For those who do not work for a High Tech Company and never signed and NDA, this is not unusual, there is always a penalty like this if leaking information the size of the penalty is usually associated with the size of the business you doing with them or perceived value of the information that is being shared. The bigger the number the more teeth the agreement has. This ensure Management tells it employee they can not speak to anyone about what they are doing. BTW the federal government and Military contractors have something similar but it includes jail time.
The fact so much leaked out ahead of the i6 and nothing about the watch tells me that apple allowed the i6 information to leak since non of their suppliers are going to risk paying apple $50m for each leak. Most NDA have a cost for each leak, to it not like you can leak 10 things and get hit once for $50M it going to $50M for each of the 10 leaks so $500M.
I believe Apple allowed the leaks to hold people who may have been considering a move to Samsung, there was too much specific information leaking out about the form factor. If Apple did do this, then it work since we know Samsung took a big hit.
Bullshit. Apple didn't "allow" anything to leak. The iPhone was being extensively tested and mass manufactured in China, the Apple Watch was not, and is not even due to launch for months. There's no conspiracy, only common sense. Also, I dont think the iWatch is not going to sell 10 million in a weekend, so manufacturing does not need to ramp up nearly as early.
If Apple's contract were unreasonable, referring to them as "oppressive and burdensome" why would you ever sign them and then take a huge Pile of money from Apple? Apple even tried to help you and you still failed what you were contracted to do for Apple.
Why do people/company's these days think a Contract is meaningless? YOU SIGNED IT!!!! It was fine before, but now that things aren't going your way, you don't like it and think it should be tossed as it's just not FAIR. Cry,Cry,Cry me a river.....
Must be. I have no idea why anyone would defend the GTAT CEO who lost over $1,500,000,000 for investors. And possibly another 500,000,000 to Apple and another 450,000,000 to bond holders.
He also lost 800 jobs for innocent people in Arizona and cost Arizona tax payers MILLIONS
And what does the CEO get? $10,000,000 in stock options this year.
Actually sog35 is pretty close to the mark. The CEO is going to have to face insider trading allegations, and they have certainly prosecuted people for far less. He's in serious trouble, both from the SEC and from his investors. None of the allegations currently filed in bankruptcy court looks like it would hold merit on first blush. As had been said before, it's not like Tim Cook put a gun to his head (or their board of directors). They entered into an agreement to provide a specific good to Apple...something Apple has done thousands of times with thousands of vendors in the Tim Cook era (post 1997). Tim Cook's is an old operations pro. He knows what can and cannot be done and he wouldn't have invested half a billion dollars of the company's money unless they thought they could pull this off.
But one thing that Apple's providers have learned over the years is that Apple always has alternatives in case a supplier cannot deliver. TSMC has been trying to supply "A" processors for what....3 years now? They finally got a product that meets Apple's specs and can deliver in volume. The difference here is that TSMC has other large sources of income and could afford a few failures to get in Apple's supply chain. GTAT probably couldn't since the market for sapphire-based products was much more limited, especially on the scale that Apple wanted. There was a lot more risk for them if them missed a product launch.
You missed my point and nowhere did I state or imply that GT Advanced didn't willingly enter into the contract. For them to say the contract is unreasonable means they freely entered into the contract against what they deem as reasonable. My point about sog is he has been acting like a child since he personally lost money investing in something without adequate research into their financials. His allegations have been based on nothing but his own conjecture and speculation. There has been nothing factual divulged that implicates the CEO of insider trading. I'm sure that due to the appearance of impropriety that he may face an investigation into potential insider trading. Your post from the sentence "None of the allegations currently filed in bankruptcy court looks like it would hold merit on first blush" onward had nothing to do with what I said about sog's temper tantrums, and most of the remainder of your post I agree with.
You missed my point and nowhere did I state or imply that GT Advanced didn't willingly enter into the contract. For them to say the contract is unreasonable means they freely entered into the contract against what they deem as reasonable. My point about sog is he has been acting like a child since he personally lost money investing in something without adequate research into their financials. His allegations have been based on nothing but his own conjecture and speculation. There has been nothing factual divulged that implicates the CEO of insider trading. I'm sure that due to the appearance of impropriety that he may face an investigation into potential insider trading. Your post from the sentence "None of the allegations currently filed in bankruptcy court looks like it would hold merit on first blush" onward had nothing to do with what I said about sog's temper tantrums, and most of the remainder of your post I agree with.
