Another AFR article, page-383

The bit I can't get my head around is: if this was a scam, then why were people happy to get paid in equity rather than cash? And why were they happy to hold on to that equity? So many of those on the "inside" that had equity are still holding.

Sales teams are ruthless. Management drive a hard line. Sophisticated investors supported the company. None of that is particularly odd. The AFR article could paint dozens of other sales executives in the same light.

And just on the sponsorship...

If last quarter's sales were largely sponsored ($18m approx), then that is 90% of the sponsorship cap. But then how did they generate receipts in the previous 2-3 quarter's of high growth. Either a vast majority of the prior 3x quarter's were not sponsored, or indeed they were also a high percentage of sponsored receipts, and they've successfully integrated clients through the financing facility and they've settled with full payment.

Is anyone else perplexed by that? If the vast majority of the sponsorship pool was used in the past quarter, then were previous sales largely organic, or were they also sponsored and clients have settled to provide room in the pool for subsequent clients?

Either there's plenty of clients out there that will sign up on their own accord, or there's plenty of clients that will pay their dues via the sponsorship, otherwise BIG would not have been able to utilise 90% of the sponsorship pool last quarter.