Interplay gets investment, sells shares higher than market

Post by **King of Creation** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 6:31 am

<strong>[ Company -> Update ]</strong> - More info on <a href="http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Herve Caen">Person: Herve Caen</a> | More info on <a href="http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Interplay">Company: Interplay</a>

<p>Interplay <a href="http://interplay.com/about/article.php?id=43">has announced</a> an investment from DotCorp Asset Management, selling a massive amount of shares to the investor. Here's the release from Interplay:</p>
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<em>Interplay (IPLY.OB) Receives Investment from DotCorp Asset Management</em></span><em>

Investment Includes Stake in Common Stock & Warrants

LOS ANGELES, Calif. — March 17, 2010 — Interplay today announced that DotCorp Asset Management has acquired 11,625,000 shares of common stock, (including 4.6 million shares of existing treasury stock previously held by Interplay), and a warrant to acquire up to 7.5 million additional shares. DotCorp Asset Management will not be represented on the Interplay board.

“This investment furthers Interplay’s efforts to create new games based on its impressive portfolio of intellectual properties,” said Interplay CEO Hervé Caen. “We are happy to see that our strategy attracts the interest of new investors and it is a real pleasure to welcome DotCorp Asset Management to the ranks of our shareholders.”

“We are excited to find an investment with solid assets and experienced management,” said Steve Rosenblum, co-founder of DotCorp Asset Management. “Interplay’s ongoing emphasis on rejuvenating its amazing games portfolio, together with a lean execution, the PV13 MMO project, and the executives’ motivation make an attractive combination.”

About Interplay
Founded in 1983, Interplay Entertainment is a developer, publisher and licensor of video game software headquartered in Southern California. The company has produced and licensed titles for many of the most popular interactive entertainment software platforms in the action/arcade, adventure/RPG and strategy/puzzle categories. Its portfolio of well-recognized Intellectual Properties includes Battlechess, Clayfighter, Dark Alliance, Descent, Earthworm Jim, Freespace, Giants, Messiah, MDK, Run Like Hell, Sacrifice and Stonekeep. Interplay also holds exclusive distribution rights to certain existing Fallout and Redneck titles. For more information, please visit www.interplay.com.

About DotCorp Asset Management
DotCorp Asset Management is a Paris-based venture capital fund started by Steve and Jean-Emile Rosenblum, who also founded the leading pan-European ecommerce website Pixmania.com. Dotcorp’s mission is to invest in what it perceives to be high growth and high potential companies that have experienced management teams. Dotcorp’s board consists of successful entrepreneurs who actively manage their own companies and can lend their experience to the companies in their investment portfolio.</em></p>
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<p>The following is Interplay's <a href="http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/ ... 0.htm">SEC filing</a> pertaining to this transaction, which shows that Interplay managed to sell the shares at a price higher than the $0.06/share they are listed at right now:</p>
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<p><em>On March 17, 2010 the Company sold to Dotcorp Asset Management eleven million six hundred twenty five thousand (11,625,000) shares of Common Stock of the Company (including four million six hundred thousand (4,600,000) existing shares previously held by Interplay as treasury stock) and issued a warrant to purchase 7,500,000 shares of Common Stock of the Company for a total consideration of $982,650. The warrant has a term of four years, an exercise price of $0.10, is immediately exercisable, and was issued in accordance with the terms of the Form of Warrant Agreement filed as Exhibit 10.07 to the Company's Form 10-Q for the period ended March 31, 2008.

Such shares and warrant were issued, and any underlying shares of Common Stock would be issued, in a private placement exempt from registration pursuant to section 4(2) of the Securities Act of 1933. The offering and sale of the shares of common stock were made in a private sale without any general solicitation or advertising and exclusively to an "accredited investor" as defined in SEC Rule 501.