-PopinFRESH
I don't think we disagree on much here. I was only pointing out the merits of sog's post, not making a commentary about his previous posts which is what you were clearly thinking about.
As far as the whole insider trading thing, we've all seen the timeline of events. It may be clearly nothing. But I can state that the timeline alone would trigger an informal investigation by the SEC. I had a friend of mine actually prosecuted for insider trading some years back on much less evidence. But the other problem here is the lack of warning that Apple was going to withhold a payment before the bankruptcy filing. If the payment withhold and the bankruptcy filing were within a few days of each other, then that's one thing (and that will come out in court). But if it was a much longer period of time, then investors should have been told that the company was going to miss their targets and no NDA would have legally prevented that.
Get with the times. The executive branch has been doing this alone for years.
Come on Tallest Skil, you know the executive branch hasn't been doing this alone. Get with the times man, everybody makes laws now. The judicial branch, the Executive branch, the czars branch, the legis; wait the legislative branch doesn't. I appologize for the incorrect statement. /s
If you look at the HTML, his post content is actually within the “quote box” scripted for the quote in his own post. So when you quote his post, it doesn’t bring that “quote” content along.
It’s really, REALLY ugly code. I mean disgusting. Totally unoptimised.
If GTAT disclosed this information and warned investors that they may face liquidity problems in the near future I would put ZERO blame on the GTAT CEO. Even if he said it a week before Bankruptcy it would give investors enough time to make an educated decision to keep or sell the stock. By the CEO not saying ANYTHING despite have vital information he screwed the investors. And before any investors could sell their positions he blindsides them by filing for bankruptcy and the stock falls 90%.
Okay, okay. We get your point, which you have made ad infinitum and are beginning to make ad nauseum. The CEO's culpability will probably have to be established in court and no amount of lawyering on your part in AI can do much to change that. You're angry. You appear to have just cause. We sympathize, but can you spare the rest of us now and just give it a rest?
P.S. Don't bring a sidearm with you if you decide to attend the trial. The bailiffs don't like that much.
Because if GTAT did not sign the agreement, then we would all be trashing them for it regardless of what Apple was asking for. So GTAT will always look like the bad guy.
What!?! So GTAT could have either signed the contract, fail to produce, file for bankruptcy OR not sign, stay solvent, be trolled by the Internet. Yea, I see that made the correct choice.
My point is the GTAT CEO withheld vital information to shareholders.
SEC rules state that any event that is material in nature MUST BE REPORTED IMMEDIATELY TO SHAREHOLDERS. If GTAT was experiencing liquidity problems (which they admitted to in the Bankruptcy papers) they need to REPORT IT to the SEC/shareholders. That is my point.
You don't go from saying the company has a STRONG BALANCE SHEET, will have $330,000,000 in cash by year end, and make billions in profits by 2016 (these are all words of the CEO) and then SIX WEEKS later go bankrupt without any DISCLOSURE to the shareholders before that.
Of course I'm pissed. Are you not pissed if someone stole $100 from you? Don't be ridiculous. So you are telling me I didn't do due dilegance. So are you telling me Blackrock didn't either? They are the biggest shareholder of GTAT and Blackrock is the worlds largest investment bank (over $2.9 trillion in assets). Blackrock had over 170,000,000 worth of GTAT shares last month.
If you weren't making a point about insider trading why did you mention the CEO's planed sale of stock and accusing him of prior knowledge that the company would be filing for bankruptcy before the sale of stock? Nobody stole anything from you. You chose to invest in a company and like any investment You assume the risk of loosing that investment. You admittedly based your investment decision solely on the basis that Tim Cook arranged a pre-payment contract with a supplier. No you did not do your due diligence with this investment by making wild assumptions. Blackrock very likely did their due diligence, which still does not mean you did. Do you know if they had any measures in place to mitigate some of the risk in their position? Are they sufficiently diversified in their holdings? I will say that I don't see them flailing about on the internet whining like a three year old who just had their toy taken away.
I would like to see your factual timeline of events that shows they delayed announcement of a material event. They very well could have been on track and hopeful that they could meet the requirements of the agreement and receive the fourth installment of pre-payment. Had they met the contractual goals to be eligible for that pre-payment, GT Advanced would likely still be poised to achieve the companies goals. I'm not making any judgements one way or another until I have the facts at hand, however with the information currently available the fourth pre-payment being withheld looks to be the catalyst for the bankruptcy filing. The fourth installment wasn't due to be paid until this month, which even if it was scheduled for the 1st would have left GT Advance three business days before they announced they will be filling for bankruptcy.
