SKR will go and the sooner that happens the better is for everyone and everything depends on the value of the business. Though the CEO/chairman post will also matter, if there’s no business then appointing a great CEO will not matter. The company/board can’t afford to make past mistakes again and if they have sense then they’ll make sure to be more serious about governance.

What we can understand from people who influence is that they recently sold most of their shares and are hell bent on creating negativity. I’m someone who doesn’t care much about these people but what I don’t like is that they will influence others to take actions just because they bought or sold. They’ll not hesitate to spread fake news. They can’t digest other people making money in a company/stock where they haven’t. This is not just for BCG but for all the stocks. You can also observe that many people will be very positive and they’ll wait for sometime and if the stock doesn’t move or if there are no developments then they’ll sell all their shares and start talking negatively. That is why I tell everyone not to trust these people (both positive and negative) and take decisions based on your study or after checking with concerned authorities like SEBI.

Like I mentioned in my previous post, there are many scenarios that may happen. If business is real (either OMS or 100%) then SKR will deliberately delay things not caring about shareholders. SKR will drag it for years as we have seen with other cases, especially the Lycos case with Daum.

Everyone treated Daum case very seriously and brought the perception that BCG will go up only if Daum case is resolved, but was that the case? I have told many times that Daum case is mostly for image purpose and not important for the business.

The recent case is not like the Daum case as there is fraud involved. This is very serious and the board/management should be more serious and they should handle things carefully. They should forget SKR and should start looking after the business and the shareholders. If the business is real then they have a very good opportunity in the market.

(These are my opinions, please don’t take these for buy or sell decisions)

[Logan]

I’m not excited about the new audit firm and looks like the board has hired an auditor similar to old auditors. One thing which we can be somewhat sure is that the new auditors will be very careful because any wrongdoing will result in them losing their business and they can’t be a rubber stamp because SEBI and other authorities will be watching closely and also, the new auditors will have to engage with SEBI regularly because of the situation the company is in right now. They can miss few things but can never miss the obvious things (like things which the whole market knows or wants to know). The board should know that the auditors can quit anytime if the company doesn’t provide required information and this in turn will put more good type of pressure on the company to give proper and required information to the auditors, failing to do so can result in the the auditor giving negative comments or them resigning. So, the board/management should be very careful and not become SKR’s rubber stamp once again.

One point that I’d like to highlight and appreciate is that the independent board members (especially the women directors) are taking more responsibility than executive members like Mr.Vijay and Mr.Peshwa. When others are not taking responsibility, these members are at least taking and didn’t quit also. (I’m not sure whether it’s SKR’s remote control but if it’s not then it’s a good thing)

The structure from now on should be that there be a separate CEO and a chairman as we don’t want the situation repeating and giving one person more control (and responsibility). The board/management should also appoint a COO like other companies do, especially tech companies.
The above will bring transparency and the responsibility, and the control will be distributed. Since SKR controlled and handled everything, he took advantage and appointed whoever he wanted (like the previous auditors, CFO, board etc). It’ll cause problems to the company, employees and shareholders if a person who controls everything is fired, or if they quit etc.

The DNA of the whole company should also change, every time (whether it is SKR or the current board), they seem to take action only at the last second, or when forced to do so. They had time to share info on Q2 results but shared only at the last possible moment, same with the appointment of auditors, etc. This has to change ASAP and we should start putting pressure on them.

Regarding stock price movements or valuation, please be careful about people who try to influence others – both positive and negative. Positive people will say that everything will be alright and that the stock will go up by this much and that much and the negative people will say that it will go to single digits or will get delisted etc. No one knows what will happen and everything depends on the actions taken by the company/board and SEBI. There is disinformation on both the sides (positive and negative) – like some people said that SEBI ordered the company to appoint a Nifty 50/100 auditor. This was never the case as SEBI didn’t order BCG to appoint a statutory auditor who has audited Nifty 50/100 as SEBI only directed the company to get a peer review of its financials from a Nifty 50/100 auditor. Peer review done by an auditor and statutory auditor doing audits are different. I’m not defending the company appointing the current auditor but I’m only highlighting the obvious point which some don’t understand. Also, as everyone knows, I have always said that I wanted the company to appoint a big 4 auditor from day one. SKR never took that seriously because he couldn’t do whatever he wanted if any big 4 was appointed.

