Examining Vizard and Eddie McGuire dealings

Crikey popped along to the Multiemedia EGM yesterday to try and find out a bit more about the deal for the company to end its marriage with the Steve Vizard and Eddie McGuire backed venture Sportsview.

Back in 1999-2000, Multiemedia picked up a 25 per cent stake in Sportsview after Eddie and Steve had gone around and stitched up the internet operating rights for AFL clubs Collingwood, Carlton, Hawthorn and the Western Bulldogs.

We all know that Eddie is President of Collingwood. How a President can be assigned his club's internet rights and suddenly hold a business worth $15 million is beyond Crikey's comprehension but that is what happened because Multiemedia paid $1.2 million in cash and issued 3 million shares to Sportsview's owners in return for the 25 per cent stake.

At the time Sportsview was trading around the $1 mark but it had fallen to 16c before Crikey bought in last year and now it's down to 3c.

And don't begin to think that they'll ever get back to $1 because yesterday's shareholders meeting was to approve the issue of another 92 million shares to various parties. That's what you call dilution.

Crikey and most of the other shareholders at the meeting were thoroughly confused by the complicated shares issues but we did note that Eddie McGuire was issued another 500,000 shares as part of the Sportsview severance.

Mulitemedia chairman John Walker (whose day job is being CEO of Thrifty) admitted they would be writing off the $1.2 million cash invested in Sportsview in the current half and concluded that "it has not proven a great investment, you don't have to be too intelligent to work that out."

And it would appear that Multiemedia will get none of the $50,000 a year payment going to Sportsview from each of its four client clubs over the next 5 years as part of a settlement that allows each to migrate across to the $200,000 a year Telstra internet deal. Still, that's $1 million all up for Sportsview and virtually bankrupt clubs like the Western Bulldogs could well do with the cash.

Vizard has already made $1 million out of Multiemedia when he exercised a pile of options and sold them straight away in 2000. He'd only just joined the board and quit a few months later.

And despite all the big talk from CEO Adrian Ballintine yesterday, this outfit really was just a figment of the dotcom boom's imagination and just struggles on hopefully issuing more and more shares at lower and lower prices.

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