This is the third time I have seen someone on AI issue legal warnings against "slander" of the GTAT CEO. It's really amazing because I don't recall ever seeing people acting like Steve Jobs or Tim Cook's personal attorney on this forum. Are the people issuing these warnings related to or employed by the GTAT CEO in any way?
I have no relation, employment, investment, contract or any other connection to GT Advance or it's CEO. Unless you consider the sapphire cover for my iPhones camera and TouchID a connection to GT Advanced and their CEO (assuming they are the ones who supply those sapphire parts). Also I'm not acting as the GT Advanced CEO's personal attorney. Feel free to go read sog's slew of posts on every article that is remotely related to this announcement. Judge for yourself if you think he is slanderous in his postings. Actually I should correct myself as his postings here would be libel (written) vs slander (oral).
Bullshit. Apple didn't "allow" anything to leak. The iPhone was being extensively tested and mass manufactured in China, the Apple Watch was not, and is not even due to launch for months. There's no conspiracy, only common sense. Also, I dont think the iWatch is not going to sell 10 million in a weekend, so manufacturing does not need to ramp up nearly as early.
So why isn't Apple not chasing the companies who leaked all the information then. There is no conspiracy, it actually makes sense for Apple to have highly publicize leaks since it got lots of free press and people knew before the summer Apple was officially doing a larger phone. This fact alone has paid off since Samsung larger phone sales have been declining for the last 3 or 4 months because people held of until they saw what Apple. This is marketing strategy which apple rarely uses but it worked this time.
No supplier would be willing to leak the information that was out there since it would not be hard for apple to figure out where the leaks came from and if apple was going after them it would be public like they did in the past to make sure others know they mean business.
Also you have not clue how many watches apple built, where they are being build, One product leaks months a head of time and others do not, they using the same supply chain for the most all their parts.
GTAT CEO says company is doing great. STRONG BALANCE SHEET. Will have $330,000,000 in cash by end of year. Will have $500,000,000 in revenue for 2nd half of year.
Sept 9th
Apple announces iPhone6. No Sapphire screen. GTAT CEO makes no SEC filings to adjust forecasted revenue or profits. No filings for dangers of running out of cash.
Sept 15th
GTAT announces a conference call business update for the week of Sept 29th
Oct 2nd
GTAT announces the conference call business update has been postponed to the week of Oct 6th
Oct 6th
GTAT announce bankruptcy.
As you can see the GTAT CEO had multiple opportunities to disclose the change in circumstance and material events. He even scheduled a 'business update' yet it never happenned. I wonder why? Any person with average intellegence knows why the meeting never happened. If the GTAT CEO was following the law he would have disclosed the liquidity problems of the company in the Sept 29th update. But he didn't. The meeting never happened and shareholders were completed shocked when they filed bankruptcy and lost 95% of their investment.
Don't tell me that on Oct 3rd everything was on tract and then all of a sudden on Oct 6th the sky fell. Don't be so hopelessly naive. The GTAT CEO knew the company was in trouble for weeks if not MONTHS. And not communicating that to shareholders is AGAINST THE LAW AND IS CRIMINAL. It equates to STEALING and FRAUD. If you don't think that's grounds for bad mouthing someone than let me go to your house and steal $1000 from you.
You are again making the assumption that GT Advanced was producing a sapphire cover for the iPhone 6. You have no factual evidence of this and are basing this on rumors. You are then basing that GT Advanced would have a need to issue corrective guidance on your assumption that they were making sapphire covers for the iPhone 6. You obviously can't comprehend a calendar and what a business day is. October 1st was a Wednesday, October 2nd was a Thursday, October 3 was a Friday, October 6th was the next Monday. They likely had prepared guidance for September 29th with the expectation of receiving the fourth pre-payment. We don't know when they learned from Apple that the payment would be withheld, however that likely occurred in the timeframe of September 29th - October 2nd.
I'm not being naive, I'm just not accusing people of criminal culpability or conspiracy to commit fraud without actual facts and evidence that demonstrates a crime.
There is a HUGE difference between calling some one a CROOK on a message board then on a Newspaper or news site. I'm not a journalist. My opinion is the GTAT CEO is a CROOK. This is based on black and white SEC rules.
You don't need to be a journalist to commit libel or slander.
Explain exactly where i said I was expecting GTAT to produce iPhone6 covers. I never said that.
So where exactly would GTAT make the $500,000,000 in revenue from Jul-Dec 2014? Making TouchID and camera lenses won't even come close to that.