Many people think the scenario will either be this or that but actually, there are many scenarios.

– Board does nothing and will let everything get wasted and the stock crashes.

-All the revenues and profits are fake and the stock crashes.

-At least OMS and few other subsidiaries are real and the company might recover from this crisis after the board comes clean and takes decisions complying with all the regulations. The new management cleaning up the mess and looking after what’s real and making it grow.

-All the revenues and profits are real and the board takes quick decisions and appoints new management ASAP and cleans up the mess created by SKR and the company quickly and complies with all the rules and regulations.

These are only a few scenarios that might or might not happen and there are other possibilities too. All these require patience and one has to be okay with the likelihood of any of these or other scenarios happening. Buying and selling should be done either if you want or don’t want to be in those situations or after checking/consulting with SEBI and other authorities. Positive people will influence us to buy just because they have bought and negative people will influence us to sell just because they have sold. Most of them will not care whether we take good decisions or not and all they care about is their self interests. One has to have inner peace with whatever decisions he or she takes. The situation would’ve been way different if the company had debt.

One more important point is that I’m not sure why ED didn’t raid PCN and associates. They raided P Murali and Co but I’ve not seen news of ED raiding PCN. The PW fraud happened when PCN were the auditors and SEBI and other authorities should arrest PCN people for failing to check the fraud and rubber stamping everything.

Thankfully SKR did the right thing and resigned and didn’t object to SEBI’s order. Though a different case might happen in the courts, at least he took SEBI’s order and stepped down. Let SEBI and authorities decide what to do with him and other culprits. If he really cares about the company which he started, and its shareholders who have trusted him through thick and thin then he will not do anything that harms the two (or impacts the two negatively). SKR wasted a great opportunity and he’s the person responsible for that. He could’ve achieved so much in an ethical way but he chose the wrong path so he should be punished and he should live with that. He was good at many things related to technology and its trends but didn’t use it in a good way. Recently Perion started audio related ads, almost all companies are investing heavily on AI and big companies are investing in quantum technology. SKR had the knack of understanding these things well and that’s why I had respect for him but the way he lied to shareholders (and the authorities), the way he used the parent company as a thing to play with, and the backstabbing that he did to shareholders made me lose all the respect and I started hating him for causing harm to lakhs of shareholders. What makes me sad and angry at the same time is that SKR knew that all the shareholders of his company were from poor or middle class families who put their hard earned money and some have put their life savings too but he still betrayed us. He called shareholders as family many times and I just want to ask him whether he’d do the same to his family. Personally, I’d rather die than put my family (and the people who trusted me) in the position that he put shareholders in. Being in a responsible position he should’ve known the consequences of his actions. Like I’ve said before, everyone would’ve supported him if he took an ethical path but the path that he chose can never be forgiven.

[Logan]

@Longplay55, the funds which are buying BCG are passive funds, meaning, they are investing in BCG only because it is part of a particular index and once the company is removed from the index, they’ll start selling immediately. Don’t take this as completely positive.

We need active funds to buy BCG but at the current state, no one will be interested and it requires new management to come on board, clean up the mess etc and it’ll take time. Our first focus should be to check whether the board/management are willing to clean up the mess or are they just sleeping and not caring enough and deciding only when forced to do something or are they purposefully delaying and letting SKR control things.

As of now, it looks like it’s either the second or third and looks like a long road ahead and not a T20 match but a test match where we are put to follow on. We need a Rahul Dravid or a VVS Laxman to rescue us and get us back into the game. We have to remember that SKR is stupidly optimistic and I think he’s hoping he still can control the company. If we see the history, he’s always willing to go to courts instead of taking quick actions. Sebi should step in and should order the board to appoint new management or Sebi themselves should appoint a new board.

[Logan]

I expected few key people leaving the company because of SKR’s careless/reckless decisions and I’m not surprised seeing Mr.Nilendu resigning. SKR shot himself in the foot and he has put shareholders in a difficult situation. The board (including Mr.Nilendu) was supposed to check all these on behalf of shareholders but they just rubber stamped everything. Now we have to rely on a new person (Dr.Radhakishore) who will not know the operations properly and who might need time to understand the complete situation. I don’t know what the other co founder is doing. Since he doesn’t have much holding, maybe he’s not caring.

