A blog on issues affecting Australia's newsagents, media and small business generally. More ...

Author: Mark Fletcher

Bill Express related entity in liquidation

Bill Express related entity Technology Business International Pty Ltd (TBI) has appointed a liquidator. TBI is the company newsagents signed leases with for the Bill Express equipment. The only resolution put to the extraordinary general meeting of TBI was:

That as the company is unable to pay its debts as and when they call due, the company be wound up voluntarily and that Geoffrey Neils Handberg be appointed Liquidator for the purpose of such winding up.

The meeting was attended by Sandro DiDonato as proxy for Technology Business Holdings Pty Ltd (TBH), the sole shareholder in TBI. TBH has four shareholders with 96.5% of the business being owned by Equip Rentals Pty Ltd (ER). ER has one shareholder – Sandro DiDonato and was deregistered in December 2007.

Bill Express accounts for June 20, 2007 listed TBI and Technology Business Systems Pty Ltd (TBS) as owing $22.8 million to Bill Express. The imminent liquidation of TBI would appear to reduce the assets of Bill Express by $22.8 million – unless it has been part or full repaid between June 3, 2007 and June 30, 2008.

The minutes for the extraordinary general meeting of TBI were originally dated June 26, 2008. This was amended by hand to June 30, 2008. While I am not sure about the significance of such a change, I wonder in the minutes were prepared in advance of the meeting and if so, how far in advance.

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Bill Express

Scratchies back in town

intralot.JPGThe drought is over! Scratchies are back in town – instant scratch tickets that is. We received Intralot scratch tickets yesterday, put them out and achieved good sales – including in two outlets which had never sold this category of product before.

Most customers don’t care about the brand, they care about the game or the price of the dream or entertainment they are buying – many yesterday would not know they were among the first to buy Intralot product.

Instant scratch tickets are an important part of the product mix and having them available again after a two week absence reminds us of this. A bonus is that Intralot are flexible about location.

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Lotteries

Lip magazine re-launches

Canberra-based lip magazine re-launches with its 15th issue as a print-on-demand product. The press release has a strong pitch as to why print on demand is a compelling proposition for magazines:

While a few magazines may be going green — using recycled paper, soy based inks and implementing greener business practices — traditional magazine publishing still produces a huge amount of print waste.

Did you know that the average sell-through rate of print magazines is around 70% of magazines are pulped at the end of their shelf life. High print runs may be attractive to advertisers, but at what cost to the environment?

While I cannot dispute the average stated, the number is skewed by the 1,500+ special interest low print run titles. In the top 200 the sell through rate is 80% or above. The print on demand model is something we will read about more often for special interest and fringe titles.

Lip is run by volunteers and carries no advertisements. The website is very cool.

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magazines

Bill Express questions answered

Not all newsagents are being informed equally about matters relating to Bill Express. For example, the QNF published the following questions and answers to their members last week – following a meeting they organised on the Bill Express matter. I reproduce the QNF questions/comments here with permission of the QNF:

  1. If it (legal action) is unsuccessful will we still have to pay the rental charge? If the legal case is not successful you will then have to start paying your $495 for the life of the contract, just like any other contract that you enter into.
  2. Bill Express recently promised relief to Regional Newsagents . This appears to be a sales pitch which may have been genuine at the time. Perhaps it was to delay newsagents’ taking action.
  3. Some newsagents were told by Bill Express representatives that BXP never intended to keep the subsidies……. Hank Spier (Barrister who attended the QNF meeting and former General Manager of the ACCC) stated that if there is any evidence out there that can prove this then this would be very valuable. This may only be known once the court case commences and records are subpoenaed. Did any other involved parties know about this?
  4. The rebates were the integral reason why newsagents first entered into the contract. Newsagents were mislead.
  5. Once you have suspended/cancelled direct debit that should be it. You are the Bank’s customer and they should honor what you require them to do. Be mindful not to cancel your ‘dial time’ direct debit until the end of month you last used it.  The ANZ Bank will still have to charge you merchant fees if you have used your machine during that month.  Approximately 2 weeks before you are finished with your Dial Time machine you must write and request that Bill Express send a “Request for Closure Form” to the ANZ bank to make sure they stop charging you, as at a certain date, for use of their machine. (Keep a copy) 
  6. You can terminate your BXP contract by giving 180 days notice but you cannot terminate your Finance contract prematurely.  This may change with the result of court proceedings. If you are close to the end of your BXP contract and are not intending to renew it you must write to BXP and TBI to give 180 days notice.   (Renewal of your BXP contract does not mean you will enter into another finance contract.  Once you have paid off your finance contract it is finished.  BXP will give you a new contract to sign with new terms and conditions but no finance contract.)
  7. A newsagent at the meeting stated that once a direct debit goes through your account you have 48 hours to request the money back. Your own bank should be able to do this on request.
  8. Who is responsible if customer pays a Bill Express account and it does not reach its destination? For example an Origin Energy payment. Your customer will have a receipt to prove payment was made. You should have a corresponding debit from your account. If they pay by cheque then in our example Origin, the account that it was deposited into would be known by the Bank. These payments are also underwritten.
  9. If you cancel your contract all equipment belongs to BXP. You are only renting. Newsagents must return all equipment back to BXP. It is up to you to keep the equipment in a safe place until/if BXP come to collect it.
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Bill Express

