How Did ASG Media Lose GBP 39 Million?

Adrian J Cotterill, Editor-in-Chief

Later in the week we will publish an Open Letter from Phil Austin, CEO CAN Media about some of the issues arising from the administration of ASG Media (nee Avanti Screenmedia).

We spent a bit of time between Xmas and the New Year reading through some of the administration documentation. The one thing that really stuck out was the startling admission “the Group lost almost £39m since it was floated on AIM in 2004”

The one thing that will excite the (shafted) private (and indeed a couple of larger institutional investors) who are baying for blood (especially for some reason for that of Gary ‘See-my-new-Porsche-on-Facebook’ Truman) will be the statement “The Group had a significant contract with Setanta, the former sports television channel, to sell advertising content. Setanta went into administration during the summer of 2009, this reduced turnover and profits”

Back in July 2009 ASG Media was keen to point out that this was not the case and no RNS was issued either.

Few, we suspect, will shed a tear that former CFO Gary Truman and former CEO, Simon Rees are both listed as creditors (i.e owed by the now defunct business) to the tune of GBP 250,000 each.

Novra Technologies who supplied the majority of the software to the network have one of the biggest holes in their wallet – being owed somewhere between GBP 196,000 and 350,000 in unpaid license fees.

And not just one hole (so to speak) these fools got ‘twice screwed’ – not only were they a debtor they were also an investor (of sorts) – back in November 2007 Dr Moe Bakarat, the President and Chief Executive Officer of Novra Technologies took a (then) 13.37 per cent stake in Avanti Screemmedia!


One Response to “How Did ASG Media Lose GBP 39 Million?”

  1. Ian Severs Says:

    How many times do you have to be told!!!!!

    All banks floated company’s that were designed to fail, then they made huge “profits” from raising money to save them.

    They then paid themselves huge bonuses from the “profits”.

    Then they admitted they hadn’t made any profits and asked for their money back from the tax payers.

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