A strong leader is the need of the hour and I hope Dr.Radhakishore is one and I will really appreciate and will forever be grateful if he and the board take decisions which will bring the company and its shareholders out of the mess created by SKR.

Like mentioned before, two good things which SKR did was – one is acquiring OMS (and keeping it somewhat independent) and the other is keeping the company debt free. If at least OMS numbers are legit then the new management can turn things around if they take proper decisions. I hope and pray that we will come out of this situation and that we all see good days ahead.

(These are my opinions and should not be taken for buy or sell decisions)

[Logan]

@Longplay55, sorry for the late reply.

Recently I saw 44 Ventures LinkedIn post where they had mentioned that they (including their group companies like OMS, Boldwin, Literally Media, Onomagic etc) continue to support their global clients and that they are resilient and unwavering. I’m not sure how much the recent events impact OMS but it’s good to see that the company is committed to both its customers and the country of Israel. Since these are mostly tech companies, they can adapt to different situations as we saw during COVID times. Most of the staff working there are in sales and R&D. The operations and support team is in India.

What I’m worried about is the leadership vacuum in the parent company. The people who were supposed to protect us really backstabbed us (SKR, the auditors and the CFO) and others who were supposed to take responsibility during tough times are walking away (like Mr.Peshwa). I really appreciate Dr.Radhakishore Pandrangi taking up the director’s post and as per recent updates from the company, that he is involved in appointing the next CEO and CFO. Being a new person to the company, the task will be hard for him, especially when the two senior most people are not available (CEO and CFO).

The root cause for every situation is SKR. He took everything for granted and because of his stupid actions, everyone is suffering. He was so careless and stupid with the PW issuance and no one can figure out how he thought he could get away that too in this digital world where getting confirmation on transactions will take mere seconds. I knew that he was careless and lazy but the thing that he does every time i.e. doing something without realizing the consequences is the worst part. He did it with the PW issuance, SHP, bonus shares, and he thought of the parent company as a thing that he could play with. Many bad people will be pure evil but SKR is stupid evil. He could’ve avoided so many things and everyone could be happy but he chose to do those stupid things anyway because he’s that arrogant and careless. He didn’t see shareholders as human beings but as objects. He was so arrogant that when asked about few of his stupid actions, he was dismissing those and replied giving nonsense justifications. And we had plead and beg just to get basic information about the company. I always thought that he would change his arrogant attitude as the company grew because the scrutiny would be more but the progress was very slow. By the time one issue gets resolved, we could bet that he’d create another bigger issue.

I’m not sure whether the board is really putting efforts in searching the new CEO and CFO and the auditors. We should put maximum pressure on the company till they appoint CEO and CFO and the new management should put efforts to get rid of the mess created by SKR. If the board has any common sense, they will appoint new people before SKR gets arrested. They should direct him to give proper handover and explain the workings of everything in the company because he was handling everything.

The day after the second SCN came, the company shared a notification where they mentioned these –
-We fully understand that news of such nature may raise concerns
among our valued shareholders, and we wish to reassure the right course of action
will be taken.
-Upon receipt of the order, we immediately set up a dedicated internal team to
thoroughly review the details and implications. The company is evaluating potential
action courses to address this situation effectively. We are in consultation with legal
experts to ensure that all our responses are in the company’s and its shareholders’
best interest.
-We thank you for your continued faith in our company. We will navigate through this
situation, keeping our long-term vision and the interests of our shareholders at the
forefront.

All the above are mostly SKR’s words and don’t know much we can trust those but if the company/board is serious then they should do whatever they can to protect shareholders and stop treating us like objects. Lakhs of shareholders are counting on them to take necessary actions and they should not disappoint us again.

[Logan]

@T9C, I don’t think it’s that simple. SKR is the main culprit here. He chose rubber stamp CFOs and a board which just agreed with him on all the decisions he took and which never questioned him. He also appointed dummy auditors. We were asking him to appoint big 4 audit firm for years but he never took that seriously because he couldn’t do whatever he wanted if he appointed them. It’s hard to assume that SKR got fooled by the auditors and I think it’s the other way around. This is not to say that the auditors are innocent, obviously they are also equally responsible but my point is SKR is the main villian here. He used the parent company to play however he wants and because of him, we are paying the price.

