# TMH - The Market Herald



## Banners (9 February 2016)

HotCopper has planned to list on the ASX this year. 

What are your thoughts on that?


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## Tyler Durden (9 February 2016)

*Re: HOT - HotCopper to list on the ASX*



Banners said:


> HotCopper has planned to list on the ASX this year.
> 
> What are your thoughts on that?




lolll are they serious??


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## Gringotts Bank (9 February 2016)

*Re: HOT - HotCopper to list on the ASX*

All revenue would be via ads, wouldn't it?  The average HC users seem unaware that you can block every single one of those revenue-raising ads, or even rearrange entire layouts of websites with something like Greasemonkey.


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## System (9 February 2016)

*Re: HOT - HotCopper to list on the ASX*



Tyler Durden said:


> lolll are they serious??




AFR article here: http://www.afr.com/street-talk/hotcopper-forum-has-asxlisting-plans-of-its-own-20160116-gm7hc8


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## notting (9 February 2016)

*Re: HOT - HotCopper to list on the ASX*

If only we could short it from the float.
It will go like a sinker tossed in a pool.
No one wants to offer up sure things.


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## skc (9 February 2016)

*Re: HOT - HotCopper to list on the ASX*

As mentioned on the bottom of that AFR article, Hotcopper was actually listed back in the 1999 shortly before the dot com bust.

Incidentally, it was actually the first share I've ever purchased via IPO. I didn't know anything about the markets at the time, but any new floats remotely related to the internet just kept going up. So I bought a $2k parcel using one of my first paycheques.

It did pretty good to start, and it was taken over by a company called Bourse Data, something like 3 months after listing. I think it was the quickest takeover since a float at the time. The takeover was script based and it was worth ~2x the float price. I held onto my Bourse Data stocks (again, no idea what they really do or what their financials were), until it was taken over by St George bank (this time with cash) at a substantially lower price.

It will be interesting to see how this company works in the listed space. 

You can discuss Hotcopper on Hotcopper... how will that affect the crowd behaviour? Will moderators censor negative posts? Will the float be available to members? Will the sales pitch simply be "Choo Choo Choo"? Will there be a $2 party pre-organised? So many questions...


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## notting (9 February 2016)

*Re: HOT - HotCopper to list on the ASX*

They have a huge pool of half wits who will buy buy buy and lose lose lose.
That's my take.


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## systematic (10 February 2016)

*Re: HOT - HotCopper to list on the ASX*

I just wouldn't have thought a forum would be a float-able(?) business?  Obviously I'm way off.
Hey Joe...maybe you'll get some buyout offers down the road!


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## notting (10 February 2016)

*Re: HOT - HotCopper to list on the ASX*



systematic said:


> I just wouldn't have thought a forum would be a float-able(?) business?  Obviously I'm way off.
> Hey Joe...maybe you'll get some buyout offers down the road!




Anything is floatable if it obeys the float rules and has enough suckers wanting to buy it.


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## Gringotts Bank (10 February 2016)

*Re: HOT - HotCopper to list on the ASX*



skc said:


> "Choo Choo Choo"? Will there be a $2 party pre-organised? So many questions...




Yes and yes.  Goblin has landed the head marketing job, so expect annual reports to have a fruity flavour.

This thing is going to the moon.  Back the truck up.  I'm holding for the long term.  Get on board the HC train.


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## Smurf1976 (10 February 2016)

*Re: HOT - HotCopper to list on the ASX*

Perhaps Joe should start a rumor about floating ASF.

Then we just start a thread on HC to discuss the possible ASF float, pointing out advantages of ASF over other forums, saying that it has a better quality of posts and so on.

Then Joe decides that with all the extra members of ASF generated by this act of publicity on a rival forum that he's not going to float it after all and will instead retire with the profits.

:


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## galumay (10 February 2016)

*Re: HOT - HotCopper to list on the ASX*

I have been trying to think of something to post about HOT listing on the ASX, but, honestly, I got nothing!


