"Nothing about how good this is? That such heavy weights as...

"Nothing about how good this is?
That such heavy weights as Credit Suisse and JP Morgan are on board?
I am amazed that the focus is sliding over on those incredibly strong and relevant points."


I assume this is directed - again - at me, so I will respond.

The reason my focus has "slid over" what you describe as "heavy weights Credit Suisse and JP Morgan on board being incredibly strong and relevant", is that I simply don't see the involvement of Credit Suisse and JP Morgan in an IPO process as being anything remarkable at all.

No more remarkable than I would find when someone, say, takes a real estate agent "on board" to sell their house for them, or an accountant to do their tax, or a dentist to fix their teeth, or a plumber to mend their pipes.

Or any other professional service that gets procured in all parts of the economy all of the time.

For acting as arrangers and facilitators and underwriters of IPO's is one of the very things that investment banks do. That's their business.

Why an enterprise conducting its normal business in a normal fashion should induce any great excitement in anyone is beyond me.

And, as clear demonstration of this being a couple of investment banks going about their business - their business being providing a service for which they charge a fee - you may have noticed that the fees that these two "on-board heavyweights" are charging MSB, for the privilege of "getting on board", is a whopping 7% of the value of the capital being raised.

By industry standards, that is a very generous figure.

But there's more: as part of the underwriting agreement, Credit Suisse and JP Morgan have a free option in subscribing for an additional $10m of shares in their own right, meaning they can arbitrage a free stag profit if they see scope for one developing as they field bids into the book. Nice. Free option on the upside (See [*] below]).

These are investment bankers we are talking about. They are the ultimate capitalists; they don't get out of bed without the profit motive at the forefront of their minds.

They will eat their own offspring if someone were to offer them a buck to do so.

They certainly aren't "on board" for the mere charitable love of it.

Why, these are the exact same people who actively facilitate the very heinous sin that you so decry: SHORT SELLING. Between the two of them they currently account for almost 5.5m shares in MSB that have been short sold.

Given your outspoken hatred for short-selling, it comes as a surprise that you are still happy to describe any parties that are arranging, facilitating and promoting the shorting as being "on board" the company whose very stock has been shored.


So, I'm sorry, but I cannot bring myself to find this sort of routine fee-for-service arrangement to be nearly as exhilarating, and warranting special comment, as you do.

Where you see "strong and relevant", I see "simply standard routine".


[*] PS. Do yourself a favour. Get hold of a copy of the prospectus and make a point of turning to the chapter that deals with the selling restrictions (or lack thereof) on any stock the underwriters end up with as part of this process. Be sure to account for any stock picked up as part of direct underwriting, as well as any of the $10m of stock that the underwriters can elect to apply for in their own right.