Second Life Opinion: The CGI Vote
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 09/30/2007 - 12:23
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been writing about the Countless Galaxies situation. I was offline most of yesterday, and logged in to day to find a statement from Marc Attenborough stating that “over 80% of the outstanding shares - excluding Jasper & Payday have voted in favor of the merger”. He goes on to say that he holds no shares in CGI or BNT “and was brought in as an objective 3rd party”. Details can be found in the Finance Section of the Secondlife Newspaper.
Yet looking at his group memberships in Second Life, he is listed as a member of “CGI Shareholders” as well as a member of “Brautigan & Tuck Holdings”. Another part of Marc Attenborough’s credibility supposedly came from his role as CFO at the Second Life Exchange Commission.
Yet it is interesting to note that PatrickJ Ah, who was pushing for the BNT option, is Vice President of the SLEC and Intlibber Braughtigan of BNT is also a director of the SLEC.
Numerous people reported various irregularities with the vote. Some people asserted that PatrickJ discouraged people from making proposals, or that proposals were submitted that despite PatrickJ’s comments at the CGI shareholder’s meeting that no other proposals were submitted. PatrickJ strongly denies these assertions.
Others noted that the ballots were created by PatrickJ and people were not told to make them non modifiable. This means that the votes could very easily be tampered with and are much less auditable.
After the vote, I received comments from officers of several different companies. They ranged from fairly straightforward to anger.
“PatrickJ did what he wanted. He wanted to give it [CGI] to BNT and is now caching in himself while the sims are sold.”
“Perhaps they [PatrickJ and IntLibber] deserve each other.”
“This is bullshit about the BNT thing. I want a recount or a post of the vote, cause BNT isn’t even on an exchange. And I don’t understand why Payday gets to vote since he is the owner of the bank… It’s funny how other people put in proposals for CGI and only the BNT one came through, funny how Jasper was talking about merging with BNT before this happened. Something very fishy here. I want a recount. Funny about how PatrickJ and IntLibber work together on the SLEC and Patrickj is a VP of BNT. Conflict of interest.”
My personal take on this. I am a CGI shareholder. I own a very small number of shares. I bought 20 shares on August 29th for L$ .51 per share. It was part of my testing of the VSTEX interface. So, if I lose all ten Lindens, that doesn’t particularly matter to me. What does matter to me is the future of trading in Second Life.
Over the past couple of months, there has been the problem of the hacking of the World Stock Exchange, the crash of Ginko Financial, the head of which was the second largest shareholder of BNT before BNT got delisted from the Second Life Capital Exchange. There has been the whole Jasper Tizzy affair with both CGI and AVC. There has been the issue with Investor Allen and Allenvest Investment Capital. Now, there are questions about the CGI shareholder vote.
Due to the pseudonymous nature of Second Life as well as the lack of auditability of Second Life companies, and lack or recourse, investing in Second Life companies is about the equivalent of giving an unsecured loan to someone you don’t know. It doesn’t make much business sense. The handling of the CGI vote only reinforces these problems.
Let us hope that future shareholder votes make proper use of non-modifiable notes and vote counting from sources that are truly independent and auditable.
After the CGI meeting, people talked about the future of trading in Second Life. I continue to be hopeful. I believe that people will come up with ways of verifying companies and their management and of getting proper access to the underlying assets of companies should there be problems with the management.
When this happens, Second Life trading will begin to take off and offer great opportunities to people in Second Life and small businesses in general. Unfortunately, all that handling of the CGI vote has done is to further tarnish the reputations of PatrickJ, IntLibber, Marc, BNT, the SLEC and trading in Second Life in general.
Inaccurate Info and Slanderous Aspersions
Submitted by IntLibber Brautigan on Thu, 10/04/2007 - 22:48.a) Neither Patrickj Ah nor Marc Attenborough held any shares in BNT.
b) Marc has not been on the board of the SLEC for several months now, and has not held any shares in CGI and does not hold shares of BNT. He retains a membership in BNT as a landowner in our estate, that is all. he is an Ancapistan Citizen.
c) Patrickj was made a BNT VP AFTER the vote was counted as passed. This was only to enable him to deed CGI land to BNT. Patrick has no intent to take an active role in the management of BNT, he only wants to be a shareholder, not even have a seat on the board of directors. Patrick has a serious and very well established RL business of his own in California that takes a lot of his time and he has no reason or need to engage in any questionable practices in SL. Aspersons against his character and integrity are offensive to say the least, and slanderous to be printed on these pages.