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## peter2 (10 February 2016)

*Re: HOT - HotCopper to list on the ASX*

The private equity firm handling the HC float will consolidate all the stock forums into one massive Aust wide forum by giving equity to all the stake holders. The PE firm will market and advertise the heck out of the public float in all forms of social media. The demand for the small number of tightly held shares will be enormous. They'll IPO at a huge premium. All equity holders are prevented from selling for six months.  ASFers will short the heck out of them through CFD providers. ASFers will get sick of the average HC posts and join another small forum startup formed by Little Joe. Our Joe sits on a huge equity stake that is losing value daily (even though the ASX is in a strong bullish rally). Joe signed a non-compete clause with a two year period. He jumps on board the QE2 for a six month round the world holiday waiting to sell his HC equity and resume his business interests with his second cousin Little Joe.


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## VSntchr (10 February 2016)

*Re: HOT - HotCopper to list on the ASX*



peter2 said:


> The private equity firm handling the HC float will consolidate all the stock forums into one massive Aust wide forum by giving equity to all the stake holders. The PE firm will market and advertise the heck out of the public float in all forms of social media. The demand for the small number of tightly held shares will be enormous. They'll IPO at a huge premium. All equity holders are prevented from selling for six months.  ASFers will short the heck out of them through CFD providers. ASFers will get sick of the average HC posts and join another small forum startup formed by Little Joe. Our Joe sits on a huge equity stake that is losing value daily (even though the ASX is in a strong bullish rally). Joe signed a non-compete clause with a two year period. He jumps on board the QE2 for a six month round the world holiday waiting to sell his HC equity and resume his business interests with his second cousin Little Joe.



Perfect!


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## Tyler Durden (11 February 2016)

*Re: HOT - HotCopper to list on the ASX*



skc said:


> You can discuss Hotcopper on Hotcopper... how will that affect the crowd behaviour? Will moderators censor negative posts? Will the float be available to members? Will the sales pitch simply be "Choo Choo Choo"? Will there be a $2 party pre-organised? So many questions...




LOL!

They already censor a lot, apparently the freedom of speech doesn't apply there.


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## MrBurns (13 February 2016)

*Re: HOT - HotCopper to list on the ASX*

No sorry, whats the expected return ? 

Forget it


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## Joe Blow (16 April 2016)

*Re: HOT - HotCopper to list on the ASX*



> *HotCopper re-floats*
> Sean Smith - The West Australian on April 16, 2016, 4:00 am
> 
> HotCopper’s float will value the stock chat forum at $22 million and return about $10 million to the backers who returned it to private ownership 12 years ago.
> ...




More: https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/wa/a/31364637/hotcopper-re-floats/


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## Shiner219 (9 December 2016)

Cant remember my password...so just made a new account. Might have dropped off since moving overseas?

You'd have to be nuts to invest in HC as a financial investment.
Its only a matter of time before they get a lawsuit against them.

They do so much, that it would only take one irritated member/user to complain about....and they are in deep trouble.

They blatantly flaunt the Privacy Act....that's one example.
They publicize that a member has been suspended. (Might have been deserved, might not), but you cannot make public, any consequential action taken against an individual, what that action is/was, and then make it public. Imagine if your teleco provider disconnected you...then put a voice message on your line saying, this number is disconnect because the bill wasn't paid...LOL.

I've noticed to, they not only moderate posts, they moderate and remove posts, which leaves you wondering what they are doing and why...removing records date/times.

I've had a running commentary. You cant talk about it online, you are directed to support...you go to support, and you get banned for pointing out the failings...LOL - Yes, ask me.

The inconstancies of moderation (who gets what)...is so whimsical...I've seen some beauties, report, nothing happens...then a small misdirected post gets the sledge-hammer.

Its quite sad they've taken a backward step...and are not more open...such as like some big major brands and the way they manage Facebook etc....they cant remove post, no matter how bad or brand damaging, until their legal has reviewed it.

