[Logan]

Thanks @saach. I hope that we all come out of this situation and see bright days ahead.

Regarding the increase in FII shareholding, please don’t consider it as a positive as those FIIs are buying only because BCG is part of an index and they will dump all their shares immediately if BCG is removed from the index.

SKR destroyed the dreams and hopes of lakhs of shareholders and he is okay with cheating us as it looks like he doesn’t give a damn about shareholders. He wouldn’t have committed that fraud if he really cared about us and the future of the company. It would’ve been very hard but we could’ve somehow forgiven him if they hadn’t sold a single share (if he and his friends paid penalty to SEBI) but they dumped all their shares not giving a damn making thousands/hundreds of crores as soon as the lock in ended. SKR knew that the ones who were buying those shares dumped by his friends were retail investors and that we’d suffer the most but he didn’t care about us a little also. He kept on lying and he’s the main reason for our misery. We can never forgive him for back-stabbing us. SKR should suffer for cheating and back-stabbing us. It should haunt him forever for cheating lakhs of shareholders.

[Logan]

@saach, sorry for the late reply. I don’t know what’s SKR’s angle and what plans he has.

Sometimes SKR looks textbook selfish and pure evil but sometimes he appears like a good person as he answers all the queries in the conference calls and doesn’t cancel even when the situation is very tough for him and the company. But one thing is sure that he’s reckless and careless and mostly does things only when it suits him and he’ll not care if others suffer because of his actions. He’s a pathological liar and is overly optimistic even when he does stupid things and doesn’t want anything negative talked about his company (when he does stupid things.)

Sometimes he doesn’t understand the reality and lives in his own bubble. He thinks that he can get away with the PW mess and forgery, both of which are serious fraud. The company grew because of him but it’s also in an embarrassing position because of him.

He’s intelligent when it comes to few things but is utterly stupid and lacks common sense in other things. Imagine how stupid he must be to give away crores of shares for free and thinking that he doesn’t get caught.

Shareholders will not forgive him and it’s a shame that he’s trying to get back to his previous positions (Chairman and CEO) knowing very well that he’s committed a serious fraud. We can’t expect much from someone who lacks integrity. It’s better to tell the truth and face consequences than to lie, cheat and back-stab others.

I’m guessing they have separated Brightcom and OMS for 2 things

-To show dependency on SKR and tell everyone that only if he’s there as the CEO the company will grow and survive.

-To come out of the bad name that Brightcom has because of SKR.

SKR will say that there’s no one important in the company who can take main decisions and BCG/Brightcom will not survive if he’s not there in the company anymore. So, except OMS, they might show revenues falling in other companies (Frontier Data Management, International Expressions Inc, Dyomo etc). Like I said before, many things were clear during the Ybrant days but after starting Brightcom it’s little difficult to say who’s handling what. My guess/theory is that SKR was handling the US subsidiaries and those are/were more dependent on him and they used OMS people to get the sales for those subsidiaries using the Brightcom brand but operations were handled by SKR and his team. In the many conference calls I have asked SKR many times to give more details about the structure of many subsidiaries but he never did that. Sometimes he used to say that they won’t disclose much because competitors knowing that will cause issue to the company (and also because of the Daum case).

SEBI didn’t find any issue when it did the forensic audit of US subsidiaries and when MediosOne, DreamAd, Addynamix, VoloMP, Max Interactive were bought, they were few of the top ad networks (back then ad tech companies were called ad networks) in their countries/region. OMS was among the top in Europe. But my fear is that if SKR can manipulate financials of BCG then he can do the same for subsidiaries also and that is why I’m considering only the financials of OMS and will be gutted if he tries to separate it from BCG.

Previously I supported SKR a lot but I started losing respect for him when he hid the news of FA, his actual shareholding and lost respect for him completely after the second SCN. (I had respect for him because it’s very tough for companies to survive in the ad tech industry. I had seen many companies going bankrupt and losing business because they couldn’t compete. Recently also I was very scared when Mediamath’s bankruptcy was announced. Since the technology is changing everyday and since AI is taking over, I thought BCG and SKR would take good decisions as the company is good at adapting to changes but SKR back-stabbed his shareholders who trusted him and respected him for years.)

