Game Discussions Star Citizen Discussion Thread v12

who must keep such information confidential anyway.

AFAIK, no, if its in the UK and its a public financial report, they can't withhold information they know that could affect the company. That's why CIG didn't show it to them, and therefore PwC can only say "we don't know" and therefore we have to trust what CIG is telling us, so that aside, everything else we see in the report is accurate to the best of our knowledge.
 

Viajero

Volunteer Moderator
Which he sees more as a loan than an investment. But doesn't allow for claims on assets / foreclosing etc.
This is not a conclusion though. This part stems simply from CIGs own wording of Note 28. Yes, precisely the note about the terms that the auditors have not been allowed to see.

Usually in this kind of angel investments the debt originated by buy backs behaves in similar ways to regular debt. CIG claims to be spending $130m a year to "effectively operate". Plenty of room for better margins and cost cutting. I would be extremely surprised if the holder of the buy back options has zero recourse to recover what is owed.
 
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AFAIK, no, if its in the UK and its a public financial report, they can't withhold information they know that could affect the company. That's why CIG didn't show it to them, and therefore PwC can only say "we don't know" and therefore we have to trust what CIG is telling us, so that aside, everything else we see in the report is accurate to the best of our knowledge.

To clarify, and unless it's different in UK compared to here in Australia, accountants can't simply disclose a commercial agreement to the public without the client's permission, but they can and should use those documents to form the legally required public disclosure documents - the financials we see above.
 
To clarify, and unless it's different in UK compared to here in Australia, accountants can't simply disclose a commercial agreement to the public without the client's permission, but they can and should use those documents to form the legally required public disclosure documents - the financials we see above.

Ah, right. Yes, I suspect that's right.
 
CIG claims to be spending $130m a year to "effectively operate". Plenty of room for better margins and cost cutting. I would be extremely surprised if the holder of the buy back options has zero recourse to recover what is owed.

Would the allowed operational costs include further development and polishing or only enough to keep the live servers running as they are? I guess we could forget increased server capacity.

It does set Chris up nicely for another "publishers bad" legend, though. Just as Microsoft "ruined" Freelancer, the angels force him to rush the release of SQ42, if not the PU. There's a scape goat for any unfinishedness.

Star Citizen. I came for the shiny ships, I stayed for the Clown Imperium show.

I wonder how this all happened. :) My tinfoil is that the few people at CIG who might have known, forgot about it over the years. Or Chris didn't tell anyone. January 2nd, the smaller investor calls CIG HQ and asks for their money. CIG says "Who are you? What money?" and after some frantic searching, a dusty folder is discovered behind a false wall in a disused lavatory. That could be why they switched auditors to some with more experience in damage control.

My prediction would be that they dodge the bullet in 2025, release a version of SQ42 shortly after and if that doesn't make enough, we could see a SC Redux 1.0 before 2028.
Or maybe the investors believe in The Chris and hodl their shares for future large dividends.
 
To clarify, and unless it's different in UK compared to here in Australia, accountants can't simply disclose a commercial agreement to the public without the client's permission, but they can and should use those documents to form the legally required public disclosure documents - the financials we see above.
It's the same in UK. However as per PWC's comments in said financials, CIG don't have to disclose such contracts to the public as they are a private company (more accurately, a group of private companies). That CIG don't disclose the related Calders contract to PWC is the "hmm, that's unusual" bit.
 
Alternate plot: They didn't find the folder. CIG themselves don't have a copy of the terms and constructed Note 28 from collective memory and old reports.

Man, I would back a crowdfunded series about this project ;)
:ROFLMAO: The other party could just tweak their terms at leisure, then. But I assume they aren't that disorganised. If push comes to shove and lawsuit to enforce the agreement they will have a copy to check what's claimed.
 
It's the same in UK. However as per PWC's comments in said financials, CIG don't have to disclose such contracts to the public as they are a private company (more accurately, a group of private companies). That CIG don't disclose the related Calders contract to PWC is the "hmm, that's unusual" bit.
Yeah, you find such things only in the notes to the balance, in some cryptic vaguespeech like "liabilities from various contractual obligations" or somesuch.
 