Look at few of his decisions and you’ll see that they were the worst. He is someone who doesn’t want to talk anything negative about him or the company yet does stupid things that bring negativity. He and promoters chose to hide their actual shareholding and kept shareholders and the market in the dark. Okay, he lost his shareholding and chose the backdoor entry option and even though we all were angry with him for doing that, he at least should’ve done it in a good way but there also he screwed up and did a scam and the company didn’t receive a single rupee for giving away crores of shares which were worth hundreds (or thousands) of crores when those shares were sold. He was aware of those shares getting sold but lied to us again saying that he didn’t know why those allottees sold their shares.

He’s a pathological liar and at the end chose to do forgery instead of admitting his actions. He betrayed and backstabbed lakhs of shareholders who believed in him and trusted him through thick and thin. Shareholders trusted him so much that they would’ve been okay if he got crores of shares for free through stock options like how other CEOs get. We would’ve gladly approved rewarding the management if they chose legal and ethical path but the path they chose can never be forgiven.

[Logan]

Thanks @odysee.

Personally, I’m preparing for different scenarios. Like mentioned before, the main reason I stayed invested in BCG is because of its Israeli subsidiary (and also because I trusted SKR). If you have noticed, SKR was mostly right on many technological trends. He was right on AI, programmatic advertising, smartwatches, Quantum computing etc and Israel will be at the forefront in most of these (along with silicon valley). Just a month back I wouldn’t have believed the revenues and profits were fake but after SKR’s shenanigans and backstabbing shareholders, I don’t have choice but to prepare for that possibility. I don’t think all of the revenues and profits are fake because from the Ybrant days to Lycos and then to Brightcom days, there are many things which we can consider where it shows the company has genuine business and at least 50% is real. Top publishers use Brightcom’s services.

Like mentioned in my previous post, when OMS was acquired, it was one of the top 10 ad networks in the world. It had top clients and had continued to expand after Ybrant acquired it. VoloMP also has a good name in bulk email business. So I’m considering OMS and VoloMP’s revenues and profits as real so I came to the conclusion that at least 40-50% will be real. In Latin America, I’ll consider the Argentina part as real and a part of Max Interactive to real (Australia and APAC region). And since EY has audited OMS, the chances of inflating revenues and profits there are less.

These are my opinions and I’m not forcing anyone to follow the same and no one should consider it for buying or selling decisions.

[Logan]

I agree with @odysee on both (1.Dividend and 2. Board members not aware of SKR’s actions).

In my opinion (maybe I’m wrong on this), from day one, SKR was the main person (and maybe the only person) who controlled the the standalone parent company and almost everyone else was either his rubber stamp (both the previous CFOs) or not involved too much in important decision making things (board members etc). I’m not sure how much he’s involved in all the subsidiaries but I suspect he was more involved in the American subsidiaries and less involved in the Israeli subsidiary (in one of the conference calls he had mentioned that he takes his salary from one of the American subsidiaries and I’m not sure which) and that’s why I said in one of my previous posts that personally, I’m at a stage where I’ll be okay with a 50-50 scenario also (50 positive and 50 negative where in atleast 50% of the revenues and profits are genuine and I’m not forcing it or expecting everyone to follow my approach).

When people do scams, they make sure that more people don’t know about it so that it won’t leak. My guess is that Mr Peshwa Acharya wouldn’t have joined BCG if he knew that SKR was doing scam. Maybe I’m wrong on this. Whoever is involved should be punished.

On different topics and control etc, the picture was clear in Ybrant/Lycos days but after Brightcom was started, it’s different. When OMS (Oridian, Israel) was acquired, it was one of the top 10 ad network companies (back then ad tech companies were called as ad networks) in the world and had a big presence in Europe. Max Interactive was also big in Australia.

Dream ad companies were also comparatively big in Latin America region and the group was the exclusive partner for Microsoft when it came to online advertising of Microsoft products.

(Ybrant was also the exclusive partner for Microsoft in our country many years back).

Many talented people like Jacob Nizri, Udi Jacobi, Gal Ekstein, Emanuel Goldschmidt, Gali Arnon etc were involved in Ybrant’s operations.