So if GTAT was not going to get the 4th payment why didn't they WARN investors? Right there is FRAUD. They should have warned investors about the payment BEFORE going bankrupt. And don't tell me they had ZERO idea the payment was not coming before Oct 3rd.
You are incredibly naive to assume that the GTAT CEO was innocent. ONly a true idiot would not see the FACTS and recognize foul play here.
I can tell by your comments you have very little investing experience or experience with SEC regulations.
You explicitly stated it in your previous rants quoted below. You implied it in your statements about Apple's September 9th iPhone 6 announcement by expecting GT Advanced would need to issue corrective guidance because the iPhone 6 did not have a sapphire cover. As to where they may have gotten that revenue from, possibly that fourth pre-payment, orders for sapphire covers to be used on two of the three versions of the AppleWatch, maybe even other endeavors. As for why they didn't warn investors they weren't getting the fourth pre-payment, again we don't know when Apple actually disclosed this to them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sog35
its called opportunity cost.
The iPhone6 suppose to have sapphire screen. How many sales were lost because of that?
The AppleWatch suppose to come out this year. How many sales were lost because of that?
You bet this GTAT deal cost hundreds of millions in adminstrative costs/lawyer costs, ect and are sure to cost more as this is dragged through bankruptucy court.
Even just the stock price. Before news came out the stock was up almost a $1. Now its flat. Apple is being dragged in the mud of GTAT. To be associate with such a scam company is shameful.
I've tolerated as much of you as I can stand. On to the ignore list you shall go. You should really learn to accept responsibility for your own actions and decisions. Just as no body forced GT Advanced to enter into that contract with Apple, no body forced you to purchase GT Advanced stock. I'm sure the vast majority of AI readers know your feelings on the matter. It's time to grow up and move on. Let the actual facts of the situation be discovered and then pass judgment. Contrary to what you seem to believe, your opinion is not fact.
GTAT failed to make product that was not defective.
Apple is under NO OBILIGATION to pay for defective product.
I'm just curious where this whole defective product portion you keep talking about comes into play? I haven't seen that published anywhere yet.. Can you tell me where you've did discovered gtat's products were defective? That's newsworthy if accurate.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sog35
Quote:
Originally Posted by josephwinters
I'm just curious where this whole defective product portion you keep talking about comes into play? I haven't seen that published anywhere yet.. Can you tell me where you've did discovered gtat's products were defective? That's newsworthy if accurate.
If the product was not defective Apple would have sent GTAT the final prepayment of $100M
Apple never sent the final prepayment because the product was not up to Apple's standards.
The final prepayment was scheduled for September. If the product was not defective Apple would have been buying BILLIONS of dollars worth of sapphire this year and GTAT would not be bankrupt. That is why GTAT wants to shut down the sapphire plant completely. Please understand that GTAT has NEVER mass produced sapphire. In the past they made sapphire machines but never mass produced sapphrie product.
There's no hint that the product was defective. GTAT very well couldn't produce the sapphire in the needed quantity for Apple's needs and therefore faulted on the terms of sale. Now, the quantity issue could have been due to poor yields or not enough machines coming on line fast enough... but to assume it was a quality issue was a leap of logic.
My "Get Smart" reference (joke) went completely over your head. Not your fault, you're only guilty of not being over 40 years old.
I actually watched the very first episode of Get Smart the very first time it was aired. I am now telling you my age! I know exactly what you are talking about. Good one.
Who the heck do you think you are? Dissolve my Apple position. You wish.
So are you telling me Blackrock, Vanguard, Fidelity, and Hartford also did not do their due dilegance on GTAT? All those firms had over $100,000,000 invested in GTAT. I'm blaming those who are at fault: The CEO of GTAT. If you think it is NORMAL for a company to state that their balance sheet is SUPER STRONG, say they are on tract to make BILLIONS in profits by 2016 and then a mere 6 weeks go BANKRUPT you are crazy.
By your comments its clear you know NOTHING about investing and SEC rules and regs. GTAT is NOT a private company. They cannot keep secrets from shareholders. If they were facing liquidity problems THEY MUST REPORT IT IMMEDIATELY or they are breaking the law. PERIOD. The GTAT CEO withheld important financial data from Shareholders. He gave ZERO warnings about liquidity problems before filing for Bankruptcy.
You are confusing me here ... "on tract"? I'm still trying to learn US English but where I grew up we use 'on track' ... Not being the grammar police, just checking ... does 'tract' have a different usage in the USA?
