Infinium Targets Gamers For Stock Purchase After Split

Thanks to HeraldTribune.com for its article discussing the continuing fortunes of PC 'game console' manufacturer Infinium, following much controversy over their forthcoming Phantom console in recent weeks. Infinium CEO Timothy Roberts is quoted as saying, following a "four-for-one stock split", the second of the year, that "...part of Infinium's stock marketing effort will be aimed at video game aficionados, people who have contacted the company via e-mail because they are interested in using the product when it is rolled out and who may also have expressed interest in making a stock investment." With regard to this, it seems that, judging by current prices, "...even before it has a product to sell, Infinium has a market capitalization of $133 million ($5.80 times 23 million shares)."

Uhhhm,

[floamy]

Wouldn't gamers be the last people they would want to target? I mean, we know (or think, at least.) that they have no future.

Re:Uhhhm,

[ChaoticLimbs]

Actually I think that loosely translates to "We at Infinium believe that our company stock will sell best to those people who have no knowledge of investment, corporate economics, or business management. We anticipate our sales to these boobs to comprise 99% of our total market cap."

Re:Uhhhm,

[Lord_Dweomer]

No shit, this pisses me off. Stock in a company should not be sold as merchandise as part of a marketing campaign. It should be for serious investors who know what they're doing. The fact that Infinium doesn't want intelligent investors involved in this says a lot. What the hell are they going to do, have their special logo printed all over the stock certificates to make it a collectors item?

Re:Uhhhm,

[Sylver Dragon]

I'd bet they are going after the gamers to buy stock, since serious investors wouldn't touch this stock, except as a high-risk long-shot. Seriously, as near as I can tell thier only product, at this point, is hype. If anything, the name Phantom for thier console is fitting, as its nothing more than a Phantom of some marketer's imagination.
Better yet, they are planning to try an enter a market that is, arguably, saturated. We have 3 major consoles out at the moment, with the top 2 dominating sales. Is s

Re:Uhhhm,

[ChaoticLimbs]

The worst part is that they have $130 million dollars to put together what is actually just a PC in a fancy box, and they still haven't done that completely. Their "device" is essentially a casemod, and their product would have to be mostly software on the server side of things, so why does it take so long? (no. games. ever.)
Seriously, the first game you play on this will be Duke Nukem Forever. And it's going to cost you 60 bucks and 2 hours of your cablemodem access to use it- you'll get no CD and only b

Wow. The investment opportunity of 1998!

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, can't I just make my checks out to directly to Neil Bush, the Russian mob, and or Nigerian Colonels?

Infinium Letter #419

[b0r0din]

Dear Sir:

I have been requested by Infinium Labs to contact you for assistance in resolving a matter. Infinium has recently concluded a large number of contracts to supply video game machines to end users. The contracts have immediately produced moneys equalling US$133,000,000. Infinium is desirous of selling their machines in other parts of the world, however, because of certain regulations of the Nigerian Government, it is unable to move these funds to another region.

You assistance is requested as a non-Nigerian citizen to assist Infinium in moving these funds out of Nigeria. If the funds can be transferred to your name, in your United States account, then you can forward the funds as directed by Infinium. In exchange for your accomodating services, Infinium would agree to allow you to retain 10%, or US$13.3 million of this amount.

However, to be a legitimate transferee of these moneys according to Nigerian law, you must presently be a purchaser of at least US$100,000 of Infinium stock.

If it will be possible for you to assist us, we would be most grateful. We suggest that you meet with us in person in Lagos, and that during your visit I introduce you to the representatives of Infinium which produce the good Phantom product, as well as with the creators of Duke Nukem Forever, a partner company.

Please call me at your earliest convenience. Time is of the essence in this matter; very quickly the Nigerian Government will realize that Infinium is maintaining this amount on deposit, and attempt to levy certain depository taxes on it.

Yours truly, etc.

Timothy Roberts
CEO, Infinium Labs

Nicely done. A couple of tips.

[Tired_Blood]

Nice, but in the future, use ALL CAPS (either the whole thing or special words like INFINIUM and PHANTOM) and start with "Greetings and good season to you" or something weird like that.

Giving SCO a run for its ....

