From today’s K-W Record, Guelph’s Geosign divided a year after $160 million investment:
American Capital is now the sole owner of Moxy Media, which has inherited 150 of Geosign’s employees and, according to its website, more than 300 of Geosign’s websites.
…
A minority of Geosign’s websites and about 50 employees now fall under the umbrella of eMedia Interactive Inc., which Nye controls.
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American Capital, one of the largest publicly traded private-equity firms in the U.S., bought a minority stake in Geosign in March. American Capital received two of five seats on Geosign’s board of directors.
How did a minority shareholder acquire the majority of assets, and sooner than eight months after investing?
Again, from The Record:
In May, Google told some of its users it was changing the rules of its advertising program as of June 1 to crack down on a process known as search-engine arbitrage.
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Geosign never acknowledged engaging in arbitrage, but it cut more than 50 staffers a few days before Google’s new policy went into effect.
From GeoSign’s March 6, 2007 press release, Geosign® Completes $160 Million Private Placement With American Capital:
Virginia M. Turezyn, Managing Director, American Capital Technology Group [said] “With its strong leadership, demonstrated ability to adapt to changing market conditions and unique ability to enhance user experience, Geosign is well positioned for ongoing growth as the Internet ecosystem continues to grow and evolve.”
Did Virginia get paid to say that? As a venture capitalist? By adapt and growth did Virginia mean beyond sixty days with a sole customer?
Again, from Geosign’s $160M press release:
Ted Hastings, President of Geosign [said], “The additional capital will allow us to strengthen our core product lines and provide flexibility to make strategic acquisitions of complementary technologies and Internet properties.”
Whatever they invested the $160M in apparently wasn’t newsworthy, as Geosign’s news page shows no further announcements since the equity purchase.
It seems doubly ironic that neither of the separated blog companies, Moxy Media nor eMedia, have corporate news pages or blogs.
At least these new media venture capitalists and entrepreneurs don’t see transparency as serving their interests.
Posted on November 17th, 2007 by Norman Young
Filed under: Social media | 1 Comment »