In UK
As a noun, 'track' refers to a path, route, or course. The verb 'track' means to travel, pursue, or follow.
The noun 'tract' refers to an expanse of land or water, a system of organs and tissues in the body, or a pamphlet containing a declaration or appeal.
You are confusing me here ... "on tract"? I'm still trying to learn US English but where I grew up we use 'on track' ... Not being the grammar police, just checking ... does 'tract' have a different usage in the USA?
In UK
As a noun, 'track' refers to a path, route, or course. The verb 'track' means to travel, pursue, or follow.
The noun 'tract' refers to an expanse of land or water, a system of organs and tissues in the body, or a pamphlet containing a declaration or appeal.
You're right. It should be "on track." There is no "on tract." A typo, I would guess. Keep Calm and Carry On.
Comments
For those who do not work for a High Tech Company and never signed and NDA, this is not unusual, there is always a penalty like this if leaking information the size of the penalty is usually associated with the size of the business you doing with them or perceived value of the information that is being shared. The bigger the number the more teeth the agreement has. This ensure Management tells it employee they can not speak to anyone about what they are doing. BTW the federal government and Military contractors have something similar but it includes jail time.
The fact so much leaked out ahead of the i6 and nothing about the watch tells me that apple allowed the i6 information to leak since non of their suppliers are going to risk paying apple $50m for each leak. Most NDA have a cost for each leak, to it not like you can leak 10 things and get hit once for $50M it going to $50M for each of the 10 leaks so $500M.
I believe Apple allowed the leaks to hold people who may have been considering a move to Samsung, there was too much specific information leaking out about the form factor. If Apple did do this, then it work since we know Samsung took a big hit.
Bullshit. Apple didn't "allow" anything to leak. The iPhone was being extensively tested and mass manufactured in China, the Apple Watch was not, and is not even due to launch for months. There's no conspiracy, only common sense. Also, I dont think the iWatch is not going to sell 10 million in a weekend, so manufacturing does not need to ramp up nearly as early.
Why do people/company's these days think a Contract is meaningless? YOU SIGNED IT!!!! It was fine before, but now that things aren't going your way, you don't like it and think it should be tossed as it's just not FAIR. Cry,Cry,Cry me a river.....
Sounds like a gross lack of due diligence.
You missed my point and nowhere did I state or imply that GT Advanced didn't willingly enter into the contract. For them to say the contract is unreasonable means they freely entered into the contract against what they deem as reasonable. My point about sog is he has been acting like a child since he personally lost money investing in something without adequate research into their financials. His allegations have been based on nothing but his own conjecture and speculation. There has been nothing factual divulged that implicates the CEO of insider trading. I'm sure that due to the appearance of impropriety that he may face an investigation into potential insider trading. Your post from the sentence "None of the allegations currently filed in bankruptcy court looks like it would hold merit on first blush" onward had nothing to do with what I said about sog's temper tantrums, and most of the remainder of your post I agree with.
-PopinFRESH
You missed my point and nowhere did I state or imply that GT Advanced didn't willingly enter into the contract. For them to say the contract is unreasonable means they freely entered into the contract against what they deem as reasonable. My point about sog is he has been acting like a child since he personally lost money investing in something without adequate research into their financials. His allegations have been based on nothing but his own conjecture and speculation. There has been nothing factual divulged that implicates the CEO of insider trading. I'm sure that due to the appearance of impropriety that he may face an investigation into potential insider trading. Your post from the sentence "None of the allegations currently filed in bankruptcy court looks like it would hold merit on first blush" onward had nothing to do with what I said about sog's temper tantrums, and most of the remainder of your post I agree with.
-PopinFRESH
I don't think we disagree on much here. I was only pointing out the merits of sog's post, not making a commentary about his previous posts which is what you were clearly thinking about.
As far as the whole insider trading thing, we've all seen the timeline of events. It may be clearly nothing. But I can state that the timeline alone would trigger an informal investigation by the SEC. I had a friend of mine actually prosecuted for insider trading some years back on much less evidence. But the other problem here is the lack of warning that Apple was going to withhold a payment before the bankruptcy filing. If the payment withhold and the bankruptcy filing were within a few days of each other, then that's one thing (and that will come out in court). But if it was a much longer period of time, then investors should have been told that the company was going to miss their targets and no NDA would have legally prevented that.
One thing for sure, it's popcorn time.
