Who is Mr Big??

[Floid]

whoosh777 wrote:

One other thing, companies have to issue Annual Reports,
eg I have on my bookshelf:

"Barclays Bank PLC Annual Report 2001"

The glossy reports are mostly a partial(?) requirement of *public* companies, and just good business sense - especially for a financial company trying to prove it's a sound place to store your cash.  In reality, while these may be mandated, they're still just big ads for the company, and in the US, at least, plenty of other reports and forms must be filed with the SEC - the body that regulates the stock exchanges -- and recently, of course, companies were found to have cooked those, too.

In the US, for smaller companies and LLCs, filing and paperwork requirements probably vary by jurisdiction.  Mostly you just need your business license and tax forms kept up to date; maintaining the business license requires a filing of some report or another, and there are probably laws governing disclosure requirements even among private investors - though general fraud statutes would cover those dealings as much as anything specific... and of course, federal laws apply as well.

Funny how little any of us know about business, hmm?

[whoosh777]

 

Floid wrote:

>The glossy reports are mostly a partial(?) requirement of
>*public*

Is Amiga Inc "public", also what exactly is "public",

there is so much jargon in finance, also does the US use
different words from the UK?

Whats the difference between Ltd Inc and Sarl?


>companies, and just good business sense -

but there must be some sort of statutory framework because the big investors
 eg government departments dont want their money hoodwinked by conman companies,
Take the channel tunnel between UK and France, big-time money must have gone
into construction + engineering firms from both governments, some swindling
probably is inevitable, but mainly money gets paid for work done,
there is an inverted foodchain of money: money flows from government to
contractors to subcontractors to suppliers + workers etc

each part of this wont allow itself to be swindled?
(except within a margin of error)

These money movements must be documented in some publicly available document?

big investors tend to be pretty astute about things,
they can be conned but usually only by big timer conmen,

Also isnt it compulsory for an "independent" accountancy firm to
go over the books each year or something?

>especially for a financial company trying to prove it's
>a sound place to store your cash. In reality, while these may be mandated,
>they're still just big ads for the company, and in the US, at least, plenty of
>other reports and forms must be filed with the SEC - the body that regulates the
>stock exchanges -- and recently, of course, companies were found to have cooked
>those, too.

But the Annual Report I mentioned tells a lot of stuff which I am sure
Barclays would not like everyone to see. People hide stuff but there must
be limits to how much stuff you can hide.

would you know yourself how to get hold of the mandatory Amiga Inc info?

Presumably the backers of Amiga Inc obtained such mandatory info before
ploughing their cash into AInc??

>In the US, for smaller companies and LLCs, filing and paperwork requirements
>probably vary by jurisdiction. Mostly you just need your business license and
>tax forms kept up to date; maintaining the business license requires a filing of
>some report or another, and there are probably laws governing disclosure
>requirements even among private investors - though general fraud statutes
>would cover those dealings as much as anything specific... and of course,
>federal laws apply as well.

I'm interested just in the official version of events even if its untrue,
because this is all anyone can use if things go to court.

>Funny how little any of us know about business, hmm?

I think it can only be understood 2 ways either you are on the receiving end
of some devious company or you are either a lawyer in this field, or work in
an investment company or you work within eg a corporation.

When some company owes you money and you find it is impossible to get it
back then you get a more accurate picture of things,

When the statutory framework hits a big company the company can come to
look pretty pathetic, eg when a big corporate scandal hits the news.

Look at the auctioning of Amiga Inc's stuff, talk about total shame!

:and we get to see what banale mundane people they are, totally drab,
compare this to their own version of events where Bill is portrayed as
a horse riding millionaire chums with Bill Gates doing deals with
Sharp and Nokia.

Amiga Inc are utterly powerless to stop this process,
none of their tricks will help, Rich Woods can wade through their stuff
yelling to the whole world what he has just found and they cant do a thing,

There is a further thing that puzzles me:

Gateway sacked Bill, now as I understand it when a corporation sacks you,
you become persona non grata, and it is humiliating. Some companies
put a binliner on your desk and give you half an hour to gather your
belongings. You are then escorted out of the building by a security guard.
Never ever again will you be able to enter the interior of the building again,
I think also there is no time gap between being sacked and having to
gather your stuff, if there is a gap then you will be escorted by security
from reception to your desk + back again!