Far better options here.

I personally doubt they are a forum, as much as they are an organized syndicate of rappers with cooperative financial agenda (but that's only my opinion)...much the same as others here.

Some posters used to provide some good info, but those posters were few and far between.

So Yep, I agree with other posts here.


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## Lomu (9 December 2016)

Agree with all of the above.

I'm a member of HC, have been for a year or two. There was a thread about their upcoming IPO, and I mentioned that I didn't actually see any ads on the HC site as I had an Ad-blocker installed. Next morning, I wake up to a message from a moderator that I'd received a six-month ban from the site, simply for mentioning the fact that I'm using an Ad blocker!

Any thoughts I may have had about investing in the IPO were immediately shot to pieces. I find the moderation policies on that site to be somewhere beyond disgraceful. There are serial trolls on threads who don't hold any stock; have no intention of ever holding the stock- and they spend all day bagging out the posters who have invested in it. And what do the moderators do? Absolutely nothing. The trolls have free rein to start flame wars, be abusive and threatening towards other posters with the full knowledge that the mods simply will not intervene.


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## Porper (10 December 2016)

Lomu said:


> Agree with all of the above.
> 
> I'm a member of HC, have been for a year or two. There was a thread about their upcoming IPO, and I mentioned that I didn't actually see any ads on the HC site as I had an Ad-blocker installed. Next morning, I wake up to a message from a moderator that I'd received a six-month ban from the site, simply for mentioning the fact that I'm using an Ad blocker!
> 
> Any thoughts I may have had about investing in the IPO were immediately shot to pieces. I find the moderation policies on that site to be somewhere beyond disgraceful. There are serial trolls on threads who don't hold any stock; have no intention of ever holding the stock- and they spend all day bagging out the posters who have invested in it. And what do the moderators do? Absolutely nothing. The trolls have free rein to start flame wars, be abusive and threatening towards other posters with the full knowledge that the mods simply will not intervene.




It's only ever been about the number of posts on that site. More posts=more revenue. I haven't been on for years but for every one poster that new what they were doing, there were a 1000 that posted absolute drivel. It's in the moderators interest to allow the trolls to continue to keep the post rate up. Should be closed down...but will never happen.


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## MrChow (10 December 2016)

It's just for gambling addicts if they weren't on HC they'd be doing something stupid with their money elsewhere.


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## Tightwad (11 December 2016)

re ads on the site, was researching MBE awhile ago and found only about 20% of people use an ad blocker, it's 18% in some places.  I don't know how people can stand it, I even block their IG markets logo because I find it distracting.

I managed to get my account in read only mode, made a hash of remembering passwords and trying to reregister.  I still read, there are more posts on speccy stuff, but some combative twerps, cheerleading and low effort posts.


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## greggles (28 February 2018)

Hotcopper Holdings revenue up 22% to $2,263,079 and net profit up 538% to $524,550. They even announced a dividend of half a cent per share. The HOT share price rose 1c to 25c today as a result of the news.

I must admit these results are better than I expected. I don't post over there but I pop in for a quick look every now and again. Not much has changed but their website traffic and membership numbers are up according to the half year report, which must be the reason for the growth in revenue.


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## galumay (28 February 2018)

I reckon they could be in for a drop in membership, I recently closed my account because they implemented a java script to stop members using the site if they ran ad blockers. It was a final straw for me along with the realisation that its just time wasting for me as the overall standard of posting is so low and there is so much of it! I got the impression they are bleeding quite a few members because of it, I started a thread about it and questioning the ethics of the decision, got deleted almost instantly and I was threatened by the staff. 

Baffles me how a site can make over $2m from ads, more to the point baffles me as to why businesses advertise on web sites, the returns must be almost non-existent. I am sure most people are like me and would specifically avoid any product advertised on a web site i visited.