Ok, it's this time...

DMuBBUjH2RHY1F-B5L5ShyqPJYrojokhB2V2_CsCh4o.png


It makes total sense that the smaller 2024 put is for one of the smaller companies which initially bought in. (Perhaps he means Infatrade rather than Erloch though? Eli Klein, who represented them on the board, was an old friend of Chris & Ortwin, and was seen as a broker for the deal at the time I believe.)

Figured this out ^^^

Here are how the shares stood after some 2020 games:

djlWGpj.jpg

19 Oct 2020 - Confirmation statement made on 24 September 2020 with updates

Add the bonus 0 that CIG added in 2022, and you get:

Infatrade (Eri Klein): 277,500 [The Q1 2024 option]

Indus (Calders): 1,563,900
Erloch (Calders?): 36,000
Combined: 1,599,900 [The Q1 2025 option]

And both together get another option to buyback in Q1 2028.

So GuardFreq's lawyer mispoke when he said Erloch. But he was on the money with everything else.

And that's intriguing... :)

I'm trying to figure out why he thinks this ^^^

Presumably he's looked at the percentage of shares:

2024: 277,500 shares = 2.37%
2025: 1,599,900 shares = 13.65%

The latter does indeed look like the Calder's total share. ($46m bought them 10% in 2018. Just using v rough maths [4.6m = 1%] the extra $17.25m took them into the ~13.75% range)

(The shares have been squished and expanded in all kinds of mad ways throughout this time. Diluted with the shares for Turb CEOs. A zero added to the end in 2022 etc. I'm not even going to try and follow all those switchbacks precisely :/)

But the former still looks more like Infatrade to me than Erloch. In the 2018 process they got 1.6% (vs Erloch's piddly 0.22%):

fVbl7iZ.png


Still not a great fit for the 2024 entity. But a better fit than Erloch at any rate ¯\(ツ)/¯

If we guess that they also increased their stake in 2020 by a comparable '37.5%' then they'd be [very roughly 😁] around 2.2% of the overall shares. So... closer to the mark. If still a bit fugly.

---

4MY3pv8.jpg


Eli Klein's Infatrade are indeed 'Ortwin's film buddies', to use the GuardFreq phrase...

They worked with CR on films like Lucky number Slevin (providing a bridging loan according to the Warlord, but not sure where that's demonstrated). And their apparent UK sister company is definitely in the business of bridging loans.

That at minimum would fit with GuardFreq's 'this is a loan, not an investment' take on the 2024 put option. And the assessment at the time that these guys were getting a 'finders fee' buy-in for brokering the main investment deal.

But what raises my eyebrows is: The Infatrade part of the deal involved them buying shares directly off Chris, Erin & Ortwin. SA's shrach had that as being a £2.77m payday for the three of them, with Chris walking away with £2.18m from that UK half of the deal. (And saw this as being the likely source of Chris's fancy mansion purchase and family trust nest egg etc).

So if they had just taken their 'loan + 6% pa' back out this quarter, that woulda been kinda shocking. All sides just sloshing around in backer cash.

As it is, you've got to wonder why they didn't though. Does Eli 'bridging loan' Klein really see great fruit at the end of CIG's wizened tree? Did CIG pay them off via another means, to make the 2025 buyback option look less of a looming liability? Did they get something else contractually for staying their hand, as GuardFreq suggest?

I dunno. Intrigue all round.

---

There's a simple TLDR though:

Q1 2025 is the Calders first chance to pull their cash out. And it would be all of their cash. Reckon GuardFreq nailed that.
 
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Does Eli 'bridging loan' Klein really see great fruit at the end of CIG's wizened tree?
Maybe they got a free Legatus pack out of it. And a promise that Chris would have their money, Soon.
What else would be there for them to take? CIG doesn't own much worth selling apart from a library of unfinished 3D assets, do they?

Edit: Just came across this:
But all this money goes into the game
Well, äkshually...
 
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Ok, it's this time...