If you ever enter the building the security people will not let you
through. Sacking + barring entry are a matter of procedure for big companies.

Now the last thing such a company would do is do business with a sacked
employee, firstly they would suspect his motives secondly it will be
humiliating for the sacked person,

So Gateway doing business by selling the Amiga stuff to Bill doesnt make
any sense to me.

There is something fishy about Gateway + Amiga, I think the guy above
who said Microsoft owns Amiga maybe is right.

Technically, Amiga Inc is a privately held company, meaning that they don't do stock reports, annual reports, or offer stock.  Amiga Inc is however dependent on Venture Capital, meaning they reply on investors.  

They do have a board of directors, because at one point they had named someone as head of the board (can't remember their names).  By law, the person or group that has 51% of all private "stock" or votes has the power to override everything.

As with any organization, public or private which has a board of directors, the CEO and any other office can be determined by a board vote, meaning that McEwen CAN be thrown out.  He told us this much himself in the 2000 UGN Meeting at Saint Louis.  

The question then becomes, with so many very well documented money problems, does McEwen have the 51% of of the vote (either owned by him, or by proxy) to stay in power?  I know that if I were a venture capitalist who invested in Amiga, I would have withdrawn my money or thrown McEwen aside for a more competent candidate long ago.

My opinion -- and as always, it's strictly that -- is that the VC's have basically written off Amiga Inc and don't ever expect to see their money again.  After all, Amiga Inc has no tangible assets left that they can seize or sell, and this apparently includes even the trademarks (for which ownership has always been a bit of a grey area to begin with).  

That leaves Amiga Inc on it's own, soon to be 1/4 to 1/2 million in debt (documented pending and settled court cases), properties being seized, and "floating" in the wind.

[Atheist]

mikeymike wrote:
Who... does... Number.. Two... work.. for?



:-)

It's from the classic, "The Prisoner".


Hi whoosh777,

No reports have to be issued publicly, if it isn't on any stock exchange, although, if there are several private investors they may make one (which even the government doesn't get, but they can look at whatever they want to, of course anyway.) If there are just 3 or 4 people, they can just call the accountant whenever they want (and they probably do so, often.)

As for the Big Cheese, they don't ever seem to say anything publicly, but Bill may be getting lots of heat from them, from time to time, that we don't know about, which no one would tell us about.

I doubt those "board of shadowy figures" (not being sinister here, just making a silly reference to "Clone High") read these message boards (thank goodness). I think they are just sitting around wondering why they haven't made bags of cash yet off of their mysterious "Amiga" investment. For them it may even be a "if it flops, it's a tax write off" deal. We have no idea here at our end.

I just know that, if the price was brought down to a 30% premium over an x86 motherboard, we could exceed the sales of Apple, really!

AmigaOne! 11 years spent being battered by the storm, but we're indestructible!

[mikeymike]

mikeymike wrote:
Who... does... Number.. Two... work.. for?

It's from the classic, "The Prisoner".

Erm... :-)

[The_Editor]

I don't have any problem with A.Inc (or whoever) trading with Microsoft ....

But being (silently?) owned by them ........

ok ..Who hid the door !! (Guess I'd have to use the Windows (groan))   :-o

[Targhan]

@Wayne

I thought the correct term was "Vulture Capitolists"? :-P :lol: :-D :lol: :-P

[Crispy_Beef]

Just to chip in, I own and run my own company in the UK.  The company has been incorporated and is owned by me (i.e. I'm the only share holder ;-) ).

Even though this is a private company, by UK law I have to do a number of things each year.  These are:

File Annual Return (Affirming Details of Company etc.)
File Rendered Accounts (Viewable by public)
Have an annual meeting (with myself apparently... ahem)

There are a few other things, but the point is in the UK this is necessary, and I'm gussing that there would by a similar system in the US (don't quote me on that though).

Here any person can go to Companies House and request to see filed accounts, I think there is a nominal charge for the servies but anybody can do it.  This is so people can see the history of a company before they do something with it.  i.e. invest.

