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Archive for the ‘Board Of Intellectual Capital’ Category

Facebook Turns Down Funding at $8 Billion Valuation

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, boic, Business models, FaceBook, Gerbsman Partners, Investments, Market research, Social Networks, Strategy, Uncategorized, Venture Capital, Wireless 2.0, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 20, 2009| Leave a Comment »

I guess that the economic crisis only apply to some. Here is a report by way of Digital media Wire.

“Palo Alto, Calif. – Facebook, the online social network with more than 200 million members, earlier this month turned down funding that would have valued the company at $8 billion, the blog TechCrunch reported on Tuesday, citing a source “with direct knowledge of the proposed transaction.” The company reportedly turned down the $200 million in proposed funding because of a stipulation that would have required it to give up a board seat, with founder Mark Zuckerberg intent on keeping control of the board, according to TechCrunch.

The blog also reported that “investors are now being told the company expects $550 million in 2009 revenue,” well above previous projections of up to $400 million”

Read the full article here.

Related article can be found here: TechCrunch, Blogrunner, Social Median, Seeking Alpha, Dintz,

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How to save the US banking system?

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, Distressed Intellectual Property, Economy, Gerbsman Partners, Market research, tagged , , , , , , on May 18, 2009| Leave a Comment »

RGE recently pubsliched a lengthy article on what needs to happen to save tu US banking system. It makes for a good read and I highly recommend it.

“Many important US banks are currently in a dangerous halfway house between public and private, fragile and failed. This is unprecedented in scale, but not in situation. The United States faced a very similar problem with our Savings and Loan crisis of the mid-1980s, Japan and Sweden had systemic banking crises during the 1990s, and a host of less advanced economies have suffered from this type of problem.”

It continues…

“The ongoing accumulation of nonperforming loans and the resulting continued decline in solvency of many American banks has been a significant drag on growth and will only get worse absent government action. Properly capitalized banks will face losses from the recession no matter what, but will not roll over bad loans because they would have enough of their own capital at risk and can bear the costs of writing off bad loans. The costs to the US economy of leaving its financial system undercapitalized are enormous in terms of lost growth, missed investments in new firms and projects (due to the bias towards rolling over old loans to avoid write-offs by undercapitalized banks), and low returns on savings.

The Obama administration has announced that it will do strict examinations of the 20 biggest banks’ balance sheets starting this week. If anything close to current asset values are used to evaluate those books, and they should be, many of these banks will need public capital injections or closure. The reluctance to pull the trigger appears to be based on the fact that such forced write-offs would require the unpopular steps of another injection of public funds and/or round of closures, either way involving government ownership of those banks, a.k.a. nationalization. Failing to be so strict and leaving current shareholders and top management in control will just lead to further losses and repeated suspicions about some banks’ viability, as we saw in the stock market last week.”

Read the full article here.

Others covering this topic: Peterson Institute, Steve Lendman Blog, Institutional Partners and The BaseLine Scenario.

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“Maximizing Enterprise Value through Balance Sheet Restructuring & Date Certain M&A Process”

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, boic, Economy, Gerbsman Partners, tagged , , , on May 14, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Gerbsman Partners has been involved with numerous national and international equity sponsors, senior/junior lenders, investment banks and equipment lessors in the restructuring or termination of various Balance Sheet issues for their portfolio companies. These companies were not necessarily in Crisis, had CASH (in some cases significant CASH) and/or investor groups that were about to provide additional funding. In order stabilize their go forward plan and maximize CASH resources for future growth, there was a specific need to address the Balance Sheet and Contingent Liability issues as soon as possible.

Some of the areas in which Gerbsman Partners has assisted these companies have been in the termination, restructuring and/or reduction of:

  • Prohibitive executory real estate leases, computer and hardware related leases and senior sub-debt obligations – Gerbsman Partners was the “Innovator” in creating strategies to terminate or restructure prohibitive real estate leases, computer and hardware related leases and senior and sub-debt obligations. To date, Gerbsman Partners has terminated or restructured over $770 million of such obligations. These 77 deals were a mixture of both public and private companies, and allowed the restructured company to return to a path of financial viability.
  • Accounts Trade payable obligations – Companies in a crisis, turnaround or restructuring situation typically have accounts and trade payable obligations that become prohibitive for the viability of the company on a go forward basis. Gerbsman Partners has successfully negotiated mutually beneficial restructurings that allowed all parties to maximize enterprise value based on the reality and practicality of the situation.

