John Linton
.....catch up with you.
I wrote yesterday about some of the ludicrous 'facts' surrounding a
company I utterly despise - Eftel/aanet. I was amused to see how that
brief few words caused that despicable company to react. While I have
no real interest in the inevitable demise of Eftel/aanet the incredibly
horrible and dishonest actions of aanet in April 2005 (yes, I know its
a long time ago but I have a very long memory for personal attacks)
perpetrated by that piece of arrant nonsense (Lorraine Rose) and the
subsequent buyers of her bankrupt aanet company (Eftel). I have only
one interest in that apology for a company and that is to see it end up
in the only place it deserves - non-existence.
For those of you
who can remember the actions of Lorraine Rose in April 2005 you will
remember that she, and her cohorts, attempted to put Exetel out of
business by the most unethical set of actions I have ever seen employed
in my time in business. She, and her cohorts, totally failed in that
attempt but it was a deeply concerning 4 week period in which Exetel's
few personnel worked amazingly long hours (to the point of exhaustion)
for almost 4 weeks to 'save' Exetel (and its customers) from demise
and, although we lost several thousand customers and all business
momentum for the next 12 months the result was that Rose and her
pernicious cohorts went bankrupt and Exetel survived and after a year's
hiatus resumed growing quite strongly and, of course is still in
business today and still providing services to a surprisingly large
percentage of the customers we had at the time of Rose's and her
cohorts attempts to ruin us.
To say that I dislike Eftel/aanet
would be an understatement but I dislike them because of their actions
and their attempts to harm Exetel not for any other reason. I therefore
take some notice of their crummy company (not really a real company but a kluge of failed ISPs like
aanet with no purpose for being in business but to make money for a few directors - something they have monumentally failed to do) and I do go out of my way to do any harm I can to the people who
have sought to benefit from harming Exetel's customers and my family
particularly. If you, a casual reader of an obscure 'blog' think that
such feelings do not belong in commercial business then, you are wrong but then you also have the option of not bothering to read any further.
Several
people who read this random set of postings have sent me links to a
thread on a third party forum called Whirlpool in which John Lane
(allegedly the 'CEO' of Eftel) has responded to my mild musing yesterday
alleging that it contained "no facts". I was surprised by that claim
because I thought that I had only quoted facts. Apparently not. So I
thought I'd clarify the facts that relate to Eftel and their lying
claims.
I actually quoted the cited sources yesterday so I am not
going to bore you with them again - if challenged I refer to the two
documents submitted by Eftel to the ASX described as:
"Preliminary 2009 Final Report"
and
"Full Year Presentation"
Now despite John Lane's comment here:
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1303172&p=15
"There is hardly a fact in that screed. He didn't intend there to be any. It is pure marketing noise."
I
only used the "facts" in Eftel's own documentation as posted on the ASX
site. I am not sure what how my comments on another company can be in any way described as "marketing" nor how written words can be described as "noise". In these documents, submitted as true records of facts to the ASX:
Eftel states that "Eftel is a Top 10 ISP" (presumably in Australia).
Now for a tiny company such as Eftel (FY2009 revenues reported as less
than $A40 million (which happens to be much less than Exetel's 2009
revenues which we think ranks us around 14/15th in Australia) is very
definitely NOT "a top 10 ISP" it is way lower than that and by a
huge margin. So why would they choose to lie about such a self evident
(their own figures) nonsense?
In their figures submitted to the
ASX they had to report their revenue in terms of how it compared to the
previous 12 month period and that shows that Eftel, in what was a
pretty good year for communications companies, reported less than 5%
growth when every other company reported ADSL revenue growths above 15%
with some (like Exetel) closer to 30%.
While every other communications company reported healthy profits - what did Eftel do? It reported a LOSS
of over $A5.7 million on its tiny revenues of less than $A40 million -
a new record low result but, and bear this in mind, there is another
$A20 million of losses yet to be written off as the only way they can show solvency is to carry a huge amount of "good will" which will have to be written off in the near future.
So, if indeed these
are not "facts" they are the statements and figures submitted to the
ASX by Eftel so what are we to make of John Lane's claim that they are
simply "marketing noise"? They aren't my words or figures so it seems
that Eftel is submitting "marketing noise" to the ASX.
Eftel is a
company that has lost money in every year it has been in existence by
pursuing its insane policy of acquiring companies that have already
gone broke or about to go broke. It has borrowed against optimistic
claims (as its own filed balance sheet shows) and it has desperately
tried to borrow enough money over the past few months to stave off the
demands by Huawei and others to pay back what it has borrowed - now
that is supposition but it is supposition based on its own published
figures which shows a chronic discrepancy between its current assets
and its current liabilities....and other germane figures....just look
at the balance sheet and p and l submitted by Eftel to the ASX.
Right
now, at least as far as I can see, NO other ISP is putting up prices
(how could they when so many costs have reduced over the past year and continue to reduce at a faster rate currently?)
and ALL other ISPs (except Bigpond) have increased download allowances
for no increase in end user pricing. ONLY Eftel is putting up prices
(Exetel, for instance, recently reduced most prices on its new plans
using the cost reductions we, and everyone else with half a brain, have
received).
Far from not "quoting facts" I ONLY quoted the 'facts'
published by Eftel. My surmise that they added up to a company in deep
financial trouble with nowhere to go is - surmise - but it is based on
the 'facts' and figures published by Eftel....if they aren't "facts"
then perhaps the ASX should ask for Eftel to resubmit the real
situation?
I have met the two Ehrenfelds and John Lane - in
my opinion they are people without the ability or knowledge of how to
operate a data communications company in this or any other period of
Australian communications history....all they 'know how to do' is to
copy, badly, other people's ideas.....and they also know how to lose
mega money every year while assuring their shareholders at the start of
each year that "this is the year we will make money".
In case
it isn't obvious - I dislike Eftel/aanet and the people associated with
it more than I have ever disliked any other person or group of people
in my life to date.....and with very good reasons.
PS: I see from an email overnight that John Lane is still selectively quoting from and excising my blogs to misrepresent what I say - so the actual full quote of my "apology" almost two years ago can be found here:
http://johnl.blogs.exetel.com.au/index.php?/archives/2007/12/14.html
That post noted the local newspaper report of the antics of the Eftel board of directors calling each other crooks at a public meeting and the fact that the auditors qualified Eftel's accounts by saying their audit had revealed that the company may not continue in business because of its financial situation.