Doesn't the market place reflect how confident people are of getting their money back.

It doesn't look like many people are that optomistic that the latest deal will go through.

Surely with the assets tied to the owners and DOJ siezed money, you would think thats a min of 5-20% guaranteed even if FTP went bankrupt.
(Durrrr said he will chip in 2 million which is 0.66% alone of 300M)

The market isnt currently much of a premium above that.

It would seem those who are slightly pesimistic are more in touch with the true sentiment of the players.

harry,

thanks for the explanation. do you think that some or all of the owners that may be willing to reimburse players, via a set-up fund or whatever method, are not doing so currently because they are still waiting to see if ftp can be saved with a deal(whether or not that is realistic i cannot say for sure)? it seems that it would be more beneficial to them to be willing to put money back into a deal and have the company saved and all players paid out fully than to jump the gun and start a reimbursement fund with, in their mind, a possible deal still in the works(not saying whether this is the way it SHOULD be or not).

That, or the players are pessimistic about the other players. I wouldn't give 2 cents for US FT$ right now, until the issue of legal debt is established, and I wouldn't put much faith in an unenforceable contract with a ROW player I didn't know personally to cough up when this settles.

That said, if I was - let's say a Brit - I'd be writing up contracts for 50 cents per FT$ to every fellow Brit willing to sell.

Actually that is exactly the way it should be in my opinion, they effectively extracted their equity from the company via fraudulent accounting, what better justice than putting the equity back where it belongs. (and paying any fines for taking without permission to begin with)

Well it really fluctuates day to day as more news is generated.

When the original Tapie rumors came out and the "letter of intent" was confirmed you can look back at the HSNL thread and there was a enormous influx of people asking for 60-80% and a few, public, confirmations of people buying at that price.

Since then, the market has kind of sagged for sellers. I think most people who were serious about buying FTP money as an investment have already done so way months ago (and definitely regretting it considering that the first 3 weeks after BF people were hastily buying/selling at 85%+ regularly). Those with cash who have considered buying large amounts have probably stayed on the sideline concluding that it's just too volatile to put a lot of money into it, considering at one point you couldnt sell FTP at 20% sometime during the lulls of the exclusivity agreement and amended complaint against ftp/bitar/ferguson/howard.

Personally I think FTP is easily worth 70%. Tapie is real and the DOJ has little incentive to make things difficult for him. They've politicized this case and this is what happens when you do so-- you're forced into making decisions you normally wouldnt consider or make.

The DOJ out-maneuvered themselves imo and have lost a lot of leverage. They've placed themselves in an undesirable position of allowing the sale of a dubious (in ethics) business in order to pay back players or to block such a sale and face the wrath of players. Unless of course, they think their case against bitar et. al is better than air-tight.

I have ~10k on ftp. I wouldnt take anything less than 50% right now. I've been offered 20-30% this past week when i asked for offers in the hsnl thread.

[QUOTE=DoTheMath;29264086]@vamooose

Absolutely no problemo, not feeling picked on....yet
No to Bailiwick.

I was corrected by another poster shortly after this statement (doh). I was 50% correct in that players have no legal contract with the AGCC so cannot sue for 'breach', therefore unable to seek 'damages'. However, no legal contract needs to exist to sue for 'negligence', only a 'duty of care'. I think it's more than fair to say the AGCC owed the players a duty of care as a regulator.

I got March 2011 like you. Still pre BF and an amendment that must have been auto-approved by way of initial sign up ('ToS' can be amended at anytime'). All AGCC licencee player funds are known only to be 'segregated from operational funds', not 'held in trust outside the assets of the company' like IOM. The 'segregated from operational funds' FTP bank account would be in FTP's name, controlled by FTP and would have been emptied by any crooked directors anyway. Kept in trust, away from the owners is the preferred option but was never a requirement of the AGCC licence.

IMO FTP player funds were in segregated account until processors were hit. The segregated account wasn't made good, probably through fear that FTP's own transfer from US might get seized. Perhaps directors thought FTP would rake quicker than the seizures could take place - oops.

