Carl,
I'm just sitting here thinking about what I would do if I owned as much AXC as Bramson and had his decision making power. An IPO of TVotW? Ok that would solve one immediate funding problem; that of TvotW. But (for me and AXC to make money on that) I would have to buy out my option now, and that would deplete my reserves and leave 4 projects underfunded.
But given the hype about the Yahoo purchase, suppose I went to Merril Lynch (or, because I am already in contact with them about other things, I bring it up, or they bring it up); How about ML takes a 10% stake in AXC with the option of being one of the main underwriters of all my future IPOs. A stake taken by such a player would signal to the greater market IPOs in the future without the need for any immediate announcement. And a 10% stake at say, 3X current market price would be no dilution at all, and I would have the time to make these subs hot enough to generate funds in the eventual IPOs that actually went to the companies as opposed to the flip artists (what is called a Hot IPO, today, is not necessarily hot for the issuer. When an IPO goes from 5 to 500 on the first day, all that really means is that the issues was mispriced. The company gets $4. Of course, it is true that if the company uses the money wisely, a secondary will come out that will be priced considerably closer to the market price. If they make it.)
Take another approach, suppose you had the money AXC needed, what would you want to do?
Suppose further that you saw the potential of Video on the PC, but did not necessarily know how the story was going to unfold, how would you invest in AXC. Surely not by investing in TvotW by itself. (An IPO needs several investors that are willing to take large stakes ; it is not simply a matter of selling the concept to the public.) That is a rifle shot. A much safer approach (a banker credo) is investment in the holding company. If one unit fails, there are three others.
Your convertable preferred idea also floats. In light of the light now shining on this field, however, the usual sub market nature of a convertable does not look like as good a deal as a private placement.
Now we come to the implications for the immediate price of the stock. Given that the debate we are having is most likely one that is going on in the minds of a lot of investors; I would say that what we are looking at is either a flat or only gradually increasing price during the next week regardless of the importance of announcements short of one that deals with the money issue ---IPO or otherwise. IMNHOHOHO,MO
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