Come on Tallest Skil, you know the executive branch hasn't been doing this alone. Get with the times man, everybody makes laws now. The judicial branch, the Executive branch, the czars branch, the legis; wait the legislative branch doesn't. I appologize for the incorrect statement. /s
Weird, AI bug with multi-quotes? Regardless, I concur libertyforall. Good information.
-PopinFRESH
If you look at the HTML, his post content is actually within the “quote box” scripted for the quote in his own post. So when you quote his post, it doesn’t bring that “quote” content along.
It’s really, REALLY ugly code. I mean disgusting. Totally unoptimised.
exactly.
If GTAT disclosed this information and warned investors that they may face liquidity problems in the near future I would put ZERO blame on the GTAT CEO. Even if he said it a week before Bankruptcy it would give investors enough time to make an educated decision to keep or sell the stock. By the CEO not saying ANYTHING despite have vital information he screwed the investors. And before any investors could sell their positions he blindsides them by filing for bankruptcy and the stock falls 90%.
Okay, okay. We get your point, which you have made ad infinitum and are beginning to make ad nauseum. The CEO's culpability will probably have to be established in court and no amount of lawyering on your part in AI can do much to change that. You're angry. You appear to have just cause. We sympathize, but can you spare the rest of us now and just give it a rest?
P.S. Don't bring a sidearm with you if you decide to attend the trial. The bailiffs don't like that much.
What!?! So GTAT could have either signed the contract, fail to produce, file for bankruptcy OR not sign, stay solvent, be trolled by the Internet. Yea, I see that made the correct choice.
I thought "the dog ate my homework" defense went out in the 1950s? And that's GTAT's defense?
My point is not insider trading.
My point is the GTAT CEO withheld vital information to shareholders.
SEC rules state that any event that is material in nature MUST BE REPORTED IMMEDIATELY TO SHAREHOLDERS. If GTAT was experiencing liquidity problems (which they admitted to in the Bankruptcy papers) they need to REPORT IT to the SEC/shareholders. That is my point.
You don't go from saying the company has a STRONG BALANCE SHEET, will have $330,000,000 in cash by year end, and make billions in profits by 2016 (these are all words of the CEO) and then SIX WEEKS later go bankrupt without any DISCLOSURE to the shareholders before that.
Of course I'm pissed. Are you not pissed if someone stole $100 from you? Don't be ridiculous. So you are telling me I didn't do due dilegance. So are you telling me Blackrock didn't either? They are the biggest shareholder of GTAT and Blackrock is the worlds largest investment bank (over $2.9 trillion in assets). Blackrock had over 170,000,000 worth of GTAT shares last month.
If you weren't making a point about insider trading why did you mention the CEO's planed sale of stock and accusing him of prior knowledge that the company would be filing for bankruptcy before the sale of stock? Nobody stole anything from you. You chose to invest in a company and like any investment You assume the risk of loosing that investment. You admittedly based your investment decision solely on the basis that Tim Cook arranged a pre-payment contract with a supplier. No you did not do your due diligence with this investment by making wild assumptions. Blackrock very likely did their due diligence, which still does not mean you did. Do you know if they had any measures in place to mitigate some of the risk in their position? Are they sufficiently diversified in their holdings? I will say that I don't see them flailing about on the internet whining like a three year old who just had their toy taken away.
I would like to see your factual timeline of events that shows they delayed announcement of a material event. They very well could have been on track and hopeful that they could meet the requirements of the agreement and receive the fourth installment of pre-payment. Had they met the contractual goals to be eligible for that pre-payment, GT Advanced would likely still be poised to achieve the companies goals. I'm not making any judgements one way or another until I have the facts at hand, however with the information currently available the fourth pre-payment being withheld looks to be the catalyst for the bankruptcy filing. The fourth installment wasn't due to be paid until this month, which even if it was scheduled for the 1st would have left GT Advance three business days before they announced they will be filling for bankruptcy.
-PopinFRESH
This is the third time I have seen someone on AI issue legal warnings against "slander" of the GTAT CEO. It's really amazing because I don't recall ever seeing people acting like Steve Jobs or Tim Cook's personal attorney on this forum. Are the people issuing these warnings related to or employed by the GTAT CEO in any way?
I have no relation, employment, investment, contract or any other connection to GT Advance or it's CEO. Unless you consider the sapphire cover for my iPhones camera and TouchID a connection to GT Advanced and their CEO (assuming they are the ones who supply those sapphire parts). Also I'm not acting as the GT Advanced CEO's personal attorney. Feel free to go read sog's slew of posts on every article that is remotely related to this announcement. Judge for yourself if you think he is slanderous in his postings. Actually I should correct myself as his postings here would be libel (written) vs slander (oral).