Bloody companies, have to sort my accounts out this week too...   :-(

[Bodie]

Crispy_Beef wrote:

There are a few other things, but the point is in the UK this is necessary, and I'm gussing that there would by a similar system in the US (don't quote me on that though).

Here any person can go to Companies House and request to see filed accounts, I think there is a nominal charge for the servies but anybody can do it.  This is so people can see the history of a company before they do something with it.  i.e. invest.
 

You are quiet correct, the US and UK (along with NZ and Australia) all tend to have fairly similar accounting and regulatory systems.

But one thing I did find interesting is that you state your accounts are viewable by the public? I didn't know that this is the case with a private company (ie not listed on an exchange). Oh well, I have forgotten the majority of accounting knowledge imparted upon me during my undergrad years :-P.

Maybe ASIC (Australian Securites and Exchange Commission, similar to your Companies House) allows this...

Time to open the Coporations Law book...

[dammy]

by Wayne on 2003/7/13 17:48:33

After all, Amiga Inc has no tangible assets left that they can seize or sell, and this apparently includes even the trademarks (for which ownership has always been a bit of a grey area to begin with).

Speaking of trademarks, what is the status of the Amiga name?

Dammy

[DonnyEMU]

Here's a list of the top  10 people I hope Mr. Big isn't.

1) Mehdi Ali
2) Jack Tramiel
3) Irving Gould
4) Kenny from South Park (although that would explain a lot though)
5) Strom Thurmond
6) Alexander Haig (yes he had money in C= apparently)
7) Carrot Top
Hans Blick
9) Mr Rogers (again that would explain a lot)
10) The Crocodile Hunter

Anyone care to add to my list??
  :-D  ;-)  :-D

[iamaboringperson]

DonnyEMU wrote:
Here's a list of the top 7 people I hope Mr. Big isn't.

1) Mehdi Ali
2) Jack Tramiel
3) Irving Gould
4) Kenny from South Park (although that would explain a lot though)
5) Strom Thurmond
6) Alexander Haig (yes he had money in C= apparently)
7) Carrot Top

 

i think it might be 'ozzie' osbourne  :-D

[DonnyEMU]

The story I heard is that commodore begat escom begat amiga technlogies who had those valuable patents to technologies that gateway wanted to have the rights to in their own designs.

So Amiga Tech went to gateway and when amiga wanted to make a computer/multimedia box/set top that competed directly with something they were doing in conjunction with microsoft, they used it as leverage on them working with microsoft which they wanted. Microsoft anti-ed up so the Amiga team and everyone was kinda hung out to dry and told not to compete.

Amiga was viewed as a "software company" not a hardware company by gateway, and they offered their ex-amiga folks there the rights to use the name and produce AmigaOS based products.

 I am guessing since gateway still owns a lot of the patents that they don't have the right to do anything competitive (like the walker proto) at this time. This is strictly a guess on my part. I have no idea how true this story would be, but that would explain why they are having other companies sell boxes.

I would like the E True Hollywood story on this one folks, I'd pay to see it..

[Crispy_Beef]

You are quiet correct, the US and UK (along with NZ and Australia) all tend to have fairly similar accounting and regulatory systems.

But one thing I did find interesting is that you state your accounts are viewable by the public? I didn't know that this is the case with a private company (ie not listed on an exchange). Oh well, I have forgotten the majority of accounting knowledge imparted upon me during my undergrad years :-P.

Maybe ASIC (Australian Securites and Exchange Commission, similar to your Companies House) allows this...

Time to open the Coporations Law book...

Here's an interesting link.  It's a US site that helps companies set-up branches in the UK and details some of the things they need to do.  However the wording does suggest that US company records aren't subjected to the same scrutiny that UK companies are.

Click Here

The bit to look for says:

"All documents filed are open to public inspection."

[Bodie]

Thanks for the info Crispy_Beef :-) .

[whoosh777]

This reply I think is getting closer to the answer:


Wayne said:

====================================================

>Technically, Amiga Inc is a privately held company, meaning that they don't do
>stock reports, annual reports, or offer stock. Amiga Inc is however dependent on
>Venture Capital, meaning they reply on investors.

what is Venture Capital? Is this something like a bank loan?

and "privately held", does that mean there is a real owner?