Swobbles on display

swobbles.JPGThe new Swobbles range from Skansen in our window at Forest Hill is working a treat. The bright coloured fun looking animals are drawing attention to the shop and driving some good sales. It helps that school holidays has started. Since the window is in front of our card department there is a nice flow on there too.

Gifts can be a challenge for newsagents since consumers when thinking about gifts do not think of us. Some newsagents do an amazing job with gifts while others flounder. It is a category which requires constant attention from buying through to display. Regular product movement is key, so shoppers always find something new.

The real challenge for newsagents is that the gift departments requires you to be a retailer whereas magazine, papers, lotteries and even cards, to a lesser extent, can work without you being a retailer.

The display looks much better than my photo (taken outside the shop) shows.

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Gifts

Top Gear launches

Top Gear Australia recorded strong sales on its first on-sale day yesterday from the data I have seen.  We opted to promote the title in three locations: in the car section of our traditional magazine display, above the Herald Sun newspaper and in a power end display.

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magazines

What is our private label strategy?

Private label strategy has been around for decades. Smart retailers use private labels to build loyalty and achieve better margin. Look at Woolworths, Australia Post and Officeworks – they all have well established and successful private label strategies. Newsagents do not. Our newsagent owned private label brand, Sovereign, is used on inferior product which does not deliver better margin and which is not restricted to our channel. All the tenets of private label are broken and we, the newsagent shareholders in the brand, miss an opportunity.

If we want to be considered serious competition to Australia Post, Big W, KMart, Officeworks and Ofis in the stationery stakes, we need a national private label strategy.  This could range from no private label products (and focused 100% on brands) through to a fully integrated and researched private label offer.

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Newsagency challenges

Shrek’s Quests partwork

shrek.JPGThe Shrek’s Quests partwork has been launched just in time for school holidays. We are leveraging the opportunity with displays at the front of our newsagencies. With advertising driving consumer traffic exclusively to newsagencies it is smart to make the most of it.

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partworks

Promoting the OzLotto $25 million

gamble.JPGWe have been promoting tonight’s OzLotto $25 million on one end of our newspaper stand (facing out to the mall), next to sports and racing newspapers.

This is part of our standard approach to promoting jackpots above $20 million. It makes sense given that half the people entering our shop will not pass the lottery counter – we have a very wide opening to our shop.

This kind of promotional activity for lottery products is outside is required of Tattersalls and as such is not part of their compliance assessment.

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Lotteries

Bill Express restructures

Bill Express offered a slither of clarity to the market with an announcement to the ASX late today:

  • The standstill agreement with financiers and key suppliers had been executed.
  • Four Directors have resigned.
  • The company’s CFO (who joined the company late last year) has been appointed a Director.
  • The company is proceeding in its discussion with the Al Othman Group about restructuring and recapitalisation.
  • The company is not proceeding with the previously announced APN/ETT transaction.

Coincidentally, ETT today sought suspension from the ASX as it seeks to resolve a commercial dispute with IPStar. Bill Express owns 43% of the shares in ETT.

I’d expect the discussions with Al Othman to proceed at speed given that they are already significant shareholders in Bill Express and licencees of its technology overseas.