Proceeds of the sale will be used to fund operations, including game development.</em></p>
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<p>Thanks for the heads up <strong>orionquest</strong>!</p>
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<div style="text-indent: 0pt; display: block; margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="display: inline; font-size: 10pt;">On March 17, 2010 the Company sold to Dotcorp Asset Management eleven million six hundred twenty five thousand (11,625,000) shares of Common Stock of the Company (including four million six hundred thousand (4,600,000) existing shares previously held by Interplay as treasury stock) and issued a warrant to purchase 7,500,000 shares of Common Stock of the Company for a total consideration of $982,650. The warrant has a term of four years, an exercise price of $0.10, is immediately exercisable, and was issued in accordance with the terms of the Form of Warrant Agreement filed as Exhibit 10.07 to the Company's Form 10-Q for the period ended March 31, 2008.</span></div>
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<div style="text-indent: 0pt; display: block; margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="display: inline; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="display: inline; font-size: 10pt;">Such shares and warrant were issued, and any underlying shares of Common Stock would be issued, in a private placement exempt from registration pursuant to section 4(2) of the Securities Act of 1933. </span><span style="display: inline;">The offering and sale of the shares of common stock were made in a private sale without any general solicitation or advertising and exclusively to an "accredited investor" as defined in SEC Rule 501.</span></span></div>
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<div style="text-indent: 0pt; display: block; margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt;"><span style="display: inline; font-size: 10pt;">Proceeds of the sale will be used to fund operations, including game development.</span></div>
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SenisterDenister · Post by **SenisterDenister** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 7:40 am

Looks like its funding for V13 should be squared away if everything in the courts work out.

inomel · Post by **inomel** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 3:03 pm

Yep, someone is trying to be relevant again.

Post by **Manoil** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 6:23 pm

Pays to dump points in Barter, apparently

Kickstand27 · Post by **Kickstand27** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 6:31 pm

or at least some money for court.
bethsoft coulda drug it out and bled them dry, no?

Cimmerian Nights · Post by **Cimmerian Nights** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 6:57 pm

Herve's right up there with cockroaches on the survivability scale, and a few other aspects too.

I kind of get a kick out of him being a thorn in Bethesda's side now. They thought they were going to screw him, but I think they underestimated the fact that he never enters any business endeavor in good faith and screws everyone over.

The longer Herve sticks around, the harder he is to get rid off.

Herve and Bethesda deserve each other.

Wolfman Walt · Post by **Wolfman Walt** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 7:51 pm

Cimmerian Nights wrote:Herve's right up there with cockroaches on the survivability scale, and a few other aspects too.

It's not his fault he hisses when he speaks, it's a speech impediment, ok? Don't be so insensitive.

Cimmerian Nights · Post by **Cimmerian Nights** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 8:43 pm

Who in their right mind would fund or buy into this company?

This sounds like one of those stupid wacked-out investments that dumb jocks and musicians always lose their fortunes on.

-Did you hear Willie Nelson had to file for bankruptcy again?
-Doesn't he have millions?
-Yeah, but he invested in some fly-by-night company that funds post-WWIII MMOs or some shit.

Does Interplay even have an office? Desks? a chair? A coffee mug with some pencils in it?

Orionquest, evidently you get their financial statements, what the fuck is on the asset side of Interplay's balance sheet?

Post by **King of Creation** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 8:58 pm

You can look up Interplay's assets and things on the SEC. I post about it every time there's a new filing, but I can't be bothered to go and search for things now.

Redeye · Post by **Redeye** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 11:43 pm

Cimmerian Nights wrote:
Does Interplay even have an office? Desks? a chair? A coffee mug with some pencils in it?

Cimmerian Nights · Post by **Cimmerian Nights** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 11:48 pm

That was before they folded. The first time.

jetbaby · Post by **jetbaby** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 5:45 am

You can't help but trust the 'stache.

SenisterDenister · Post by **SenisterDenister** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 5:47 am

Such has been the fate of many children.

Frater Perdurabo · Post by **Frater Perdurabo** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 6:18 am

Don't they have a tech demo up already?

Post by **King of Creation** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 7:16 am

They had a tech demo-type thing that they apparently showed in court. I posted screenshots of it a while back:

http://duckandcover.cx/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=106

The-Barron · Post by **The-Barron** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 7:57 am

The company bought the shares for .084 cents according to ragingbull.

Post by **King of Creation** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 9:13 am

This is from the SEC filling:

The warrant has a term of four years, an exercise price of $0.10, is immediately exercisable, and was issued in accordance with the terms of the Form of Warrant Agreement filed as Exhibit 10.07 to the Company's Form 10-Q for the period ended March 31, 2008.