Date Certain M&A Process

Gerbsman Partners developed its proprietary “Date Certain M&A Process” in 2002. Since that time, the process has evolved into a 4-6 time frame vehicle for maximizing enterprise value for venture backed Intellectual Property based companies. A description of this proven process can be reviewed on the Gerbsman Partners website.

About Gerbsman Partners

Gerbsman Partners focuses on maximizing enterprise value for stakeholders and shareholders in under-performing, under-capitalized and under-valued companies and their Intellectual Property. Since 2001, Gerbsman Partners has been involved in maximizing value for 52 Technology, Life Science and Medical Device companies and their Intellectual Property and has restructured/terminated over $770 million of real estate executory contracts and equipment lease/sub-debt obligations. Since inception in 1980, Gerbsman Partners has been involved in over $2.2 billion of financings, restructurings and M&A transactions.

Gerbsman Partners has offices and strategic alliances in Boston, New York, Washington, DC, Alexandria, VA, San Francisco, Europe and Israel.

For additional information please visit www.gerbsmanpartners.com

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Restructuring provides a new start

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 13, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Here is a interesting article posted at WSJ Venture Dispatch.

“Wallenstein, one of the first four employees and former vice president of sales at Recordant, a provider of sales analytics technology, said he purchased the company’s patents, software and trademarks at a bankruptcy auction last month for $1,000.”

The article continues…

“Recordant took in $12 million in venture capital before filing for bankruptcy in February. It raised $3 million in Series A financing from Kodiak Venture Partners in 2005 and 2006, followed by a $9 million Series B round led by FirstMark Capital, which was then called Pequot Ventures. Aurora Funds also participated in the later round.

Recordant sold a device, about the size of a small iPod, that could be worn by sales and customer service representatives to record their interactions with customers. The company also sold software to perform analytics to help its customers identify key words associated with a sale.

Founded in 2003, with its first products on the market in 2006, Recordant focused on retail, automotive, banking and hospitality industries. It fell victim to longer-than-expected sales cycles that became too much to bear when the economic crisis hit, and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in February.”

With no plans to raise money the company stands a good chance to run on a bootstrap.

“After extensive use of Recordant’s products by the U.S. National Guard, the U.S. Army had a contract to put the technology to use in their recruiting centers, but that fell through when the banking crisis hit, May said. It was also set to follow up a pilot program with an undisclosed insurance company to put the technology in 10,000 of its offices, he said. That company later declared a $1 billion loss, putting the project on hold indefinitely, he said.

May still remains confident about the potential of the business. “Somebody is going to do this someday, because there is a need for it,” he said. “We saw and heard things that were absolutely amazing in good ways and bad.”

Read the full article here.

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Analyst forecasts 900% Android phone sales growth

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, boic, Investments, Market research, Venture Capital, Wireless, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 12, 2009| 1 Comment »

If you look for growth opportunities, look no further say Strategy Analytics. With a 900% growth forecast, and Google support in the background – the mobile ecosystem will see some intriguing innovations shortly. With iPhone and AppStore showing the way, Android from Google may provide a business opoortunity for global opportunities for mobile developers.

Please also see our previous articles: “Android vs. iPhone: Why Openness may Not Be Best” and “Android to do what no one else managed!”

Hardware Register has more on this story:

“Android-based smartphones will ship in massive numbers this year – at least compared to last year’s total, market watcher Strategy Analytics has forecast.

In its latest report, the firm predicted that Android smartphone shipments will increase a whopping 900 per cent during 2009 over last year. Shipments of Apple’s iPhone will grow 79 per cent this year, SA said.

The Google-developed OS hasn’t featured on phones for as long as Apple’s handset has been on the market. Nonetheless, healthy support from “operators, vendors and developers” will continue to help increase Android’s adoption, SA said.

“A relatively low-cost licensing model, its semi-open source structure and Google’s support for cloud services have encouraged companies… to support the Android operating system,” said Neil Mawston, Director at Strategy Analytics.

The number of Android-based devices is certainly set to expand this year. Vodafone recently launched the world’s second Android phone in Blighty – the Magic. It’s also widely rumoured that Samsung will launch an own-brand Android phones this year.”

Read the article here.

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