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/slander
"slander n. oral defamation, in which someone tells one or more persons an untruth about another which untruth will harm the reputation of the person defamed. Slander is a civil wrong (tort) and can be the basis for a lawsuit. Damages(payoff for worth) for slander may be limited to actual (special) damages unless there is malicious intent, since such damages are usually difficult to specify and harder to prove. Some statements such as an untrue accusation of havingcommitted a crime, having a loathsome disease, or being unable to perform one's occupation are treated as slander per se since the harm and malice are obvious, and therefore usually result in general and even punitive damage recovery by the person harmed. Words spoken over the air on television or radio are treated as libel (written defamation) and not slander on the theory that broadcasting reaches a large audience as much if not more than printed publications. (See:defamation, fair comment)"
-PopinFRESH
Bullshit. Apple didn't "allow" anything to leak. The iPhone was being extensively tested and mass manufactured in China, the Apple Watch was not, and is not even due to launch for months. There's no conspiracy, only common sense. Also, I dont think the iWatch is not going to sell 10 million in a weekend, so manufacturing does not need to ramp up nearly as early.
So why isn't Apple not chasing the companies who leaked all the information then. There is no conspiracy, it actually makes sense for Apple to have highly publicize leaks since it got lots of free press and people knew before the summer Apple was officially doing a larger phone. This fact alone has paid off since Samsung larger phone sales have been declining for the last 3 or 4 months because people held of until they saw what Apple. This is marketing strategy which apple rarely uses but it worked this time.
No supplier would be willing to leak the information that was out there since it would not be hard for apple to figure out where the leaks came from and if apple was going after them it would be public like they did in the past to make sure others know they mean business.
Also you have not clue how many watches apple built, where they are being build, One product leaks months a head of time and others do not, they using the same supply chain for the most all their parts.
Timeline:
August 26th
GTAT CEO says company is doing great. STRONG BALANCE SHEET. Will have $330,000,000 in cash by end of year. Will have $500,000,000 in revenue for 2nd half of year.
Sept 9th
Apple announces iPhone6. No Sapphire screen. GTAT CEO makes no SEC filings to adjust forecasted revenue or profits. No filings for dangers of running out of cash.
Sept 15th
GTAT announces a conference call business update for the week of Sept 29th
Oct 2nd
GTAT announces the conference call business update has been postponed to the week of Oct 6th
Oct 6th
GTAT announce bankruptcy.
As you can see the GTAT CEO had multiple opportunities to disclose the change in circumstance and material events. He even scheduled a 'business update' yet it never happenned. I wonder why? Any person with average intellegence knows why the meeting never happened. If the GTAT CEO was following the law he would have disclosed the liquidity problems of the company in the Sept 29th update. But he didn't. The meeting never happened and shareholders were completed shocked when they filed bankruptcy and lost 95% of their investment.
Don't tell me that on Oct 3rd everything was on tract and then all of a sudden on Oct 6th the sky fell. Don't be so hopelessly naive. The GTAT CEO knew the company was in trouble for weeks if not MONTHS. And not communicating that to shareholders is AGAINST THE LAW AND IS CRIMINAL. It equates to STEALING and FRAUD. If you don't think that's grounds for bad mouthing someone than let me go to your house and steal $1000 from you.
You are again making the assumption that GT Advanced was producing a sapphire cover for the iPhone 6. You have no factual evidence of this and are basing this on rumors. You are then basing that GT Advanced would have a need to issue corrective guidance on your assumption that they were making sapphire covers for the iPhone 6. You obviously can't comprehend a calendar and what a business day is. October 1st was a Wednesday, October 2nd was a Thursday, October 3 was a Friday, October 6th was the next Monday. They likely had prepared guidance for September 29th with the expectation of receiving the fourth pre-payment. We don't know when they learned from Apple that the payment would be withheld, however that likely occurred in the timeframe of September 29th - October 2nd.
I'm not being naive, I'm just not accusing people of criminal culpability or conspiracy to commit fraud without actual facts and evidence that demonstrates a crime.
-PopinFRESH
There is a HUGE difference between calling some one a CROOK on a message board then on a Newspaper or news site. I'm not a journalist. My opinion is the GTAT CEO is a CROOK. This is based on black and white SEC rules.
You don't need to be a journalist to commit libel or slander.
-PopinFRESH
Explain exactly where i said I was expecting GTAT to produce iPhone6 covers. I never said that.