These accounts are independently verified by Grant Thornton LLP. By the time AGCC see the accounts they are legal documents, as valid legal in a court of law as that DoJ indictment we all take as gospel. AGCC audit the independent audits carried out by approved bodies. The regulator doesn't perform the RNG testing. An approved company carries out the audit and presents a report to the AGCC. The AGCC audit the report. Ditto for just about everything else that a regulator does.

The warnings you refer to aren't public yet so we don't know what they relate to. Could be anything. FTP most likely hiding value of seizures or claiming cash to make accounts is coming, honest, should be any day now, honest.

AGCC could legitimately claim they suspected, but had not had seen confirmed proof (no Doj statement!) that the 'US missing player funds' aka seizures weren't liquid and, therefore, acted in best interest of players by allowing site to continue trade until evidence proved otherwise.

Confirmation of balances given by FTP accountants, then independent external auditor (Grant Thornton LLP) by way of signed off FTP annual accounts. AGCC are stating that FTP BS'ed both their external auditors and AGCC that the $330m was recorded as 'cash in US' liquid as opposed to 'seized cash in US' illiquid. Maybe Grant Thornton / AGCC should have got on the plane, to check the US vaults had the cash that any statements 'claimed' was in the accounts. They would have to check as you do not accept 'reporting by trust' eg a statement.

This makes no sense to me. If FT had segregated funds no amount of processor hits would have ever touched those funds.

In other words if FT had $300 million sitting in an account to cover player balances it wouldn't matter one iota that funds from a payment processor got seized. That $300 million would still be there.

FT ****ed themselves when they dipped into what should have been segregated funds to accomodate player cashouts and owner dividends.

hmm
phantom deposits total $122m.
ummm
tbc

Time to revert back to the 'segregated from operational funds' doesn't stop Directors fleecing the players funds.

Regulator can't be behind Ray & Friends everytime he logs into FTP accounts via Internet Banking and moves (our) money from account to account.

Seems pretty obvious to me that all the FTP shareholders and upper manangement believe that a deal to save the company can be found but persoanlly I dont think its possible at all unless they sweeten the pot considerably and to the tune of $150 million minmum.

Not sure why they havent put it back in the company as they should have done so already but I also know some of them did give money back to the company after BF but thats all been spent now and gone. I think it was $5million by one of them and $10 million by another one but am not certain of the second amount.

Another reason is probably their legal advisors told them to say and do anything in case it was taken as some kind of admission of guilt but I cant totally buy that.

Then again I have no doubt some of the sharehodlers misguidedly believe they have done nothing wrong becasue they werent involved in running the company and think they are entitlted to keep the stolen player funds paid to them as dividends.

TBH the natural first instinct I would have thought would have been for the shareholders to collectively chip in on a proportionate basis to try and keep the company afloat or extra funds once it was discovered there was a shortfall in cash available for player funds but for whatever reason best known to themselves they chose not to do this or couldnt get everyone to agree. Then again how greedy each and every shareholder is/was when confronted with such a proposition would also impact on the liklihood of whether any money was re-invested.

When this has all blown over I am sure there are going to be some astonishing revelations about what the shareholders were doing during this period after BF.

Whatever the case it is extremely difficult to imagine that the shareholders havent already thought about returning money to the company or giving it to a potential investor to enhance the chance of a deal going through becasue pretty soon after 15 April all of them would have known how bad a financial shape the company was in as surely they would have had contact with each other after that date to enquire about how their future income would be affected in the least considering they had lost US players and that the last dividend payments occurred at start of April.

Bottom line if they at least had the decency to place funds into a seperate account they would have the option to decide now or later whether that money goes to players directly or via or a new investor. They must realise they are going to lose the money so they may as well collect it up in preparation for whatever is going to happen to it eventually.

Seems like common sense but we have seen no evidence to suggest that any money has been placed to one side for anything so the assumption has to be they want to keep it for themsleves (or at least thats my take on things) and dont want to return it.