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## Joe Blow (28 February 2018)

galumay said:


> Baffles me how a site can make over $2m from ads, more to the point baffles me as to why businesses advertise on web sites, the returns must be almost non-existent. I am sure most people are like me and would specifically avoid any product advertised on a web site i visited.




Without revenue most websites would just cease to exist. It's either advertising (display and email) or a membership/subscription fee. You've probably noticed all the paywalls going up on an increasing number of news websites. It's because advertising just isn't generating the kind of revenue they need to operate. If it isn't that, it's popups, popovers or intrusive advertising that covers content. It's getting worse and there's not a lot that can be done about it. It's a matter of simple economics.

I'd just say this. If you like a website, appreciate it and get some value out of it then please consider supporting the advertisers of that website. Doing so helps keep websites online and providing a service to their users. ASF would go offline tomorrow without advertising revenue due to the costs involved in keeping it online. Anyway, just thought I'd put that out there as someone who has doing this for almost 14 years now and who wakes up every day hoping that those who frequent this place support it whenever they can.


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## galumay (1 March 2018)

Joe, there are plenty of very large and active websites that get by without either intrusive advertising or subscriptions. Some of them get free hosting (which is just about the only real cost), some have sponsors who are happy to be very unintrusive and some are run as part of a larger corporate enitity where the website is seen as a business cost to be expenced rather than recovered.

I can only speak for myself, but I have never subscribed to a website, and I am not sure I ever would. 

As I said, advertising effects me by making me detirmined never to buy the product. 

I realise its different to your perspective as the owner/operator of the forum, I am not sure what the answer is! Maybe some sort of transparent declaration of the running costs and a process for people to donate to help contibute to running costs?


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## Joe Blow (1 March 2018)

Galumay, I understand and appreciate your perspective. While the support of advertisers is obviously  important for ASF I understand that some members, for a variety of reasons, may not be able or willing to offer that kind of support.

However, as I do not wish to take this thread off-topic I have decided to address this issue in more detail in another thread that I hope to start over the weekend.


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## greggles (2 October 2019)

Hotcopper announced last week that they have agreed to buy Canadian based Stockhouse Publishing Ltd for C$20 million in cash payable on completion. 

Stockhouse operate: https://stockhouse.com/

The terms of payment are a little odd:

C$16 million in cash payable on completion; 

C$2 million through the issue of shares in HotCopper; 

C$1 million in cash payable on the date which is 6 months from completion; 

C$1 million paid in quarterly instalments in 2021 if Stockhouse's financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2020 show revenue of $10 million+.
C$20 million is around A$22.54 million. That seems like a lot of money for the Stockhouse website. I took a look and I'm not sure I like their forum section: https://stockhouse.com/community - Perhaps I'm just used to this one? 

I'm skeptical that this was a good transaction for HotCopper shareholders, but time will tell I suppose.


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## systematic (2 October 2019)

greggles said:


> I took a look and I'm not sure I like their forum section: https://stockhouse.com/community - Perhaps I'm just used to this one?




Yeah, but the traffic...over a million page views per day.  At a 1%CTR @ $1PC (or 2%CTR @ $0.50PC) they make $3.7M pa.


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## greggles (2 October 2019)

systematic said:


> Yeah, but the traffic...over a million page views per day.  At a 1%CTR @ $1PC (or 2%CTR @ $0.50PC) they make $3.7M pa.




I must have missed those figures. Which announcement are they from?


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## galumay (2 October 2019)

Given the history of HC's pump and dump investing, which has lost them a motza despite having retail suckers to sell their scam into, its hard to imagine this is a good move on their part. I guess it potentially increases the number of suckers to sell their stonks to.


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## System (26 June 2020)

On June 25th, 2020, Hot Copper Holdings Limited (HOT) changed its name and ASX code to The Market Herald Limited (TMH).


