Copyright Law

GGF Shareholders Approve Pirate Bay Deal, ?Finalize In 8 Days?

By soulxtc

Not surprising being that Global Gaming Factory CEO Hans Pandeya controls 63% of the company, but the GGF stock he plans to use as collateral to lure investors is suspended for at least two weeks while it faces possible delisting from the AktieTorget stock exchange.

Yesterday Global Gaming Factory held a shareholder meeting to discuss the acquisition of Swedish BitTorrent tracker site the Pirate Bay for 60 million SEK ($8.5 million USD) as expected.

It was little surprise that it approved the deal being that CEO Hans Pandeya together with his wife Brigitte Majken Hummel-Gumaelius control some 63% of the company. In fact, DI.se says that there was most likely no more than three whole people in attendance: Pandeya, Shareholders Association representative John Örtengren, and “possible another person.”

However, investors are apparently still leery of financing the deal because of what Pandeya says is “recent turbulence in the media? and has promised to fulfill his pledge to offer up his 150 million shares, worth 28.5 million SEK ($4 million USD), in GGF as security

However, GGF shares still aren’t looking so good these days with AktieTorget, the stock market where it?s traded, having suspended its trading indefinitely until it proves it has the proper financing to fund the Pirate Bay deal, and even promised to convene its Disciplinary Committee to determine if it should even remain listed on the exchange.

So since AktieTorget’s main concern is that GGF doesn’t have enough funds for the acquisition and has halted trading until it proves it does, Pandeya may have trouble luring investors using suspended GGF stock in order to lift it.

Pandeya doesn’t seem to think this will be a problem and says he expects the deal to be finalized “within the next eight days” after AktieTorget allows it to resume trading.

The problem is Peter Gönzci, VP of AktieTorget, told DI.se that it “usually takes a couple of weeks before the panel convenes and a decision is made,” and that “there will be no trading [of the stock] before then.”

AktieTorget still hasn’t seen the money or written proof that investors have pledged money to finance the deal so 8 days seems overly optimistic.

“”We are skeptical as he (Pandeya) couldn’t deliver the answers that we want: where the money is (to fund the takeover),”Gönzci told the The Local. “They have not been able to show us any written agreements made with their investors.”

Gonzci is also concerned that after the all recent defections by the company’s board members that it doesn’t even meet the requirements to be listed at all. It now consists only of Pandeya and his wife.

“Right now, the Board does not meet the listing requirements, company regulation or the requirements of the Companies Registration Office,” he told DI.se. “It’s not a long-acceptable governance.”

So the odds are stacking up against the deal, and it would seem Pandeya has a lot of work to do if he wants to pull it all off.

It’s hard to imagine that even if he does come up with the $8.5 million USD that he’ll be able to afford the more expensive costs like licensing agreements with content providers.

Even then he still has try and convince BitTorrent users that they ought to start actually paying for content instead of just getting it for free.

Good luck with that one.

Stay tuned.

jared@zeropaid.com

Full post as published by ZeroPaid on August 28, 2009 (boomark / email).