Geosign in Financial Post Business Magazine

The cover story of the current Financial Post Business Magazine is a piece on the Geosign saga, written by Robert Thompson. The story will be familiar to people in the local tech community, but this may be the first time the story has been covered by the mainstream national print media.

The one part that didn't seem quite accurate was this:

American Capital's latest securities filings peg Moxy Media's value at US$128 million - which means the sum of Geosign's former assets are worth less than American Capital's original minority investment.

American Capital, from the outset, listed its Geosign investment at around this level. In fact, it was initially listed as US$126.7 million in its first appearance on a 10-Q, and the debt component rose slightly with the next two reports until the total was finally listed as US$128.2 million.

The just-filed annual report shows a disposition of the full investment. I don't believe that Moxy Media was ever mentioned in any of the filings. I was expecting to see a value attached to Moxy Media in the annual report, but if there's anything there, I didn't see it.

So, why the difference between the reported $160 million and the US$127-128 million on American Capital's books? I can think of three possibilities, but it's never been reported. That's a question that American Capital's IR folks might answer, since the company was the source of both numbers.

There are some good quotes from Jim Estill in the Post piece, but other than a no-comment type comment from Tim Nye, it looks like no one from Moxy Media, eMedia, or American Capital wanted to talk.