It seems that no one can come to a consensus on Raging Bull, so I'll just go by what the SEC filing says until someone completely clarifies it.

darkknight · Post by **darkknight** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 3:45 pm

The 7 million warrants will be offered at .10. However, the total consideration for the 11 million shares is around 983,000. Thus, dotcorp obtained the 4 million treasury stocks at around market price, which creates the average of around 8.5 cents or so for the total.

orionquest · Post by **orionquest** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 3:12 am

Here's one of their offices( Beverly Hills) before they moved.

<a target='_blank' href='http://img256.imageshack.us/i/office1.jpg/'><img></a>

EDIT: I just came back in from 2 hrs of basketball, too tired to be bothered in rotating the Iphone image around.

When I was done with my work on a work trip in San Diego, I drove up to LA but managed to get there only after they were closed and had to leave that night so I never got a chance to talk to anyone.

At least I saw a real office and not some boiler room hole in a wall address.

Here is my understanding of the share issue based on previous experience.

The company went to Interplay because they did not want to purchase the shares in the market.

You can't do that with a stock like IPLY without skyrocketing the price.

I venture to say that it has not traded 11 million shares combined for the last several years let alone the last year.

Who knows whether this company was buying in the market recently.

In the market, if you typically put in a large order, the big corrupt banking brokers will see a flash of your order and they will be front running your order by buying ahead of you for a higher price and hoping the stock moves up. If it does not, they can sell to you for near break even or a profit. Volume is king on Wall Street. It leads price.

Knowing their game, I have been only buying in small multi thousand increments in order to mask my purchases to fool the market maker.

The market maker has no idea what is about to happen and I hope he is selling shares that do not exist. He is just trying to churn profit by picking up nickels in front of a steamroller like AIG did by making billions selling hundred of billions of insurance that bankrupted them in the end( You think IPLY is a zombie company, look at most of the banks. Many of them need a bailout of 20-100 billion dollars just to get back to bankrupt.

As for the stock and the market maker, Let's just say the day he sees it trading for 1500% higher is the day he is going to panic in having to buy back non existent shares. Would serve him right.

If someone puts in a market buy of a block of 200k shares tomorrow, the price will immediately move up 2-3 cents. That's how the market works.

You want to buy big, the price is going up, you want out of a position or you're getting liquidated the price is going to dip big and get your shares scooped up then recover.

From experience of previous warrant purchasers, when you exercise the warrants you pay for their price right there.

There is no point of granting warrants that exercise at almost double the price and get payment for them right away that give away you treasury stock for free.

Since the company had treasury stock to sell, the dilution is only about less than 8% which is decent considering all the banks like Citi and insurers like AIG who diluted about 80% or more of their companies to the government at fire sale prices.

This is money well spent.

There will be additional dilution if the investment company dotcorp(lame name) chooses to exercise the 7 million additional shares for an additional 700k.

I would venture to say they'll wait until the stock goes higher to exercise unless they want to pressure the price to get more shares.

Interplay is a public company which allows them to issue additional shares or take on debt through bond sales to finance their projects.

That is why the decision Bethesda made to disallow Interplay from even announcing they are officially working on Fallout MMO is bad faith contracting since they wanted to corner Interplay to let the clock run out.

It doesn't work that way in business, especially in a court of law in a country that does not favor monopolies.

Bethesda knows Interplay is a public company and with public companies image and investor confidence is everything and they abused that situation by preventing Interplay from even saying: "hey, we're really working of Fallout MMO".

Bad move by Bethesda but not as dumb a move as making a blanket statement that an MMO takes 4 years to make.

This Pushes Bethesda into a legal corner they cannot get out of without settling or actually working with their contract partner Interplay.

Even if Bethesda wins the lawsuit, they cannot release Fallout MMO even one day before 4 years from the lawsuit win and if there are appeals and counter appeals, this tit for tat bitch slap spat can go on for years wasting valuable property and resources and enriching $400 an hour lawyers who love to pontificate.

Dr.Xen · Post by **Dr.Xen** » Wed Mar 24, 2010 7:32 pm

orionquest wrote: Even if Bethesda wins the lawsuit, they cannot release Fallout MMO even one day before 4 years from the lawsuit win and if there are appeals and counter appeals, this tit for tat bitch slap spat can go on for years wasting valuable property and resources and enriching $400 an hour lawyers who love to pontificate.

So only we players are definitely gonna get some ass-kicking