d) There was one verbal proposal voiced but not moved AFTER the request for proposals was closed and motion to hold a vote on the merger was passed. Under Roberts Rules of Order, that one proposal was therefore out of order and its proponent should have spoken up earlier.
e) Just because a BNT shareholder (with less than 8% of the stock in BNT, hardly a 'major shareholder') was Ginko in no way should be construed to taint BNT. Ginko collapsed due to the wagering rule change, as any idiot can tell. Should I assume that because you are an idiot that because you hold 20 shares of stock in CGI that that makes CGI run by idiots?
f) Yes, Jasper Tizzy had proposed merging CGI with BNT before he bailed out of SL. Our bid for CGI was our expression of our intent to complete that proposal. It was a fair deal, swapping stock evenly based on relative NAV.
g) Yes, we are not currently traded on any exchange. SLCapex delisted us for absolutely no reason other than "we don't like you", officially. Unofficially, they were pissed to hear we are going to open our own exchange, one that will be ethical, transparent, and governed by the community.
Yes, our own exchange, the Ancapistan Capital Exchange. It will be the most advanced, with inworld graphical charting of historical prices, P/E and PEG data, as well as volume data. It will feature an integrated Profit/Loss reporting system (feeding data to the P/E and PEG calculations), as well as for the first time in SL, options, both puts and asks, which will provide much needed natural price regulation.
Beyond stocks, we will offer currency and currency futures exchanges, and also for the first time in SL, a Land Futures Exchange.
The ACE will be governed by a large board of Governors, many of whom will be elected by the investors on the exchange.
Now, I understand that many daytraders who were having a good old time trying to trash BNT in order to fake up some volatility are now missing out on the profit cause we are delisted, but I've not heard of any complaints from our actual investors, because real investors buy and hold.
My responses
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 10/05/2007 - 10:51.a) I never said that Patrickj Ah nor Marc Attenborough held any shares in BNT.
b) I don’t say that Marc is on the board of SLEC. I note that some of his credibility supposedly came from his role as CFO of SLEC. My understanding is that Marc has resigned from that role, as noted in INC news dated August 11th. I have not been able to find details of when that resignation took effect, but since it appears to be sometime after August 11th, it is a stretch to say it was “several months ago”. Nor does it negate that he had a role as CFO of SLEC.
c) Patrick may well have a well-established business in California. However, that is not relevant to this discussion. The concern is that he appeared to push through his agenda without giving adequate opportunities for other proposals and that the voting is not verifiable. If you can prove that it did not appear this way to people or can prove that the voting is verifiable, I would love to see it.
d) The CGI meeting I attended was not run under Roberts Rules of Order. There was considerable discussion at that meeting about pursuing other options and that discussion seems to have been ignored. There are people who have said that other proposals were submitted. This becomes a he said/she said case.
e) You damage your own credibility by resorting to name calling in your reply. It is too bad, I would have liked to have had a serious discussion about the issues. As to the role of Nicholas Portocarrero and his holdings of over 8 million shares of BNT stock. First off, a holding of more than 5% stock is typically considered a major shareholder by most definitions I’ve seen. The continued selling off of stock by Nicholas makes investments in BNT a risky proposition until his shares are sold off. Anytime someone is trying to sell a large block of stock it depresses the stock. This says nothing about how the company is run. The way you have responded here says much more.
I wish you luck with your stock exchange. I am glad to hear that it will be “the most advanced”. I’m also very glad to hear about options being introduced. However, I strongly encourage you to follow the example of SlCapEx with their webservices in making the underlying data easily accessible to external programs. I also hope that you can address the issues of pseudonymous company officials, the lack of independent auditablity and the lack of recourse for when a company fails.
As to your continued diatribes against daytraders, you need to have a better understanding of the difference between volatility and liquidity. One of the key functions of daytraders in any market is to provide liquidity, which is something that has been sorely lacking from Second Life markets. Will you do things to prevent daytrading and liquidity in your new market?
I appreciate your stopping by and trying to clarify things, however, your response does little to reassure me about BNT or your upcoming stock exchange.