[IpsissimusMarr]

So you are telling me a "Phantom" console game that may not even exists has a market capitalization of $133 million while SCO, who is taking on Linux has a market cap of $127 million [yahoo.com]? Ha!

Re:Giving SCO a run for its ....

[BobTheLawyer]

The shares in small companies like these are mostly or all held by directors and venture capitalists. So liquidity (i.e. volume of trading) tends to be really small, making the quoted market cap is fairly meaningless.

Re:Giving SCO a run for its ....

[Alkaiser]

You guys probably didn't see this Press Release they made earlier. Basically, they had this old company lying around, one that was publicly traded. Then, they had Infinium Labs, the current incarnation of the company merge with the shell of the old company.

This gave Infinium Labs a public valuation and stock that was publicly traded...but it was all bullshit.

Re:Giving SCO a run for its ....

[nelsonal]

It;s also a cheap way to go public. The white shoe firms charge a standard 7% underwriting fee, and then hook up their friends with the stock. A reverse merger is a very inexpensive method of becoming a public stock. It is a bit sullied since a portion of the companies that trade on the pink sheets are shells or a rip off in action.

Strategy to generate shareholder value

[ottawanker]

1) Sell shares to suckers (er, sorry, I meant gamers).
2) Release some random computers cleverly disguised as mock-ups of a 'gaming console'.
3) Sue Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony for stealing their core operating system design (and later expand into suing big users who are using these consoles - maybe check out some Eastern countries to see if they are using clusters of Playstations as weapon guidance systems).
4) Profit.

Re: fake mock-up

[jjhlk]

Want to make a fake mock-up to impress investors? Take your stylish case, put a mini-itx board with a P4 in it, install the games you will be demo'ing, and use a custom frontend (visual basic even) with Windows running in the background.

Re:Strategy to generate shareholder value

[Siniset]

You forgot a few steps... :)

No see, first they'd have to buy the ip in the colecovision (or similar oldschool console) from a company who may or may not of actually owned the ip and then sue the modern console makers for including things like joysticks on their control pads, which are obvious ip violations, amoung others. Then they'd have to offer liscenses to normal console users for the right to use things like pixels on the screen and their gamepad joystick.

uhhhhhhhh

[mrshowtime]

Why would I want stock in a company that has yet to have a real, manufactured, product. Demos don't count; I can make my own game system in my garage. I would much put my money on finding oil in the Dead Sea, the odds are actually not that bad.

Free Energy

[jjhlk]

This reminds me of the free energy scams that have gone on forever. Yeah, they may one day release a product, but why risk any money on them when there are thousands of better companies. I know I won't.

Note to Stock Analysts

[Umgawa71]

After the way Infinium Labs has treated [H]ardOCP, I have to suggest to the stock analysts never, under any circumstances, to give this stock a 'Sell' recommendation, lest Infinium's legal department threaten suit for defamation. ... Ooh, I just heard the doorbell; I think I'm being served!

Re:Note to Stock Analysts

[NSash]

Don't worry. Stock analysts never give sell recommendations anyway. (The closest they'll ever come is "hold." If a stock analyst is saying to hold a stock, that means you should've sold your shares last month.)

Re:Note to Stock Analysts

[nelsonal]

They do issues sells but usually it's more along the lines of Enron 4 months after they entered bankrupcy. They will also drop coverage on stuff they do not want to issue a sell rating on. The research is meant to be read in depth, a whole lot of buy and hold rated stuff had all the hair raising details in the body, but the rating was unchanged. Also, note that the rating is usually in comparison to other very similar companies, not the whole market. The best performing .com (only lost 80% of value rath

WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the F would anyone with even half a brain buy stock in an entity that has no discernible worth?

Look at the investor relations part of their website and try to stay objective (re: their only product, the Phantom).

What have you learned? The company operates in the "video game industry".

What assets does it have? IPRs, fixed assets, intellectual capital, property, manufacturing plant, etc., etc.?

What contracts has it entered into? Where are the revenue bearing lucrative exclusive distribution deals?

Where are the promotional tie ins with component manufacturers? (I would imagine any deal with third party hardware providers or other technology standard providers would promote a veritable avalanche of cross branding, i.e. ATi, nVidia, DirectX, USB 2.0, Creative EAX, Miles, etc. etc.)