When BCG/Lycos was crashing everyday, I was very worried so I tried to check as much I could on the company and found that most of the foreign operations were genuine (like mentioned before, almost all important people had mentioned Ybrant in their profile but when Brightcom was started it was different). I’m a big fan of Philip Arthur Fisher and I’ll try to follow what he has written in his works (trying to do as much research as you can on many areas and not just checking the financials).

We can see that
Gal Ekstein has mentioned that he was the CEO of online media at Ybrant and that he was handling a team of 320 people at 16 different locations and 120 were in Israel.

Emanuel Goldschmidt has mentioned that he had handled Ybrant’s Latin America business and expanded that business there and oversaw a team of 70 people.

One person who had handled VoloMP (I don’t remember that person’s name) had mentioned that he was responsible for making more than $1.4M in profits in VoloMP (don’t know which year but it was in Ybrant days). As per audited report of VoloMP (International Expressions Inc), in 2015, the company made $2M in profits.

Mor Lubranski has mentioned that he was awarded the “Employee of the year”, chosen by Brightcom’s president out of 400 employees worldwide.

Gali Arnon had mentioned that she brought together different subsidiaries of Ybrant and merged it with Brightcom (there are articles and also interview on NDTV Profit).

My guess/speculation is that all these people built the operations and brought together everything (streamline) and that the current team is managing that.

I think SKR’s job was to listen to these people and take decisions based on their inputs and the developments happening. He played as he wanted with the parent company and not sure how much control he has/had over all the subsidiaries. My fear which I got recently is that if he played with the parent company then he could’ve played with few of the subsidiaries also.

Maybe SKR knew that he’d get caught few months back itself. I’m saying this because in one conference call he said that he or anyone from his team will make sure that BCG will become a global brand and in another call (when I asked about whether we should be worried about the future of the company and whether he and others will be removed from their posts) he said that nothing should impact the business/operations and that they have plans if anything happened. I didn’t notice and give much importance about the first one when he said it because FA report was still pending that time but now when I’m trying to piece together few things, I’m noticing those things.

I hope and pray that all of BCG’s business and subsidiaries are 100% real and SKR’s stupid actions will not affect the business and operations. Let’s pray for the best and prepare for the worst. The board should act quickly and appoint new auditors, CEO and CFO at the earliest.

[Logan]

I’m guessing (speculating), Mr Acharya may quit sooner or later. I think like us even he feels betrayed and backstabbed. If we observed, in all the conference calls he was very excited about the business and the future but SKR backstabbed him also.

He removed BCG from his profile and even in BCG’s website, his name was removed from management section president group strategy to just non executive director. I’m guessing even Mr Cheeti must have left after SKR’s scam came public.

There are different types of people, one type will become more proactive and take more responsibility, one will stay silent till the dust settles and the other will quit immediately (or in sometime) and will not take up responsibility.

I would’ve appreciated if Mr Acharya took up the chairman post and Mr Cheeti (or other seniors) took up the CEO post (at least interim) but we can’t do anything about that or even can’t blame them when they themselves have been betrayed and backstabbed.

I thought that SKR was not always sharp in many things (except business) but didn’t know he was this stupid and blunt. Sebi notified about forensic audit in September 2021 and still he had time to get the money from his friends (or from himself) or cancel the PW before FY22 instead of doing forgery. He could’ve said they paid later or didn’t pay (and hence cancelled) and that he lied about that earlier and that he would take the responsibility but he didn’t do any of that. He let his friends (and himself) sell all the shares for which they paid zero money and now he had to be removed by force and will forever be remembered as a fraudster, villian and a cheat who cheated and betrayed lakhs of shareholders and their family. He was so arrogant that when we asked in the conference calls about PW allottess selling all their shares he would say that he didn’t know anything about that and that he will concentrate only on business.

If the board/company doesn’t take up the responsibility and do things quickly then I think we should start thinking about forming an association and request sebi and the government to intervene and appoint a new management.

[Logan]

Thank God the board is still alive and somewhat active. We need them to be more proactive and try to fix all the issues at the earliest.

The new board member has a good profile. I was expecting them to appoint an executive director but they’ve appointed an independent director. Looking at his profile, I think he will guide them on regulatory matters and also help them to hire the next CEO and CFO (and an executive director). This is just a wild guess/speculation and I maybe am wrong on this.