Bill Express has made no statement about the reported Federal Police investigation into its affairs. Nor is there any update on its deal with Swish Group about managing its retail screen network or the advice the company has received that it would be a respondent in proposed Class Action by newsagents.

I would expect Bill Express to now seek to mend its relationship with newsagents. I’d expect the company to seek to do this through a third party. Work has been done on this over the last two months with several prospective “partners” since the end of the commercial agreement with the ANF.

The ANF confirmed today that it has 176 expressions of interest from newsagents to support its proposed legal action against Bill Express. My understanding is that more than double this number is supporting the more advanced Federal Court action originally commenced out of NSW.

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Bill Express

New Idea supports McGrath Foundation

mcgrath.JPGKudos to the folks at New Idea for donating ten cents from every copy of this week’s New Idea sold to the McGrath Foundation.  We are sending in a donation of $150 to the foundation on behalf of our newsXpress Forest Hill family.  It is the least we can do given the magazines sold over the years about Jane, Glenn and their journey.

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magazines

Better Homes and Gardens birthday

fhn_bhg.JPGWith all three magazines promoted at the counter selling out last week, we created a Better Homes and Gardens display Saturday. The free candles, celebrating the magazine’s 30th birthday, made BHG fly off the shelves.

Even though some excellent candidates arrived today (Marie Claire, Bazaar) for this space we will leave BHG in place for another couple of days.

Title choice is crucial to to achieving the best from this counter space and this can only be made at the store level.

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magazines

Foreign language newspapers

foreign_newspapers.JPGIl Globo, Neos Kosmos and Sing Tao Daily are part of an important category for newsagents. Foreign language titles bring in loyal customers who visit daily or at least several times each week. By intelligently promoting around these titles, and respecting the opportunity their loyalty brings, we are able to make the newspaper purchase quite valuable.

I see foreign language newspapers treated as second class citizens in too many newsagencies. Since they are effectively exclusively to us in many areas we ought afford them appropriate respect. By respect I mean treat their display with some are, make sure you have the product out on time, offer a putaway service, promote the masthead in-store to let people know you are proud to carry the product. This will be noticed by customers.

Good foreign language sales will drive lottery, Western Union business, mobile phone recharge and card sales – based on the sales data I have seen. There is a definite correlation between these departments and foreign language newspaper sales.

I am happy to allocate good retail space and devote management time to foreign language newspapers. They serve me well.

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newsagency marketing

Getting a police record check

Security experts tell us that asking a potential employee to agree to a police record check will sort out the good from the not so good. In Victoria, a national name check through Victoria Police costs $29.80 – a small price to pay for due diligence on someone who will handle your cash. Click here for details about record checks through the Victoria Police.

I know of three terminations in the last month where getting the check would have saved the newsagents affected several thousand dollars.  In our on situation, a check years ago would have saved us an expensive mistake.

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retail

Promoting Tour de France

mags_papers.JPGLike most newsagents we have the guide to the 2008 Tour de France. We have taken the opportunity to co-locate this title. It is in our bike category as well as above The Age for the next week.

Choosing titles carefully to display above newspapers can drive excellent additional sales.

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magazines

e-paper advances

Two interesting news items about e-paper / e-ink this week:

  • Ryosuke Kuwata, E Ink Corp’s vice president in charge of the Asia Pacific region claims that electronic newspapers could be as close as next year according to Tech On.
  • Dutch company Polymer Vision has demonstrated the first prototype of a rollable full colour display.

Newsagents need to understand that the e-paper model will connect publisher and reader more closely than ever before.  The daily visit to the newsagency will not be necessary to purcahse the newspaper.  Instead, the best newsagents can hope for in this future world is accepting a recharge transaction.  But that it probably going to be handled through mobile phone credit.

While all of this is years off, it is important to understand where publishers are investing in their future.

I don’t see any of this as bad news.  Like any change it is an opportunity.

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Media disruption

Better Homes and Gardens birthday

bhg_jul08.bmpThe folks at Better Homes and Gardens have gone all out for their 30th birthday celebrations. The candle giveaway, which is a challenge to display in regular fixturing, is making the title fly off the shelves.