What employees does it have? Who are its auditors? Who are its lawyers?

They seem to be asking for money on the promise that some poorly aimed marketing message will ignite a rapid hand-to-wallet movement. I think they have forgotten that gamers need more proof before they part with their cash.

Having said that, if they roll the console out and it turns out to be everything that they claim, well then I'll be first in the queue with my credit card in once hand and my humble pie fork in the other.

Devil's Advocate

[Ieshan]

Not that I'm going to ever invest in such a shoddy company, but lets suppose you did.

You just invested 500 bucks in Infinitium Labs, or whatever they call themselves today. There are two simple possibilities: one, they sink someplace in the middle; two, they get to India by Sea by going across the Atlantic Ocean.

The Metaphor is sound. There are people who will take the risk because it's cheap right now, on the premise that there's a small, small chance that this will be one of the best investments of their life. Granted, it's small, and the company is really skuzzbucket, but if they do in fact pull off what they're saying they're going to pull off, they might change the console industry forever - and make you, the investor, a lot of cash money in the process.

Just playing Devil's Advocate.

Re:Devil's Advocate

[aliens]

You can make a cheap risk every week if you want with a small small chance of it being the best investment in your life.

It's called the lotto, and I think the odds of winning are better than the odds of Infinium making you a profit.

Re:Devil's Advocate

[Ayaress]

Nah. Blackjack. At least with Infinium, if you time it right, you can cash in on their pump-and-dump. The company doesn't have to succeed for its stock to be profitable, provided you're not hung up on morals and ethics and laws and dumb shit like that. Heck, if you're really lucky, you can short it and then cover the sell at a nickle a share when everybody realizes they've been had.

I heard they throw in ...

[cyrax777]

Ocean front property in Arizona with every 1000 shares purched.

Market Cap?

[Bethor]

My company has a market cap of 1 billion dollars, and I havent even announced anything yet!
$1,000,000,000 times 1 share.
And yes, I own the share.

Re:Market Cap?

[gklinger]

You're joking but I can't help but point out what a bad idea it is to arbitrarily assign high values to shares. As soon as you formally declare that value of a share, even if you pulled the number out of your ear, the IRS will expect you to pay taxes on the capital gain resulting in a nasty surprise. The IRS, unlike Slashdot readers, have no sense of humour.

Venture Capital

[mrshowtime]

Hmmm, I was thinking. $120+ Million in Venture Capital is absolutely nothing in terms of what is necessary to produce AND more importantly PROMOTE a brand new game system. Shit, some of the higher end games cost $40 million to make and market. Even if the "Phantom" had access to EVERY GAME EVER MADE, who would buy it? After all, you never actually own any game, it's all downloaded. I would actually invest my money in a pinball manufacturer right now (sales are doing great) than bet on the Phantom.

Boiler Room

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems like the boys from the movie "Boiler Room" have found a new pump and dump stock scheme.

How are they going to advertise this stock?

[geminidomino]

It sounds to me that on top of their vaporwarezing and cart00neys, they're going to start spamming now. Pump'n'dump, anyone?

look at the technology partners...

[peu]

for the cpu processors we source at Michaels Computers...

Well the company does have /assets/...

[*weasel]

I believe they're listed as:

The Brooklyn Bridge
Florida Swampland
Arizona Beachfront property
The Washington Monument
The Alamo

It makes that share price look pretty reasonable combined with that great console render they're going to maybe possibly pretend to manufacture and distribute.

running out of money

[evil crash]

The must be running low in the need to pay the lawyers dept.

4 for 1 split

[pinkfloyd89]

If their stock is at 5.80 right now a 4 for 1 split seems quite risky. Having stock floating around $1 does not seem to be a great idea.

Re:4 for 1 split

[Ayaress]

It's 5.80 now, but the split's already taken place, back in January. The article says "the second of the year."

Quarterly Reports

[JustJon]

I guess if I bought stock, they can send me their spin directly in their quarterly reports instead of having to read it on the 'net.

Also,

[focitrixilous P]

Timothy Roberts also hoped this stock split would help him with some of his personal problems. [penny-arcade.com]

Call me crazy, but...

[HeadCrash]

...shouldn't a company gunning for a stock split (even a minor stock split, like a two-for-one) actually have a viable product that is actually bringing in a profit?