I think the company secretary might have quit (or he’s on leave). The last few notifications from the company have been signed by board members instead of the CS. The last signature from the CS was when the company shared the outcome of board meeting held on 27th August (when the CEO and CFO resigned). Obviously no one will want to associate themselves with a tainted company but leaders are made in crisis times.

I’m glad that the new board member has accepted the role of independent director during crisis times and I wish he will help the company and the shareholders which is the need of the hour. I wish him all the best and hope that his appointment will bring a fresh change and that good things will follow and we see good times ahead.

[Logan]

I had respect for SKR for building BCG from scratch and I always thought that he had good intentions but because he was not good in market related things he was not taking good decisions on valuation part and I thought the company could hire someone to guide on that front and fix the all issues. He was answering each and every person’s queries in the conference calls, he closed all the debt, made sure the company survived when other companies failed. Even recently I was little scared and worried when Mediamath had failed. That company was good operationally but took on more debt because of which it was sold for peanuts recently. I liked that he didn’t take on debt. This is a very tough industry to be in and I thought he was doing the best he can but all these didn’t give him the right to do the thing which he did. Company not getting a single rupee for the crores of shares it gave away and him doing forgery, those are the worst things someone can do.

Compared to the past, there was an improvement in governance (especially when Mr Peshwa Acharya came on board) but not to the extent we had hoped. After FA verdict came, I thought the company had no choice but to fix the governance part and comply with all the rules and regulations. If the company failed then SEBI will put pressure and make sure that everything will be followed. Best example was sharing the audited results of major subsidiaries.

In hindsight everything looks clear but when we are in a particular situation it’s very hard to be rational.

Warren Buffett said this when asked what he looks for in managers (or people who he likes to hire)

Look for 3 things in a person. Intelligence, Energy, & Integrity.
If they don’t have the last one, don’t even bother with the first two.

Being a naive idiot that I am, I didn’t look at the third one i.e. I concentrated on the first two. I thought that there are flaws in the company/management and that could be fixed. Even Mr.Shankar Sharma had mentioned the same when he talked about his investment in BCG and termed it as a 4AM stock.

Everything would’ve worked if he didn’t do that fraud. The worst part (which I said in my previous post) is that those PW allottees didn’t even pay a single rupee yet they made hundreds of crores. They started dumping as soon as their lock in period ended but we retail investors kept on buying.

He said in one of the conference calls that he had put his heart and soul into the company but would anyone with a heart and soul cheat shareholders and the market like this? The person who was supposed to guide the company and lakhs of shareholders has backstabbed us. I’m not sure how he can eat food and sleep at night with all the guilt.

Also, I wanted to highlight on adauth data. I’m not sure how it works and how important it is when it comes to revenue and profits. The market share is not on an absolute basis, that is, currently it shows BCG having 14% market share, Google having 86%, PubMatic 43% etc etc. It doesn’t mean that BCG has 14% and rest are others but it means that out of the 100 publishers 14 use Brightcom and 86 use Google, 43 use PubMatic etc and that one publisher can use two or more adtech companies. For example, CNN can have BCG, PubMatic, Google and other companies. People will hype this data but be careful on that. And the important part is that adauth shows mostly SSP data (supply side platform) but not DSP data (demand side platform). TTD’s revenue is more than $1.5B but its market share in adauth is less than 1%. TTD is mostly a DSP.

(I think BCG also owns Audienciad, GetMediaMX, Onomagic etc so everything is not entirely clear)

And other thing is about PE ratios of many adtech companies. TTD is not trading at 336PE. In the US they consider both GAAP and non GAAP earnings. So when you consider one you get $400-500M profit and when you consider the other you get $120M profit. Same for Magnite, PubMatic etc.

If SKR was honest and didn’t backstab shareholders then he could’ve achieved so much but he shot himself in the foot and because of his stupid actions and betrayal, we have to suffer. I hope and pray that the board will take swift actions and genuinely care about retail shareholders who have supported the company through thick and thin. Hope that the next chairman/CEO will have more integrity and he/she will get us out of the mess created by SKR.

I wish everyone a very happy Ganesha Chaturthi. Hope from this day we will start to see good days.