Hdemet can you comment on why a deal can't work with tapie in regards to what I say below

I mean a lot of people are investing a lot of time to get a deal done .
Tapie isnt going to waste time and money on somethin DOA.

Also his ISPT will be a huge fail if ftp isn't saved by him bc he effectively lead on what I assume is a significant portion of his potential customers.

I don't remember seeing Harry say a deal couldn't work with Tapie. I more or less remember Harry suggesting no investor is going to be willing to put up $300 million new dollars to cover player balances.

I might totally be wrong but there definitely seems to be some wiggle room if current owners are willing to give back some $$$ and the DOJ allows some seized funds to be remitted.

I'm all for whatever gets players paid but let's face it nobody is going to hand over $300 million without there being something in it for them.

harry,

good post, i pretty much agree with you. it's just so frustrating that it's come to this point and also frustrating in the way that the owners have handled themselves in this situation. i really dont know what to think.

Unfortunately I have commented too may times on this for many peoples likings but quite happy to do so again.

From FTP side of things they ahve to put a lot of effort into this as if and when this fails FTP dies becasue it eventually runs out of money. I guess form their prospective if they can be actively seen to be trying to sort this out and get players their money bak they may get more favourable treatement with any criminal and/or civil charges down the line.

From the investor side Tapie is from what I can see (MY OPINION) investing a lot of time and very little money in this so far and plans to invest as little money persoanlly as possible to get a deal done. I do not dispute that at all but he may well just be promting his new future proposed tour.

Its the method by which he seems to want to acquire the company that leads me to question why I beleive he will not buy it and why I believe he will not be successful in getting it unless the US debt is seperated from the RoW as I reckon he only wants the RoW bit and nothign to do with the US. Without competition the RoW bit he may acquire for a lot less than with his current monopoly on negotiations.

To succeed any deal to cover all players needs to have all the money there for player refunds.

Unfortunately that comes to $300 million for players plus fines plus anything else owed and reopening and running costs. He seems to be wanting to cut this figure down with players paying for equity with money owed to them. If he gets $150+ million taken off this through others sorting the US stuff then he is free to take over the rest of the world for a lot less.

From my perspective of the bits we have read he wants to put too close to $0 into the deal but get a piece of it and thats a pretty tough starting point from which a deal is to succeed.

As for his ISPT it probably helps his cause if he ahs FTP but I dont see why only FTP helps him establish this project. Surely he can team up with another site liek PS or PP or a network or even start his own site if necessary.

This current looking at FTP has obviously given him a tremendous amount of free press for it which is worrying to say the elast as these accusations of it being a promotional PR exercise for the tour cannot be lightly dismissed. (doesnt mean it is a PR exercise just that it geenrates suspicion).

Linking to the previous post I dont know why FTP arent in discussions or havent come to a negotiated settlement with the DoJ to sort out US player funds and fines with the proviso that they should be allowed to sell of the RoW and assets stuff to a seperate investor. I am of the firm belief that the solution lies with seperating the two factions and if they could sort the US bit out and depsoit funds into some kind of Escrow how much more likely it woulf=d be that FTP could be sold off and saved as it would cost a lot less and have zero baggage. Get the two bits soted out and then if an investor for RoW comes to frutition both bits get done and the problem is solved. If however the investor bit and RoW is not found or agreed at least you have the US bit sorted which then gets split in two or whatver to cove the RoW players too

These negotiations with the DoJ should be taking place now and should already be fairly advanced and I would welcome any Lawyer for FTP publicly informing me and others of whether or not they are negotiating along these kind of lines regardless of what is going on with Tapie or anyone else for that matter becasue you would think that such things would have been ongoing now since BF or shortly thereafter.

This impression I get is one that all this waiting for an investor just seems to be being dragged out from one investor to the next and its costing money and delaying discussions between FTP and DoJ that should be taking place independantly as they need to happen regardless of whether an investor is there or not.

I am not sure I have made the above clear or actually answered your question specifically but hope you get the jist of it.

strawman. I said I want him to stop treating his speculations as fact.

