There is this quote:
There are no general updates this time, only the replies to the questions raised and submitted by forum shareholders:
Specific Updates
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Submitted Questions:
1) When can we expect the financial report that's supposed to coincide with the next round of dividends?
re 1) May 27.
2) With the switch to selling chips, can we expect dividends to be paid out on are "more monthly" basis?
re 2) Most likely yes.
3) What capacity of gen 3 hardware is supposed to be used for franchised mining?
re 3) Depending on the capacity of our franchisees. We personally think 20P could be possible even inside China.
4) What are the current approximate terms of franchised mining, i.e. what does it take to become a franchisee and how are AM and the shareholders profiting from it?
re 4) We have the deployment team to investigate and audit the franchisees. We prefer the original 80/20 division and the 80% are calculated as our mining income. But the cost of the device (without chips) needs to be calculated in so there will be adjustments.
5) Are there any current plans of improving the PR; maybe bi-weekly short summaries or a PR person (board member?)? Are question sets like this an option, maybe once a month?
re 5) This question set can be posed more frequently. For the PR topic, it's still a to-be-solved problem.
6) Is it feasible to create a "gen 3.5" with the consumption drawbacks fixed? With the consumption issue at hand, what is the timeframe for gen 4; are there any adjustments?
re 6) No "gen3.5", but there will be "gen3.1", which is exploiting the production options from the fab the minimize the consumption.
7) After recent crackdowns on BTC exchanges in China, is AM still unaffected and are there strategies to continue operations in case of problems?
re 7) There are no crackdown on BTC exchanges. What the central bank did was to secretly prevent banks from keeping their company bank accounts without placing any public bans. It reflects the fact that the gov has still been pretending that they are neutral to Bitcoin.
General Disclaimer
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Please note that some information is subject to change, as this is a very agile business. Please be careful when speculating on company valuation. This information is purely provided as a service to current shareholders and may not be free of errors.
But the way the question was phrased with
supposed and FC's vague answer does not commit to Dividends on May 27th just Financial Reports that may coincide with dividends or dividends that may coincide with financial reports. Also this was through a board member so it was not a direct communication from FC.
There is also:
Gentlemen,
don't get carried away by speculating on the quality of communication by friedcat. As pointed out multiple times, due to the nature of the operation there is little incentive to do extensive IR, other than the necessary accounting and communication through shareholder representatives (board). Instead the focus is on the core business. Friedcat decided to not pass the statements by the board first, but instead releasing them to the public directly.
Regarding the often quoted "aggressive dividends":
Let me take the blame here, because these are not friedcats words. Also I think there is massive confusion about what "aggressive" actually means. Thus let me remove any ambiguity by posting the text from the respective communication:
(BoardMember1) so I underatand that the next payments to the shareholders shoudl happen in May....
(BoardMember2) regarding dividends, do you have a target for retained earnings vs. dividends?
(BoardMember2) if retained earnings is high we need to consider the security mechanisms for the company treasury.
(FC) At most 1:2. Most retained are for short-time spendings (license, wafer/components order). There are no long-time plan of retaining since we won't buy land/bond/etc.
(BoardMember2) Alternatively AM could get "invested" in related businesses
(BoardMember2) If no opportunities exist I agree to an aggressive dividend schedule
As you can see there is no determination of timing other than FC's statement that short-term spendings need to be covered. The "aggressiveness" describes the overall split between retaining and paying out. That said, even board members assumed that dividends would resume in May with a 1:2 split of retained:payout.
Finally, I am shocked by the amount of outrage caused by what could be considered an uneducated interpretation of some raw data. The resemblance of this being a deliberate attempt to prey on the lack of insight and patience of new investors is strong. As pointed out previously, the financials are hard to read without context and further explanations.
I am committed to provide further information as it becomes available. However, some of the information which is important for company valuation is actually also crucial to pricing sales and thus falls within the realm of confidential information. Thus you cannot expect that this kind of information be released to the public. Anything else would be a level of transparency which is rather uncommon in these industries.
But that does not show FC committing to May either for the dividends.