[Logan]

Founders of companies or CEOs deserve to be rewarded for the work they do in building and growing the company but that should be done in an ethical and legal way. Like mentioned before, TTD (and many other companies) will give billions of dollars worth shares to its CEO if he performs well and BCG could’ve followed the same and no shareholder would’ve complained. What SKR did was backstabbed lakhs of shareholders who believed in him and the company for years.

In many confrence calls he called shareholders as family and even when the company issued that stupid second bonus shares he called shareholders as family. Would someone do something like this to family members?

He knew that most of the shareholders of his company were retail investors (mostly from hardworking middle class families who put their hard earned money and life savings) and yet he backstabbed everyone.

The worst part is that his rich friends who were already rich made hundreds of crores of money and became ultra rich without paying a single rupee while hard working people who put their hard earned money and life savings (like mentioned above) became poorer every day. I don’t know he slept every night without feeling any guilt. People who have humanity/empathy towards other humans won’t do this type of things.

I had mentioned in many of my previous posts that SKR was good when it comes to business side of things and bad when it comes to valuation (like giving shares to selfish people, then giving unnecessary second bonus shares, not having good corporate governance etc). I always thought that if the business was good then valuation will catch up eventually but I never thought he’d resort to this. One good thing that he did was he made the company debt free.

In all my years as a shareholder of BCG, I never experienced a good time. There was always drama and anxiety. I never imagined that a CEO of a major company would do such a thing. I don’t understand how a person can be that stupid and show fake transactions in this digital world. With the recent episode, drama has turned into a horror show.

Like in horror movies, the devil or the ghost has come and now there’s no choice but to face the ghost and get rid of it. As retail investors we don’t have options but to rely on others. It’s the responsibility of the board but will they do it? Maybe they’d have done it quickly if big institutional shareholders were there but will they care about retail investors? Who can we trust and rely on now?

Like I’ve mentioned before, we should put maximum pressure on the board now to make them do things quickly. They owe shareholders a lot and they should take the responsibility at least now. Lakhs of shareholders depend on them now and will be happy if they take good decisions.

We need a strong chairman and a CEO who will be ready to clean up all the mess created by the previous management. We need a CEO and board who will genuinely care for shareholders and who will have empathy towards lakhs of retail investors.

[Logan]

In this difficult situation I can understand every investors’ frustrations and pain. It’s very painful to look at stock prices declining each and every day and the company not taking quick actions to fix issues. Like I said in my previous post, if they have even a shred of humanity/empathy/sympathy then they will take quick and necessary actions.

The previous CEO betrayed each and every shareholder by his selfish acts. He brought pain and misery to lakhs of investors and their family. No one knows what’ll happen in the future and how long it will take for things to get better. If he really wanted only money then he could’ve sold the subsidiaries and distributed that money well before doing these shenanigans.

Why make investors and employees go through so much pain? He should’ve known that any day he would get caught and should’ve resigned when SEBI started investigation on preferential allotments. When I saw the news and the second interim order, I was in shock and horror. What did he get at the end? Even his friends and family will not give respect to him for the rest of his life. He did such a shameless thing and he should be punished for the sins he committed.

Like Warren Buffett says, it takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to lose it. In BCG’s case same thing happened. Everything could’ve been done in a honest and correct way. Why did he take the bad path when the good path was so easy to take. Many companies are professionally run and they have miniscule promoter holdings (especially in the foreign countries). If he conducted everything in a honest way and didn’t do such shenanigans then the market would’ve given a good valuation to the company even if the promoter holding was low. This would’ve been way better for him than the current situation that he is in. Now he’s also not in a good situation and like mentioned above, his actions have made investors also to be in a bad situation.

Like they say, pray for the best and prepare for the worst, I’m following the same.

The best scenario would be all the revenues and profits are 100% and the new management and board cleaning up the mess created by the previous CEO and bringing more transparency and good image.

The 50-50 scenario would be at least 40-50% of the business is real (audited by EY) and the company takes good care of that subsidiary at least.

The worst scenario would be nothing gets done and the stock gets delisted.

I’m hoping and praying that everything will be good and shareholders will get rewarded. We should continue to stay united and continue putting maximum pressure on the company to get things done quickly.

[Author]

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