I never said he should stop posting.

Firstly they are not good or bad posts just my reading of things drawn from a number of places both public and private.

Think the very worst of all those associated with FTP as shareholders or management as they are the bad guys and deserve all the appropriate adjectives you can think of being thrown at them.

Player money got stolen and paid to the shareholderds and the onus is on them to do the right thing because for the millionth time no deal (where all players get their money back) can be done where they dont give back a good proportion of the money because it rightfully belongs to the players and not them and most importnatly of all THEY KNOW IT TOO.

Adjectives I have used to describe the management and shareholders who do not return money and which seem to upset people in this thread so much are thieves, scum, fraudsters, conmen, vermin..... but my command of the English language is insufficient to know and list all of them.

Hasn't Harry pretty much made it clear all along that he's just giving his opinion? You're the only one flat out calling him a liar so perhaps you can link me to a few of Harry's posts where he claims to be stating facts that turned out to be wrong?

hdemet, dont you think the 20+millions (With more suspected) of money seized from the owners in swiss will help a potential buying of fulltilt since that would be just that much less money to pay players?

At least I hope to god they put that money on the side for players at the very least

I think we should forget $300mil, essentially the price of the company is $150mil to pay off US players which he will probably raise from other investors (Partouche, current FTP owners, etc) and maybe put in $30mil of his own money so he maintains control/keep the lights on.

The rest comes down to him controlling the cash flow, if the rake he projects on deposits (new and existing ROW) is greater than the interest he would pay on a credit line for ROW withdrawals, (which he may try to delay/defer large accounts into shares) with enough left to cover operating costs, he never has to reach into his pocket to pay ROW players.

If the company picks up steam he could start paying down the principle for the credit line, then hopefully start paying dividends to investors.

If the DOJ will just announce that they fined FTP $330mil but accept the seized funds as payment, he's up and running in time for ISPT satellites.

Guys, this all depends on the DOJ and how they want to proceed.


If the DOJ has infact seized 300+million already, I think it is conceivable that they have decided that they will bury whatever remains of FTP and decide to make it impossible for FTP to be sold. This is obviously the most desirable scenario. You sink bitar et al.-- and then completely bury a company that egregiously violated US law... and have all of the glory for the SDNY and DOJ.

Because this case is highly politicized, and also that they've already laid the groundwork for possibly returning player funds, it's of my opinion that they would only follow through on the above sceanrio if they utilize the 300million to pay back the players. Bharara and his associates at the DOJ would benefit immensely from this type of exposure because of the narrative that they have created.

4 people allowed a ponzi scheme
they committed fraud
they lied to players and accumulated 300million in liabilities, and the company is "broke" after BF
what players did by playing poker is not in question
DOJ shuts down the company, indicts people
DOJ recovers 300 million
DOJ effectively proves to the public that bitar et. al were evil people because they've recovered 300million, while the company couldnt pay back players

I don't agree that US FTP is worth 2 cents but I do agree that a non-US account is worth more than a US one.

I have stated this for while (and many people disagreed including Noah) but its obvious to me that if FTP went bankrupt the non-US accounts would probably be sold to an online poker room.

To me its obvious that non-US accounts have a higher EV at this moment in time

Also we have a better chance of getting a higher % of their money back at a faster rate.

If FTP goes bankrupt, the only option for US players is through the courts, which will almost certainly take years based on previous cases.
I predict the main perps will fight tooth and nail to keep their money and their freedom.

******s, is bitches.

Not trying to be a dick but if you really believed this why wouldnt you be buying up as much FTP as you can handle at 40% or less?

Putting you money down is the highest form of confidence.

This is a dumb question. You just made about 99 assumptions. Think it through before you ask a rhetorical question that's completely irrelevant to the debate at hand btw.

Harry isn't CNN, he is one guy giving his opinions which may or may not be right.

This is the speculation/opinion thread.

Not sure what part you don't get?

Please explain how a partial sale or whole sale of FTP, that includes some form of payment to ROW players as a permissible proposition for the DOJ to agree with?