Gotcha...

Finally managed to track down the video of Martin Sorrell questioning Suranga Chandratillake at DLD08 - it's on

Critical Distance Weblog

Forward the video to about 44m 20s - Chandratillake quite unambiguously says - in public, on the record and on video - that Blinkx is 'very close to breakeven'.

Here we are more than a year later and there has been no official announcement that the company is at breakeven - and certainly there was no indication of that in the last figures we saw back in October.

This, I think, is why the Blinkx share price is on its ass. More than a year ago Chandratillake said that the company was 'very close to breakeven' - and it wasn't (I don't think any reasonable person would say that more than a year was 'very close'). Then we had what looks like - from where I'm standing at least - the completely amateur, bungled, incompetent attempt on Miva. 

And now we have the same Chandratillake running around predicting that Blinkx will be profitable next year.

Is it any wonder that the markets don't appear to believe him and that the share price stays moribund at around a third of the IPO price?

Blinkx should release a full trading update to back-up the prediction of profitability next year - or Chandratillake should shut his mouth and make his actions talk louder than words.

Profitable next year? Prove it...

This from a news article on Blinkx.com

"In an interview, blinkx CEO Suranga Chandratillake told Shankland that the company has 65 employees, is hiring and will be profitable next year."

Yeah? Profitable next year? Really? 

If indeed the company is on track for profitability, why not publish a full trading update so that shareholders and investors can judge for themselves? Why do we have to take the word of a man whose company - despite his best efforts to talk it up recently - still languishes at roughly a third of its IPO price? Whose policy on what to RNS and what not to RNS is, as Bill Gates might say, 'random' (no RNS for the movies added to blinkx.com in the past few days, for example)?

If Chandratillake wants to retain any credibility whatsoever, he needs to show us. 'Cause just telling us just isn't working...

More takeovers? He hasn't even managed Miva yet!

More coverage of Blinkx, this time from Media Post News: Blinkx Relaunches Search, Viewing Platform

I like this bit the best:"While larger media companies have ruled out acquisition activity this year, Chandratillake said Blinkx could be tempted by this buyer's market. "We could see some very attractive deals this year, and we're lucky to be sitting on a large cash pile," he said."

This from the man who has severely damaged - if not actually destroyed - his credibility among many shareholders with the botched, totally amateur (or at least that's the way it looks from where I'm standing) non-bid for Miva.  And he seriously thinks that next time he makes an approach for a company they're going to take him seriously?

Are Blinkx getting their PR act together at last?

from the Guardian today

Blinkx adds web TV to video search

Good to see Blinkx getting some coverage at last, what with Chandratillake's appearances on Sky and the BBC's Working Lunch last week.

Now all we need is a resolution to the Miva non-bid and I might be convinced that Blinkx management actually does have some kind of plan after all...

There are plenty of shareholders who think like me...

In case anyone thinks I'm a wild-eyed lunatic howling alone in the wilderness, I thought I'd reproduce this from www.iii.co.uk, posted by 'eagle51' (NB: I post as 'chickenmadras' on iii). Good to see that others are thinking the same as me. I cannot - and nor can anyone else as far as I can figure it - think of a single good reason why Blinkx management has gone about the Miva 'bid' in the way that they have. From where I'm standing it looks like a totally amateur and cack-handed attempt at a takeover. And if I'm wrong and the Blinkx management team really do know what they're doing who's fault is it that shareholders don't know what's going on? If Blinkx management has been totally appalling at communicating their Miva strategy (assuming they have one), doesn't that vindicate what I've been saying?

-----------

"Chickenmadras could be a person who has posted on this board in the past and has merely created a new identity, norman - this is something which seems to happen a fair bit.

Whilst I do not agree with everything he says, he does make some relevant points about which some shareholders may have genuine concerns - me included. I think SC has made a ham of the MIVA 'non-bid'. He has not at any stage made it formal, choosing instead to give an indication of the price at which he would be prepared to make an offer. Contrast this with the way Autonomy has negotiated 3 much larger deals in the past 2 or 3 years and presented them to the shareholders and the world at large as 'fait accompli', sending out a message of initiative, competence and stunning execution which seems to have been lacking where MIVA is concerned. If something is worth going for it is always best to give it 100% and to fail to get the MIVA directors on board before going public with an indicative offer was always asking for trouble. No-one has come out of the situation with any credit and it should not have been allowed to happen.

A large part of the loss in value of blinkx shares is undoubtedly associated with it being an AIM stock. The index fell 68% last year, but whilst I haven't checked the relevant numbers, my feeling is that blinkx's sp has fallen further than this, which might well have something to do with MIVA and the perceived experience and competence of SC as CEO. He is undoubtedly technically brilliant, but at 28 (or perhaps now 29 he is very young to be at the helm of a listed company - particularly when others around him are mostly young and inexperienced as well. The new finance man blinkx took on does seem to have more experience, which partly addresses what might have been seen as a weakness. I don't know to what extent the non execs have been involved in blinkx's affairs to date - not much would be my guess judging by what has happened.

