Mike,
I appreciate your kind words. As a result of that writeup, I recieved a call from Barry Bampton this morning. It was very interesting to say the least.
Barry Bampton Motivation
Like many of us on this thread, Bampton is not happy about the current stock price and finds that his own cost basis is significantly higher. Consequently, he has his own personal motivation to make vteh a success because he's in this to make money. In addition, his desire to retain his credibility with investors who have helped finance vteh in the past at higher cost basis is also extremely motivating.
Financing Progress
Barry was very insightful about vteh and the progress they are making. The needed financing to become operational is very near being a reality and he, as was Art Rosenberg, is quite confident a deal will be closed soon. Art's opinion about the 120 day window to flipping on the operation was also shared by Barry, if not sooner.
Server Reinforcement
Barry provided a couple of other pieces of information that I found to be interesting and clarified some of what Art told me. Although financing is important to starting and funding the operation, the financing will also be used to beef up the servers that will handle the gaming enterprize. Due to the potential for huge numbers of people coming online to the system upon startup, server capability is being assessed and addressed to insure that overload does not occur. They want to prevent the situation AOL had when they went to their unlimited deal for 19.95 and pissed off a ton of users in the process due to server failures causes by underestimating the number of people coming online.
A server overload situation that shuts the system down could be a very negative public and customer relations thing especially during the initial periods of operation and could effect revenue generation for a significant amount of time. Therefore, they are going to beef these babies up to reduce the probability of this occurring - they want to prevent that situation from being a possibility at all.
Profitable
I also pressed Barry on what kind of revenue, costs, and profitability they are projecting to have over the next few years. His answer was very consistent - they don't really know because this is a startup in a rather unique area without any good models or other experiences to access the feasibility of their numbers against.
vteh does have a business plan with projections, but the numbers are so incredible that they feel that their credibility would be damaged if they talked about them publicly or privately. Therefore, their strategy is to be quiet and let the numbers speak for themselves as they occur.
They do know, by way of Pete Marowick, a major marketting and consulting firm, that the industry potential is huge - at least 20 to 40 billion dollars. Smith Barney has in the past estimated the industry potential to be 10 to 20 billion dollar area. By flipping the switch, Marowick's study and marketing plan anticipates that a significant volume of people and transactions will occur almost simultaneously. Whatever the actual turns out to be, a million dollars in a quarter will definitely be a very profitable situation for vteh according to Barry.
Software Compatiability Issues
I have heard in the past that the software was dependant on having Explorer 4.0. When I asked Barry about this situation, he said that the latest browers would be best for the gaming software due to their superior speed and security. However, he didn't think that the current versions were inoperable, just not as fast. In my conversation with Art Rosenberg, he indicated that the browser software issue wasn't a constraint either for becoming operational.
Some of the people working on the software are ex Microsoft and are heavily networked with people still at Microsoft. He says this has facilitated the development of the gaming software to insure upwards and backwards compatibility with Explorer. It appears that Netscape is also a workable browser. A little more clarification on this issue I still think is appropriate.
Silicon Investor
Barry also expressed to me his frustration about what he hears written on the SI thread. Although he does not visit the SI threads at all, he does hear from others within vteh and from friends about some of the accusations directed at him. He acknowledged and accepted the fact that he knows he will take a lot of heat in situations like this. However, he went on to say that inaccurate and false information drives him nuts and makes him very angry. "Doesn't anybody understand that I'm as upset as anybody about this stock price, maybe more so than many since I own so much of it?", he asked me.
In no uncertain terms he told me that he has no problem owning up to what he has done, but will not accept responsibility for false or inaccurate accusations. Since he knew that I wrote on the thread occassionally, he was obviously making a point and, by the way, he had my attention.
The Four Stocks
From his perspective he feels that their are only four stocks that he presently promotes publicly and that these four have been his favorites for some time. These companies are venture tech, intrysis, microsoft, and dell. He says he has not even heard of some of the other stocks that he has been accused of promoting here or in other places. In fact, his frustration was quite evident about this.
Ed Taxin
Barry went on to say that Ed Taxin's show is a vehicle to discuss stocks, but even in that forum Bampton says he only promotes the aforementioned four. Discussions about others may occur, but he does not promote any other than the four.
He's also a bit confused sometimes by the accusations that people make toward Taxin because he assumes that everybody knows that Taxin is paid a promotional fee for the stocks that are discussed formally and that Taxin assures his credibility by being up front about this fact. In addition, Taxin's policy is to not take a position in any stock that is promoted on his show and this too is upfront information.
Last of all, Barry Bampton assured me that if he promotes he's buying along with his clients. If its time to take profits, he says he's upfront about that also publicly and with his clients. His business' ability to continue in the long term to be a successful investment banking and financing firm is dependant upon that principle. I agree with that premise and find that principle critical in my own practice.
Overall
Anyway, I found Barry very open and optimistic. He has not sold a stick of the vteh stock he owns since the stock tumbled he says and my impression is that he has a lot of it. In fact, he has continued to buy at these levels and is even raising more capital for himself to buy more at the present level so that he may average down. My broker has actually confirmed this fact on the screens he has available at his office.
However, Barry did say that he wouldn't hestitate to do some profit taking and would advise others to do so also. But for him, the time to take profits is a long ways off due to his current cost basis. As evidence of this, he pointed to a time when he advised people on the Taxin show to take profits on vteh when it was at about 18.
As for whether Barry's statements about what stocks he promotes or doesn't promote and whether the disclaimers that Taxin has about his show are upfront, I have no way of confirming this since I live in a remote part of Wisconsin. I have not heard the Ed Taxin show or seen any of Bampton's brochures, newsletters, etc. (if he has them) so all I can do is relay what was said in a very emphatic manner to me.
But for now, the price is so good and the potential is so "green" that he's buying vteh and he's encouraging his investor friends to do the same. My broker has confirmed this independantly. In addition, he's just as confident in the futures of itry and dell and msft.
Don |