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## Dona Ferentes (1 August 2020)

*Would You Let Hot Copper Manage Your Money?*
By Tim McGowen

https://www.sharecafe.com.au/2020/07/31/would-you-let-hot-copper-manage-your-money/



> Next time you get an email in your inbox from Hot Copper (HC) advertising a particular ASX-listed company, it might pay to see whether this particular company has had a capital raising recently, because chances are that HC may have an equity position in that listed company. So, while all the recent marketing hype has been around HC’s change in name to The Market Herald and its Canadian acquisition, it’s the size of the company’s share portfolio that has changed the nature of HC’s business model....



._(and read article) ..._


> ...How this portfolio affects HC’s balance sheet moving forward is an additional risk, as one of its largest assets now seems highly leveraged to the volatility and illiquidity associated with micro-cap investing. Further, escrowed constraints to this portfolio – on top of the company’s newly acquired debt and the additional costs of integrating a new business model – might put the balance sheet under pressure if equity positions cannot be liquidated. Either way, while the company has always been highly leveraged to equity markets in the engagement of its members and the revenue of its advertisers, the biggest corporate risk now resides in its ability to manage an equity portfolio.
> 
> At the date of writing (30th July 2020) HC (now The Market Herald) announced the resignation of their auditors Ernst & Young, a very rare move for an auditor of an ASX listed company.


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## Garpal Gumnut (1 August 2020)

Dona Ferentes said:


> *Would You Let Hot Copper Manage Your Money?*
> By Tim McGowen
> 
> https://www.sharecafe.com.au/2020/07/31/would-you-let-hot-copper-manage-your-money/
> ...



Thanks @Dona Ferentes

This is not on my watchlist to buy when the market crashes.

gg


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## The Triangle (2 December 2022)

Oh my...  Drama over at hotcopper.  

What has happened here?  

28th - AGM
30th - Trading Halt requested due to 'board composition' and financing requirement
1st - Main shareholder calls a general meeting looking to dump Managing Director


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## greggles (2 December 2022)

Not sure what is going on over there at the moment but I couldn't believe it when they borrowed $60 million to buy Gumtree, Carsguide and Autotrader for $86 million. It will be hard for these three platforms to see much growth given the competition in the online classifieds niche (e.g. Facebook Marketplace). Servicing that huge loan will be a monkey on their back for years to come.


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## Garpal Gumnut (2 December 2022)

I’ve only just gotten to like and appreciate the contributions to ASF from the Commsec refugees. 

I really don’t think I could be civil to the Hotcopper lunatics when it goes a**e up. 

Perhaps if they could attend the Garpal Gumnut Online Couth Course I could indicate which ones passed the final MCQ test at the end. 

My usual fee applies. A Certificate is included. 

gg


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## divs4ever (2 December 2022)

i just hope  when HC  leaves the advertising world  , they stop sending me spam 

 i have NEVER joined and 'unsubscribing ' doesn't work  one might have thought 11 years  of ignoring them  might have convinced them to desist 

 HOWEVER i do find   being featured in HC  spam a BIG RED FLAG  ( especially at IPO  stage )  and avoid accordingly , but active traders might enjoy the sport of knowingly playing in a rigged game


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## greggles (2 December 2022)

Interesting. Sanger now out. The Board must be of the view that confidence in his leadership had evaporated.


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## The Triangle (2 December 2022)

greggles said:


> Interesting. Sanger now out. The Board must be of the view that confidence in his leadership had evaporated.
> 
> View attachment 150015



Wouldn't the natural evolution here be to sell just hotcopper and move it entirely offshore where some brokers and their lawyer/accountant mates can then really get the most out of their pump and dump schemes?   TMH could then focus on being a 'reputable' company after successfully leveraging off the HC ipo?  With gumtree and the other sites added to the company they could probably dump the 'HC' asset without a shareholder vote as it's no longer the primary business?

I'm not 100% of the rules, but surely if your servers, company, website, directors, everything is offshore then you could really supercharge the fake accounts pumping stocks with no fear of regulatory issues?


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