Your writing is incredibly
Submitted by IntLibber Brautigan on Fri, 10/05/2007 - 22:37.Your writing is incredibly biased and slanted to make the worst possible aspersions about people based on circumstantial evidence. You used the fact that Marc and Patrick belonged to the BNT group as if that made them biased or influenced, without investigating the circumstances to any degree.
The Vote was tabulated by Marc specifically because he is a third party without any financial interest in either group. He holds no stock in either CGI or BNT, and you would have known that if you, as a pretend journalist, had done the rudimentary act of appearing to investigate what you thought were facts. Have you even asked Marc for the results? I thought not.
Regarding Patrick being successfull in RL business: You operate as if Patrick has some devious underlying purpose here, as if what happens in the SL economy is of crucial import to his livlihood. That is not the case, and your crazy conspiracy theories are insulting and offensive to serious business people everywhere.
Patrick conducts meetings under Roberts Rules of Order. He does so for SLEC meetings, and I've seen him do the same elswhere. While he may be a mite more tolerant at heckling, catcalling, and assorted idiocy from the boobyseats than the typical moderator, he does run his meetings as best can be allowed given the audience at hand. I was sent a log of the meeting.
Lessee, its now Oct 5th, Marc resigned BEFORE August 11th (as he could not announce it until it was a fait accompli, as any logician can tell you that cause precede effects).
Regarding the name calling: As I have amply demonstrated, you lack the basic ability to make rational arguments, you fail to investigate the facts of a situation, and you fabricate conspiracy theories based on the flimsiest of circumstantial evidence. As Forrest Gump said, "Stupid is as stupid does".
Incredibly biased? Stupid is as stupid does?
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 10/06/2007 - 12:05.Let's look at the issues.
If I were being biased and slanted as you allege, I would simply delete comments. Your resorting to name-calling does little to further the discussion and even less to improve your reputation. This being a personal blog, I am not under any requirement to seek objectivity in my blog posts. You will note that the title of the blog post contains the word ‘opinion’. Opinions are normally expected to be subjective.
Now, on to the substantive issues:
You have stated that Marc ‘retains a membership in BNT as a landowner in our estate.’ Yet you maintain that ‘he is a third party without any financial interest in either group’. I would suggest that landowners do have a financial interest in the estate where they own land. I have not suggested that he was a shareholder. I have suggested that he had a financial interest and was not a third party as you or PatrickJ have suggested.
I have not asked Marc for the results because there is no way to verify that the results he provides have not been tampered with. There had not been a request that the votes be ‘no mod’. The original proposal is owned by PatrickJ so even if they were ‘no mod’ there would be no way of tracing them.
Nor do I suggest, as you allege, that “Patrick has some devious underlying purpose here.” I am merely pointing out that the way this particular vote was handled, in my opinion, harms the future of trading in Second Life more than it helps.
While Patrick may conduct other meetings according to Roberts Rules of Order. The CGI shareholders meeting where the options were discussed was not run according to Roberts Rules of Order. Here, I can speak from experience. I was at that meeting. You were not, unless you were there under some other name.
As to Marc’s resignation as CFO of SLEC, the only reports I could find online were from an INC statement dated August 11. In that release, it was announced that he “intended” to resign as CFO of SLEC, but there is no indication of when or if he actually resigned. If he had already resigned by August 11th, then his release to INC contains factually incorrect information, raising further questions about him. Whether or not he resigned on the 11th or a few days either way, it is still less than two months which is, at least in my book, considerably different from the ‘several months’ that you stated.
Back to the name-calling, first, I question that you have ‘amply demonstrated’ that I ‘lack the basic ability to make rational arguments’. I have written about the CGI vote. You have presented counter claims. I have used those counter claims to question your arguments. I have done this without calling you an ‘idiot’. It seems like these are parts of the basic ability to make rational arguments. In fact, I would suggest that your use of name-calling raises the question about your ability to make rational arguments.
I have not constructed a ‘conspiracy theory’. I have reported about how the vote appeared to many people, including quotes from noted business people in Second Life. Many people do not believe that the vote was handled as well as it should have been. However, that fact that you bring up the idea of a conspiracy makes me wonder even more about the validity of the vote.
As a final note, I will observe that I have asked you about your new stock exchange, and you have not addressed any of this, instead focusing on questioning the objectivity of my writing. This is unfortunate. You have the opportunity to present yourself and your proposed venture in a favorable light. You haven’t done so.