I’m so stupid that I missed many opportunities and bought only BCG (before second SCN) thinking SKR will change things for better because SEBI was monitoring the company and he had no choice but to follow SEBI’s instructions but the second SCN dashed all hopes and SKR’s reckless/careless/arrogant behavior is the reason for the misery of shareholders.

Since this is a forum for BCG I don’t want to talk about companies in other sectors but I will mention about one company which also had to go through forensic audit. Like BCG, Man Industries had also hid the news of forensic audit for many months, but its stock is up 4-5 times from the date the FA news was announced whereas BCG has crashed 80-90%. I wanted to buy that stock but felt that BCG being a tech company was more undervalued and had better future but I was completely wrong. Man Industries settled with SEBI by paying Rs.9 lakhs penalty for lapses in disclosing about forensic audit.

I don’t know whether my hard earned money and life savings will go to drain because of SKR and I have no choice but to be ready because it was I who decided to keep BCG and invest more. I may regret my decision in the future but I have to live with it.

(Please don’t consider my views/opinions for buying/selling decisions of any stock)

[Logan]

I’m not sure what these new independent directors might be thinking before joining the board/company. They are willingly joining a tainted company. Are they hoping to revive it? or are they thinking that anyway it’s just being independent directors and later they can say that they didn’t/don’t have any control so they’re resigning and not get associated with the company?

If it’s the former then I appreciate them but if it’s the latter then no hope for us.

It really takes courage to join a company like BCG at this stage. If things go bad then they’re risking their names (and potentially their careers) by being associated with a company like BCG.

If they willingly let SKR destroy the company then they are no better than SKR.

Separation of the chairman and the CEO roles is very important going forward (if the company/board is serious and ready to move on). The chairman should be like Sri Rama and the CEO like Hanumanji or the chairman like Sri Krishna and the CEO like Arjuna.

Unfortunately the person who was supposed to be the hero has become the villain in BCG and one of the main reasons is because there was no strong board. SKR still has time to become a hero once again. He should move away from the company and should accept whatever the courts/Sebi order and later based on his behaviour he can come back to the company as a consultant. Each and every shareholder had trusted SKR for years and it’s the least that he can do now.

[Logan]

This is seriously hopeless from the board and the management (whatever that’s remaining). The sad/worst part is that there is still SKR’s influence in the company and seems that the board is not ready to move on.

SKR will drag this for years as he did many other things before (debt, Lycos/DAUM case etc). SEBI should’ve appointed an independent board member when it issued the order to protect interests of lakhs of shareholders.

[Logan]

I’m guessing they are trying to separate Brightcom and OMS.

https://onlinemediasolutions.com/about-us/

Check the website of OMS which was recently Brightcom and now they’ve removed Brightcom and it’s not showing up anywhere. Even in the “About Us” section, previously they had mentioned that the support and operations team were from India but now they’ve removed that also.

Even in LinkedIn they’ve changed from Brightcom to just OMS.

Either they’re trying to come out of the bad image that Brightcom has or SKR has some evil plan and ultimately we’ll end up with just the parent company (Brightcom Group) and SKR might declare it is out of business etc.

If he does that then he’ll be one of the cruelest persons ever to live on Earth. He’ll be cheating and backstabbing 5 lakh shareholders and their families.

[Logan]

SKR’s reckless and careless attitude is the reason that the company is in this situation. He knew that most of the shareholders of his company were retail shareholders and like I mentioned many times before, I still can’t digest the fact that his friends made thousands of crores not paying a single rupee but we retail shareholders have put our hard earned money and life savings and now it’s at risk because of him.

He had energy, he had intelligence but he didn’t and doesn’t have integrity, which according to Warren Buffett is more important than the previous two.

He should respect the verdict and without protest should handover the company to someone. How could he even think of coming back when he has committed so many wrong things?

If he has even a shred of humanity left then at least now he should care about 5 lakh shareholders and do what’s best for the company.

[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.

[Author]

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