At Frankston we have a power end display (see photo) which is working a treat. We also have the title in two other places for the first week, to capitalise on the TV show coverage as well as the promotion other retailers are doing.

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magazines

Magazines at the counter

Our That’s Life counter promotion lasted just over two days.  With 95% of product sold we changed it during Friday to Good Taste, promoting the free oven timer.  We sold all ten copies by Saturday morning.  I am certain that we would have only sole one, maybe two, over the same period if we did not promote the magazine and the giveaway at the counter.

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magazines

Bill Express and the Technology Business tree

I and some colleagues have been doing some research into Technology Business International Pty Ltd (TBI), the company through which newsagents signed lease agreements with for the Bill Express equipment.

  • TBI is owned by Technology Business Holdings Pty Ltd (TBH) and has two Directors, one of whom is Sandro DiDonato.
  • Technology Business Systems Pty Ltd (TBS) is owned by TBH and has one Director, Sandro DiDonato.
  • TBH has four shareholders, the largest (96.5% of issued capital) being Equip Rentals Pty Ltd and one Director, Sandro DiDonato.
  • Equip Rentals Pty Ltd was deregistered on 9 December, 2007. It had one shareholder, Sandro DiDonato and two directors, one of whom was Sandro DiDonato.

It would appear from letters received by newsagents recently that TBI has moved from the Bill Express Eaglemont Head Office to Helen Street in West Heidelberg. It has been suggested that this move coincides with the move of treasury functions to the Helen Street address. This is the address used for Australian Private Networks.

  • APN is primarily owned (95.5% of issued capital) by Telecards Asia Pty Ltd and has one director, Sandro DiDonato.
  • Telecards Asia Pty Ltd is owned by Sandro DiDonato and has one director, Sandro DiDonato.

In their February 29 announcement of half yearly results, Bill Express announced that it would acquire a controlling stake in APN.  The announcement talked up the Activ8me business.  The due diligence for the purchase was expected to be completed in the first week of March.  The company has not made an announcement regarding APN since.  There is a question as to whether Bill Express should have disclosed that this is a related party transaction.  While I am not saying it was, if I were a shareholder in Bill Express I would want the question asked.

I would like to know more about the reported visit to Bill Express headquarters by the Federal Police and what their visit relates to.

There are many questions which come to mind as I go through the tangled web of companies:

  • Questions about APN and its financial and otherwise relationship to Bill Express.
  • Questions about ETT, a public company linked to the Bill Express / OnQ group.
  • Questions about OnQ itself and its tangled relationship with Bill Express and associated companies.
  • Questions about the legal battle between OnQ shareholders.
  • Questions about where the intellectual property which is at the heart of the Bill Express proposition is actually held.

These and other questions go to the heart of the viability of Bill Express, a matter of great interest to newsagents.

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Bill Express

Wicked Wicked

I was lucky to be in the invited audience for the first dress rehearsal for Wicked, the Broadway musical, Thursday night at Melbourne’s Regent theatre.  This was the first time Wicked was performed in front of an audience here in Australia.

Wicked is amazing, spectacular – performances, the set, effects and the story.  You are taken on a journey to into Oz, no mean feat in a 2,000 seat theatre.  The audience last Thursday gave the show a standing ovation!  I am sure it will have a long run here.

Victorian newsagents have an opportunity to get into the Wicked mood over the next two weeks as press coverage builds during the preview period to the gala opening night.  Today’s Herald Sun has a big behind the scenes spread.  The show is a big intrastate and interstate tourism draw.  Hence the opportunity to build some retail theatre around Wicked – for the sake of theatre itself.  If you’re a Tiketek outlet you have even more reason to get behind Wicked.

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Uncategorized

Success with discount novels

discount_books.JPGThe stand in the photo is very successful. The return on the real-estate and stock is excellent, above many other departments. Our discount novel customers are loyal and efficient – more than 50% of sales include items from at least one other department. Most customers are regulars in buying books and they sometimes bring friends.

We have tried a better display for these remainder novels and it did not work. In fact, we tried several approaches to improve the look. This basic stand on castors at the front of the shop works best for us. We copied this in another newsagency recently where novels were not sold and the result will be the same. A small stock and real-estate investment builds a new department which is profitable from the outset.

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Book retailing