“So why is there so much disquiet amongst the owners?”You...

“So why is there so much disquiet amongst the owners?”

You answered this yourself:

“many of whom are the very people complaining the loudest about how the company is being run, because their now find themselves without their original business, without an income & without the liquidity to exit even if they wanted to.”


“To silently suffer while the wheels fall off “

Sir, you keep pushing this line that the company’s financial performance is poor. It isn’t. The company’s share price performance has been poor. Relatively, compared to its peers, share price performance has not actually been poor, but I’m more than happy to let that point pass – I like the share price about as much as anybody else, which is not at all. But the notion that the company’s financial performance is poor is impossible to support. It has no basis in reality, and the only way to create a false impression about this in the mind of other shareholders or potential shareholders is to misrepresent the comment by the auditors.

Further, that auditors’ comment is recognition of additional risk from the launching of the BroadbandNext network, a bold and exciting project which will add considerably to the company’s financial performance, whilst also delivering superior products and differentiating the company from almost all of its competitors. It is therefore supremely ironic to read your allegation that management is dull and unimaginative, lacking “drive, direction and innovation.” It’s as if you didn’t consider anything you wrote at all.


“I am not a Greg,”

I didn’t think that you were. I was merely saving myself the trouble of starting a new post to answer that related allegation. Royouri is Greg, as he stated last year here when answering questions as a director. I apologise for the confusion.


“You are derogatory about iiNet ‘buying’ customers”

No, we are not. We have not criticised that at all. We merely pointed out that despite their millions spent on advertising their organic growth was nil, whereas we managed organic growth without that advertising spend. We are promoting our achievements, and using iiNet as a benchmark. It would be nice if observers could be a little more objective about these things.

“Further, you cite a customer base of 100,000 …..but wasn’t it being claimed at 120,000 odd a few years back ??? “

That’s what I get for being conservative. The comment was generic, in a list of generic points about companies like ours. We have around 140,000 active accounts.

“If a company has failed to flourish in the economic environment of the past 5-6 years then whose fault is it? “

The company is flourishing. Whose credit is that, if not the CEO’s?

“c) “Generating cash” or “operating profit” is not the same as making a bottom line profit …. Anyone can sell things at a loss & “generate cash” …. But for how long!”

Please, read our financial statements. We make EBITDA and bottom line profit. It is possible to do both and still burn cash, which will terminate a business in the present kind of circumstances. My point was to emphasise that we generate cash, not burn it, so as to reassure anybody who might have been misled by Thooruna’s and Exetel’s misleading and deceptive use of the auditors’ comment.

“Finally I note that you have avoided answering any of the questions posed in the previous post.”

Well, that is simply false, but I won’t be answering questions which are not within the scope of my responsibilities, and hiring or firing the CEO is not within those. I’m the COO, not even a board member. I can speak to the performance of the company, and I can answer false allegations, but I can’t comment on board policy or actions, obviously.

Thanks for your interest.