Sorry. I didn't see it really discussed much prior. I'm not an original investor, and my stake is very small. I still don't understand how anyone could support using 1 BTC to buy out 1 share when it could buy out 3 shares, unless they were blinded by greed under the expectation that they will collect 1 BTC at the expense of all the other investors.
But, as I said, I have little skin in this game. I was just trying to understand the thought process. Fortunately the Havelock market while weak, still exists, and I can exit my position at any point with relatively little loss. That's something many of you guys can't say, so I really can't criticize too much.
Norman,
I'm not sure when you purchased your share(s) and at what price. But when I bought my share in November 2012, I bought it from the issuer in the IPO, at the full price of 1 BTC, based on the description of the asset in the contract as a bond paying 0.5% per month, with a buyback price of 1.005 BTC. People who bought in the IPO who are supporting the buyback price of 1.005 BTC are not "being greedy at the expense of other investors"; they are just supporting the original contract. (Although admittedly part of it could be that it is a little hard for us to face up to the reality that the investment is turning out differently than we hoped/expected one year ago when we invested in it, and Korbman's approach at least allows us to have a chance at still getting back the originally promised return.)
That said, based on what Korbman said, due to the extreme delay in getting the mining equipment, it sounds like the mining is unlikely to generate enough income to fully buy back all shares. Korbman is currently addressing this through the random buybacks, meaning that some shares will be bought back in full per the terms in the original contract, whereas other shares are likely to never be bought back by the time the mining becomes unprofitable and has to be shut down.
I do think Acorcos' proposal is an alternative that should be seriously considered. If the asset were restructured from a bond to a revenue share, each share of the old bond could be equal to one share in the new revenue share. As Korbman got mining income, he could distribute the income evenly over all shares as dividends, and could continue to do this until the mining no longer was profitable, at which point he would need to sell off the equipment and distribute a final dividend. I'm guessing that for people with hundreds of shares, the revenue share and the old bond model with random buybacks would probably generate similar results. But for people like me (1 share) or you (apparently a small number of shares too), it would be a way we could be sure to get some return on our investment, rather than all or nothing like under the current system. I think this is worth serious consideration. However, it does make me nervous when issuers make changes to a contract (although I suppose making the buybacks random was already a change from the original contract anyway). If BTCT.CO still existed, and KCIM were on that platform, I would suggest that the issuer present the issue to shareholders for a vote on a possible switch to a revenue sharing model. But as far as I know, Havelock does not have a voting feature. But if an issuer and users request it, maybe they would be willing to add this feature?
Whatever Korbman decides to do in terms of the buyback, users who have an urgent need for BTC (or who see an opportunity to sell at what they consider a good price) should always be able to sell their shares on the market. So my thoughts about the asset are less from a point of view of liquidity and being able to get out of my investment if I need to, and more from a perspective of how Korbman might feasibly be able to wrap up the asset while avoiding potential conflicts of interest and without unilaterally setting the contract completely aside.