DMuBBUjH2RHY1F-B5L5ShyqPJYrojokhB2V2_CsCh4o.png




I'm trying to figure out why he thinks this ^^^

Presumably he's looked at the percentage of shares:

2024: 277,500 shares = 2.37%
2025: 1,599,900 shares = 13.65%

The latter does indeed look like the Calder's total share. ($46m bought them 10% in 2018. Just using v rough maths [4.6m = 1%] the extra $17.25m took them into the ~13.75% range)

(The shares have been squished and expanded in all kinds of mad ways throughout this time. Diluted with the shares for Turb CEOs. A zero added to the end in 2022 etc. I'm not even going to try and follow all those switchbacks precisely :/)

But the former still looks more like Infatrade to me than Erloch. In the 2018 process they got 1.6% (vs Erloch's piddly 0.22%):

fVbl7iZ.png


Still not a great fit for the 2024 entity. But a better fit than Erloch at any rate ¯\(ツ)/¯

If we guess that they also increased their stake in 2020 by a comparable '37.5%' then they'd be [very roughly 😁] around 2.2% of the overall shares. So... closer to the mark. If still a bit fugly.

---

4MY3pv8.jpg


It would be nice to nail this down. Because if it is Infatrade then it all gets a bit tasty. Because Eli Klein etc are indeed 'Ortwin's film buddies', to use the GuardFreq phrase...

They worked with CR on films like Lucky number Slevin (providing a bridging loan according to the Warlord, but not sure where that's demonstrated). And their apparent UK sister company is definitely in the business of bridging loans.

That at minimum would fit with GuardFreq's 'this is a loan, not an investment' take on the 2024 put option. And the assessment at the time that these guys were getting a 'finders fee' buy-in for brokering the main investment deal.

But what raises my eyebrows is: The Infatrade part of the deal involved them buying shares directly off Chris, Erin & Ortwin. SA's shrach had that as being a £2.77m payday for the three of them, with Chris walking away with £2.18m from that UK half the deal. (And saw this as being the likely source of Chris's fancy mansion purchase and family trust nest egg etc).

So if they had just taken their 'loan + 6% pa' back out this quarter, that woulda been kinda shocking. All sides just sloshing around in backer cash.

As it is, you've got to wonder why they didn't though. Does Eli 'bridging loan' Klein really see great fruit at the end of CIG's wizened tree? Did CIG pay them off via another means, to make the 2025 buyback option look less of a looming liability? Did they get something else contractually for staying their hand, as GuardFreq suggest?

I dunno. Intrigue all round.

---

There's a simple TLDR though:

Q1 2025 is the Calders first chance to pull their cash out. And it would be all of their cash. Reckon GuardFreq nailed that.
So roughly 360 day tops.
 
In A.D. 2024
Alpha was same.

Chris Roberts: What happen ?

PwC: Somebody set up you the loan repayment.

Operator: We get audited.

Captain: What!

Operator: main server-mesh turn on.

Chris Roberts: It's you!!

Calders: How are you gentlemen!!

Calders: All your shares are belong to us.

Calders: You are on the crunch to release.

Chris Roberts: What you say !!

Calders: You have no chance to survive make your time.

Calders: Ha ha ha ha ....

Operator: Captain !!

Chris Roberts: Take off every 'Squadron 42 dev'!!

Chris Roberts: You know what you doing.

Chris Roberts: Rush 'SC 1.0'.

Chris Roberts: For great justice.
 
In A.D. 2024
Alpha was same.

Chris Roberts: What happen ?

PwC: Somebody set up you the loan repayment.

Operator: We get audited.

Captain: What!

Operator: main server-mesh turn on.

Chris Roberts: It's you!!

Calders: How are you gentlemen!!

Calders: All your shares are belong to us.

Calders: You are on the crunch to release.

Chris Roberts: What you say !!

Calders: You have no chance to survive make your time.

Calders: Ha ha ha ha ....

Operator: Captain !!

Chris Roberts: Take off every 'Squadron 42 dev'!!

Chris Roberts: You know what you doing.

Chris Roberts: Rush 'SC 1.0'.

Chris Roberts: For great justice.
Immaculate scriptwriting. I would watch that show.
 
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