This may sound naive but is it like a mortgage on a house where you "own" the
house but have a loan so you dont truly own the house till the loan is fully
paid off?

ie if you cant keep up with mortgage repayments the mortgage company can
repossess your house


>They do have a board of directors, because at one point they had named someone
>as head of the board (can't remember their names).

Now these board of directors are they like employees of the loan giver ie
independent of the actual "owner"?

>By law, the person or group
>that has 51% of all private "stock" or votes has the power to override everything.

If there is such a person then this could be Mr Big, but there could be
2 Mr Bigs, one being the 51% person and the other being the guy taking out the
loan.

>As with any organization, public or private which has a board of directors, the
>CEO and any other office can be determined by a board vote, meaning that McEwen
>CAN be thrown out. He told us this much himself in the 2000 UGN Meeting at
>Saint Louis.

so McEwen then is not the guy who took out the loan but possibly was
appointed by the board of directors?


>The question then becomes, with so many very well documented money problems,
>does McEwen have the 51% of of the vote (either owned by him, or by proxy) to
>stay in power? I know that if I were a venture capitalist who invested in Amiga,
>I would have withdrawn my money or thrown McEwen aside for a more competent
>candidate long ago.

My question though is are all these venture capitalists only interested in
AmigaDE + PDAs? ie Bill is there to carry through his AmigaDE concept,
www.amiga.com certainly appears to revolve around AmigaDE. There is a lot of
AmigaDE activity in their mailing lists. Zero AmigaOne activity, no developer
material no discussion no Eyetech no Hyperion. (I quit the mailing lists
many months ago as I have zero interest in PDAs let alone AmigaDE (TAO with an
amiga sticker on it), so maybe things have changed since then).

:the venture capitalists may be happy with his AmigaDE efforts,

The desktop Amiga seems to be a minor side issue, with total absence of
Hyperion and Eyetech from www.amiga.com. The only connection I can see
between the A1 and Amiga Inc is that A1 and OS4 sales will pay some
license fee to Amiga Inc for the name. The idea that companies other than
Eyetech could do an A1 is a joke I think, because Eyetech will jealously
guard their position of being sole A1 producer.

Noone so far has shone the spotlight on Hyperion who after some 2? years
still havent got OS4 booting on an A1. To create or port an OS step no. 1
is the boot. Till the boot is done nothing has happened.
IMO the screenshots of OS4 are to keep Bill off their backs,
working on menus and windows but not doing the boot
== huge huge procrastination.

Perhaps Hyperion should be man enough to admit defeat and surrender their
AmigaOS source code license??

"we tried our best but after 2 years we give up, its too complicated".

Bill seems to have given them indefinite license to the source code
which was a bit foolish, with contracts one should always have opt-out clauses
no matter how nice or competent the other party.

I think Berndt Meyer or Ralph Schmidt should replace Hyperion,

:both have a proven track record in AmigaOS porting

January 2003 we were told that OS4 is almost ready, now people are saying
it will be another 6 months for A1-OS4, ie in January 2004 it will be almost
ready again! a year later in January 2005 OS4 will be almost ready,
most of the modules will be ready...

>My opinion -- and as always, it's strictly that -- is that the VC's have
>basically written off Amiga Inc and don't ever expect to see their money again.
>After all, Amiga Inc has no tangible assets left that they can seize or sell,

the landlord beat them to that!

What about the Amiga Limousine, or was that just rented for the day??

and the www.amiga.com merchandise that could be seized (I havent looked
recently)

>and this apparently includes even the trademarks (for which ownership has always
>been a bit of a grey area to begin with).


>That leaves Amiga Inc on it's own, soon to be 1/4 to 1/2 million in debt
>(documented pending and settled court cases), properties being seized, and
>"floating" in the wind.

but what happens then?

Can a company hang around forever with such huge debts?

Is there some automatic procedure that swings into action to brush away
such companies?

How do bankruptcies and liquidations get started?


whoosh777