Hey all, had a very informative session at the agm today, did not meet anyone on HC there but I think I heard a fair few names thrown around.
Anyway, before the agm started, my friend and I were the first to arrive and we were able to have some one on one time with Nick. My first impression of him is one where aside from being really outgoing and friendly, also incredibly passionate about the company and the business. He is also very very talkative, and I won't repeat some of the things he did say to us as they are unconfirmed, but there are some pretty exciting things in store for TV2 long term.
The actual presentation and formal part of the meeting were pretty straight forward and we got to see some of their back end real time analytics at work.
The real bonus came at the end when Nick came and sat right next to me (different row) and we ended up having maybe an hour long conversation with other shareholders dropping in and out. I got to really take a look into Nick's perspective and vision of TV2, his goals and confidence and the exact nature of our deals and relations with other companies, things that are in the pot, potential deals etc.etc.
My takeaway:
- 100,000 sol telecom subs aimed at early 2nd quarter 2018 - March/April for break even on all costs including working capital, pgas expenses etc.
- We currently have 12,000 subscribers on free trial
- The actual selling and subscribers being brought in by the ISP (which will be the bulk) does not actually even start until premium content and free trial is over. Meaning the 12,000 current subscribers is a drop in the pond for when all the ISPs start bringing their clients in for premium content
- Marketing for the subs will be done by the 50-60 staff call centre as well as every ISP that signs on, where they will sell the subscription to their clients. Each ISP that joins is also on for a term of 5 years, meaning really high retention rates and long term revenue
- They were unwilling to disclose the actual number of subscribers expected by end of first year but let's say when I mentioned 600,000 (a number I heard from Sol Telecom) there was some "hahah can't say wink wink" type of vibe going on. And were very very confident of the 250,000 being achievable with no effort
- 250 channels of content currently, with an aim to reach 400 channels worth of content.
- Nick said that there was a company doing free channel airing (sorry forgot their name) and despite their channels being free to air they still had 1 million paying subscribers ... and tv2 gets access to their same content on top of all the other premium content and all that
- Visiontec deal is still progressing very well with good relations
- Nick is incredibly excited by the analytics tech as it is unique, unmatched, real time, and so many avenues of monetisation such as ad revenue, or selling the analytics to data companies etc. Also big potential for use of such tech in Smart Citys (Also saw a chat on Skype called "Smart Village")
- A lot of Portugese speakers in South Africa and it is quite simple for TV2 / Sol to sell the content / channels to those in South Africa as additional subscribers. This applies to any Portugese speaker that doesn't live in Brazil, so subscribers aren't limited to just Brazil.
- Smartfren have a launch deadline of end of January and so soft launch is expected to be in December
- If smartfren wish to launch December 1st still, tv2 is able to support that launch with the KL platform and equipment while waiting for the Indonesian head end equipment to arrive in mid December.
- Con note holder has been a big seller on the market. Which is a relief to me actually, as I'd be worried about the price of TV2 being here if the con note holder has not been selling.
- Unfortunately his restriction to the selling of his shares is no longer in place due to tv2 shares trading under a 1.2 vwap for 5 days in a row, however despite that the con note holder has still kept to trading within the restrictions range regardless.
- Tranche E was taken up, which I would say gives tv2 funding to March. This is also good news as there wouldve been some penalties for tv2 if tranche e wasnt taken.
- Not gonna lie, i hate the con notes and what they're doing for dilution and price, but this will be the last of the notes.
- Potentially a rights issue as the next form of capital raise so all shareholders can get a slice of the pie, and ideally be underwritten by a broker firm. (Check MBK latest rights issue, a large amount taken by shareholders, was then underwritten by Taylor Collission where the shortfall was so heavily oversubscribed by instos they had to raise an additional $500k worth of capital)
- So timeline looks like we will be progressing to premium content for solgo in about mid december, soft launch for pgas coming up in the next month and a lot of deals and partners to come that TV2 is in talks with once we've stabilised our Brazilian and Indo projects.
As I mentioned, a few things I didn't talk about as I believe Nick said them in confidence. He did say a fair few times he wasn't sure if he was allowed to say whatever he just did and we'd have a laugh about it. Apparently his PA who keeps him in check wasn't brought along for the trip, so lucky us that were there. Although most things discussed were of a long term nature / goal for TV2. Also met a top 5 shareholder there who was Nick's friend and had a good conversation with him too. All in all really informative trip, well worth it, and definitely an exciting period for TV2 ahead.