From the HeraldTribune article:

"A month from now, the company, whose stock is traded on the over-the-counter bulletin board, said it will have 92 million shares outstanding, up from 23 million."
(bolding added by me)

Ummm.... thanks but no thanks - I'm not going to trust any stock that isn't traded on the open market...

More from the article:

Re:Call me crazy, but...

[DjMd]

Looking this stock up Infinium IFLB.OB [yahoo.com]

We see that the stock underwent a 1:25 split! meaning that on Aug 4th 2003 if you had 25 shares they became one share.
Suggesting they had WAY too much stock out there...
The HeraldTribune article should do a little more research

Better yet Kevin Bachus [yahoo.com] has No shares of this company. What a vote of confidence.

Their Budget? RD spending [yahoo.com] = 0
What a great opportunity...
to short!

I'll buy Infinium Stock!

[baggachipz]

... After I sell it short! Cha-ching!$$$$$

Typo in the write-up

[JimTheta]

"...its article discussing the continuing fortunes of PC 'game console' manufacturer Infinium..."

I think you put the quotes in the wrong place. It should be:

"... PC game console 'manufacturer' Infinium..."

That makes much more sense.

heh - who said the dotcom days are dead?

[inkless1]

I remember standing outside my old office having a friend explain to me how I, little old me, could become a multi-millionaire. Stocks, splits, shares, options, blah blah blah.

Now, a year or so later, the only multi-millionaires are the brainiacs who ran the business into the ground but did it so convincingly that they walked off with the only value the company had left. It almost seemed a distinct negative correlation between the how hard someone worked and how talented you were to how well the company would treat you in the end.

The guy spending 70+ hours a week writing OO code? Fired without notice, 3 month serverence.

The "turn around genius" office manager who spent an entire year flying first class and never managed to land a single client? His $300,000+ salary was paid to him for a year after the office folded.

And the top execs all pulled their golden chords, made millions, and bought fast food chains or notwhat.

Hey Infinium. Bite me. I've heard this nonsense before.

I see

[Zonk]

So, this then would be the proverbial "other shoe".

The sound it just made when it hit the floor was pretty resounding.

You know, for a company that insists that they're a on-the-level business with a great product coming down the pipe, they're sure acting like skeezbags.

E3 will be most interesting, I think.

$5 a share? I'd like to see...

[Ayaress]

... the P/E ratio on this stock.

Re:$5 a share? I'd like to see...

[devnull17]

Well, first you'd have to figure out how to divide by zero.

So that means their EPS is!!!

[SmirkingRevenge]

Infinite! n / 0 -> Inifinity Woohoo, I'll be rich!

HardOCP article should be linked

[MBraynard]

Right here. [hardocp.com]

I was just wondering.

[AzraelKans]

Exactly at what point you are allowed to conduct a criminal investigation on a fraud? I mean this is off topic of course ;) as Infinium labs is a serious company with lots of fine products to offer (in a possible future), but there are actual laws against spamming and frauds, yet I see this "deals" spawning around everywhere. (we are all familiar with the poor prince of Nigeria who wanted our bank account for his money) At what point are the feds allowed to investigate and take actions?

a complete scam!

[getnuked]

What a complete scam! They bought a shell company and as a result acquired the ability to sell shares and be traded (over the counter I might add).

Attention investors: if you invest in a company with no product and who acquired a shell company so it could be traded you are freakin insane !

Vapors.

[qoa]

Can I use Monopoly money for this?

A matter of curiousity...

[Thedalek]

I know it sounds like I'm being sarcastic and glib, but I honestly wonder this time: Just how stupid do they think we are?

I'm really not joking. I want to know, in clearly quantifiable terms, how dumb Tim Roberts and Infinium et al think we are.

Well, they have another thing coming.

[AzraelKans]

A good percenteage of smart people are computer literate and more than a half of this population are gamers to a certain degree. Sum a+b and some gamers and game tech enthusiast are among the smartest people in the world.

Unfortunately I dont think they are targetting at computer enthusiasts since anyone would recognize the "phantom" as a half baked pc, they are actually targetting at non gamers, non tech savy people that require assistance to pull any task in a computer. This and "business enthusiasts" t