So where exactly would GTAT make the $500,000,000 in revenue from Jul-Dec 2014? Making TouchID and camera lenses won't even come close to that.
So if GTAT was not going to get the 4th payment why didn't they WARN investors? Right there is FRAUD. They should have warned investors about the payment BEFORE going bankrupt. And don't tell me they had ZERO idea the payment was not coming before Oct 3rd.
You are incredibly naive to assume that the GTAT CEO was innocent. ONly a true idiot would not see the FACTS and recognize foul play here.
I can tell by your comments you have very little investing experience or experience with SEC regulations.
You explicitly stated it in your previous rants quoted below. You implied it in your statements about Apple's September 9th iPhone 6 announcement by expecting GT Advanced would need to issue corrective guidance because the iPhone 6 did not have a sapphire cover. As to where they may have gotten that revenue from, possibly that fourth pre-payment, orders for sapphire covers to be used on two of the three versions of the AppleWatch, maybe even other endeavors. As for why they didn't warn investors they weren't getting the fourth pre-payment, again we don't know when Apple actually disclosed this to them.
its called opportunity cost.
The iPhone6 suppose to have sapphire screen. How many sales were lost because of that?
The AppleWatch suppose to come out this year. How many sales were lost because of that?
You bet this GTAT deal cost hundreds of millions in adminstrative costs/lawyer costs, ect and are sure to cost more as this is dragged through bankruptucy court.
Even just the stock price. Before news came out the stock was up almost a $1. Now its flat. Apple is being dragged in the mud of GTAT. To be associate with such a scam company is shameful.
I've tolerated as much of you as I can stand. On to the ignore list you shall go. You should really learn to accept responsibility for your own actions and decisions. Just as no body forced GT Advanced to enter into that contract with Apple, no body forced you to purchase GT Advanced stock. I'm sure the vast majority of AI readers know your feelings on the matter. It's time to grow up and move on. Let the actual facts of the situation be discovered and then pass judgment. Contrary to what you seem to believe, your opinion is not fact.
-PopinFRESH
Explain.
Apple gave GTAT $500M to product product.
GTAT failed to make product that was not defective.
Apple is under NO OBILIGATION to pay for defective product.
I'm just curious where this whole defective product portion you keep talking about comes into play? I haven't seen that published anywhere yet.. Can you tell me where you've did discovered gtat's products were defective? That's newsworthy if accurate.
I'm just curious where this whole defective product portion you keep talking about comes into play? I haven't seen that published anywhere yet.. Can you tell me where you've did discovered gtat's products were defective? That's newsworthy if accurate.
If the product was not defective Apple would have sent GTAT the final prepayment of $100M
Apple never sent the final prepayment because the product was not up to Apple's standards.
The final prepayment was scheduled for September. If the product was not defective Apple would have been buying BILLIONS of dollars worth of sapphire this year and GTAT would not be bankrupt. That is why GTAT wants to shut down the sapphire plant completely. Please understand that GTAT has NEVER mass produced sapphire. In the past they made sapphire machines but never mass produced sapphrie product.
There's no hint that the product was defective. GTAT very well couldn't produce the sapphire in the needed quantity for Apple's needs and therefore faulted on the terms of sale. Now, the quantity issue could have been due to poor yields or not enough machines coming on line fast enough... but to assume it was a quality issue was a leap of logic.
My "Get Smart" reference (joke) went completely over your head. Not your fault, you're only guilty of not being over 40 years old.
I actually watched the very first episode of Get Smart the very first time it was aired. I am now telling you my age! I know exactly what you are talking about. Good one.
You are confusing me here ... "on tract"? I'm still trying to learn US English but where I grew up we use 'on track' ... Not being the grammar police, just checking ... does 'tract' have a different usage in the USA?
In UK
As a noun, 'track' refers to a path, route, or course. The verb 'track' means to travel, pursue, or follow.
The noun 'tract' refers to an expanse of land or water, a system of organs and tissues in the body, or a pamphlet containing a declaration or appeal.
You are confusing me here ... "on tract"? I'm still trying to learn US English but where I grew up we use 'on track' ... Not being the grammar police, just checking ... does 'tract' have a different usage in the USA?
In UK
As a noun, 'track' refers to a path, route, or course. The verb 'track' means to travel, pursue, or follow.
The noun 'tract' refers to an expanse of land or water, a system of organs and tissues in the body, or a pamphlet containing a declaration or appeal.
You're right. It should be "on track." There is no "on tract." A typo, I would guess. Keep Calm and Carry On.