There is a danger of falling in love with a share and failing to see when things aren't right. blinkx still has a very small share of the market it operates in, regardless of the apparent brilliance of its offering. I have tried using it quite often and the other day (for instance) was looking for the video of John Bird & John Fortune, where George Parr is talking about the sub-prime crisis. I tried a few combinations of words using the blinkx site but came up with nothing I could immediately see was what I was looking for. So I tried Youtube and up it came first entry on the list. This did not fill me with confidence and pride as a shareholder in blinkx. I know it has other innovative products to offer, but we don't yet know how these convert into $ and the company hasn't even given us a clue to date. 

The jury is out as far as I am concerned. It is not sufficient in my view for SC to occasionally appear wherever 'looking confident', whatever this means. I prefer a flow of information that enables me to at least form an opinion on whether the company is doing well and is on course to meet or beat expectations. We haven't had this flow of information, nor has the company's PR been up to much as far as I can tell. Why isn't it screaming out its message from the the hilltops, rather than relying on word of mouth and messages passed on by those who know where to look to find out its present market share?

On balance, I think it might be a good move for a bigger outfit - perhaps Microsoft - to acquire blinkx, but it may not be that easy. I can't recall if there is anything in the agreement for blinkx to use Autonomy software that might scupper a deal. The danger to me is that blinkx disappears into the pack and becomes just another search engine pitching for a small share of a very big market. Hopefully someone more familiar with the industry will tell me this is impossible to happen. I am afraid that hope alone that blinkx does have something different that is of serious practical interest to a large part of the market is not really sufficient for me. When a share price drops this far below its float price and stays there for so long prompts me to ask: "if what it has is so good, and the share price is so low, why hasn't someone bid to buy it"?

On balance, I think I would bite off the hand of anyone that offered 60p a share. There are plenty of other more tangibly undervalued compaies out there at present to invest in and funds are invariably limited. It is a simple question of what offers the best value. 

I remain a holder for the present - no better, sad to say. 

IMO/DYOR"

Chandratillake breaks cover...

Interesting that there was a lot of media activity by Suranga Chandratillake yesterday - he was on several TV shows promoting Blinkx.

The question is, is it a sign of confidence or of desperation? Is Blinkx doing so well that he now thinks it's the right time to ramp up Blinkx's hitherto-woeful PR/media activities to promote the company and reassure shareholders? Or is the criticism - on this blog not least - getting to him and  he feels the need to justify his existence? 

Of course, if he wanted to reassure shareholders that he knew what he was doing there's a really simple way to do so:

1/ resolve the Miva situation. Either give Miva a clear - and very short - deadline to accept Blinkx's 'revived' offer of 55c a share (Miva shares closed yesterday at 16c, so 55c represents a massive premium - you ask me, Blinkx should go back with a take-it-or-leave-it 25c a share offer with a week to accept) or just announce Blinkx isn't interested any more and walk away completely.

2/ if the Miva 'deal' falls through use the money that would have been spent on a share buyback to screw the shorters who have been manipulating this stock and to drive the share price higher, back to somewhere near the IPO price of 45p.  

3/ Chandratillake, Opzoomer and other senior Blinkx staff should buy Blinkx shares in the open market to demonstrate their own confidence in the company's future.

I really, really don't understand why Blinkx is so adamantly opposed to letting shareholders know what the hell is going on with the non-bid for Miva. The BLNX share price has tanked since mid-October when the bid was 'revived' and shareholders have been told nothing. Is it any surprise many of us are angry as hell? Maybe I'm being unfair and Chandratillake is being very very clever. Or then again, maybe he's being the other thing...  

Another day, another RNS, another big 'So what?' from shareholders...

So today we get an RNS that Blinkx have signed up Premiere Fitness. Who dey?

Another non-entity signing that is probably going to add tuppence-ha'penny to the Blinkx bottom line.

Blinkx management just don't seem to get it: shareholders don't give a damn about adding another obscure partner - we have hundreds of those already. What shareholders give a damn about is Blinkx management resolving the Miva situation so that we know what the hell is going on.

The Miva situation has dragged on for months now, wrecking Blinkx's share price and showing the Blinkx management team up as totally clueless. Don't they know anything about human nature? What did they think would happen - having offered 120c and been rejected - when they 'revived' the Miva offer at 55c? Did they think Miva management would welcome Blinkx with open arms, after being shown up as cretins for turning down the 120c in the first place?

Utterly clueless - and I'll continue to believe that until and unless Chandratillake and the rest of the Blink 'management' team prove to me otherwise. Precious little sign of that, so far...