Fragen, Aftergood

Gestern hatte ich Gelegenheit zu einem Telefoninterview mit David Aftergood, dem Gründer der Pacific Lottery Corporation.

Fragen an D. Aftergood

1. Have you agreed on a date for the first rollout of the terminals? How many will be rolled out exactly till the end of 2008. A: We have not announced the start date publicly yet and therefore cannot discuss this until it is properly disseminated. Another point to keep in mind is that this is not "our" lottery. We are a technology supplier to the Vietnamese Government Lottery Authority and issues such as timing and roll out are up to them and not us. 2. According to a recent news article by Thanh Nien News, the mobile phone market will increase to 50 million customers within the next two years. How will these developments affect Pacific Lottery and can you please tell us your concept of capturing this yet untapped market? A: We see this growth in the mobile phone market as a very significant development. What is also very interesting is the explosive growth occurring simultaneously in the text messaging sub market in Vietnam, as well. Our technology offers the players the convenience of purchasing lottery tickets from their mobile phones and PLC is well placed to take advantage of this opportunity. We are very excited about the prospect of offering this new, cutting edge service to Vietnam and establishing one of the first fully integrated mobile phone jurisdictional wide Lottery programs in the world. 3. Can you give us an update on how the new operations centre and testing is progressing? A: We put out a news release in mid December discussing this issue and we intend to put out another progress news release in the next few weeks, once some additional bricks and mortar tasks are completed. As well, you should be aware that we will probably be constrained in our public discussion of this type of specific tasks by the need to publicly disseminate the information in a proper manner, such as a news release. 4. Do you have roll out plan for the installation of the lottery terminals? Are the staff already trained and on location? A: PLC's responsibility is to supply the technology and train the lottery staff. It is the Vietnamese Lottery Authority staff that is responsible for the technical installation of the terminals within the retailers. PLC also provides supervisory services and advice. This advice to the Vietnamese Lottery Authority is confidential and we cannot discuss their operations. 5. Recently on a popular German discussion board false statements about your company were posted and resulted in a drop of your share price. Can you comment on that? A: We are very concerned anytime false and misleading statements are made about the Corporation and / or its Directors, Officers or Consultants. As soon as we were made aware of these slanderous statements, we immediately contacted our Lawyer in Germany and we are currently reviewing all of our options including but not limited to launching a civil lawsuit against the person or persons who wrote the completely false and misleading statements. 6. According to the report of Harry Ashton “Vietnam – A regulatory overview”, the state lottery is expected to compete or join forces with foreign operators by offering sports betting in light of deregulation by 2010. Since you have a good track record in dealing with the Vietnamese government, do you plan to participate in sports betting and plan to offer it through your terminals? A: Yes, we have had preliminary discussions with officials about these issues. As well, our technology already incorporates these additional services; however the approval and timing of when this new form of legal betting activity is allowed is entirely up to the sole discretion of the Government. 7. A recent newspaper article by AFP on January 18th, 2008, states that the “Vietnam capital plans to ban street hawkers”. Among those street hawkers are also solicitors of underground lottery tickets. Without a doubt, this should help increase traffic at the lottery terminals. How do you rate this move by the city government? A: We don't know if the government will be successful in their attempts. We do know that the Government is vigorously pursuing "illegal / underground lottery tickets vendors" and will continue this effort, which we of course encourage as much as possible. 8. Last but not least, can you give us a clear outlook into the next 12months of Pacific Lottery and point out some key milestones and when they will be achieved? A: We see the next 12 months as a very significant time in the Company’s development. Within the next few months, we will be launching our new proprietary lottery technology in Vietnam and thereby joining a very exclusive club of a handful of company’s in the global Lottery industry that have a recurring revenue contract and also own and control their own comprehensive lottery system. We will be leveraging off of the contract in Vietnam and our technology to quickly horizontally and vertically integrate within the lottery industry. We expect to take advantage of our unique status within the worldwide lottery industry and vigorously pursue opportunities for growth in emerging lottery markets around the world. Within the same time frame as the launch, we will also be fully listing our shares in Europe while also looking at additional listing opportunities such as in Asia, as a way to better expose our story to investors in Europe and Asia, two areas that have demonstrated an appetite and an understanding for Companies who specialize in developing their businesses in emerging markets. Finally, we are continuing our focus on lottery technology development and bringing new cutting edge technology to the worldwide lottery marketplace. One important advantage we have is that due to our unique size and status we have the ability to attract high level technology and management expertise by offering them share options. These options are only accessible upon reaching certain milestones and are only valuable when the company achieves its goals. We will be continuing to offer this unique incentive as a means to attract and retain our Directors, Officers, Employees and Consultants and provide the necessary rewards to ensure that everyone participates in the company’s future success. Gute Geschäfte wünscht Ihr Mischa Hampe Bitte beachten Sie stets auch Disclaimer und AGB`s auf unserer Website www.yalta.ag
@ ad-hoc-news.de | 29.01.08 11:51 Uhr