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EVERYBODY PAUSE! This is not abnormal at all (in itself). If you were going to lend money to a software company, what else would you take as security other tha
by jimnotgym 9y ago
EVERYBODY PAUSE!
This is not abnormal at all (in itself). If you were going to lend money to a software company, what else would you take as security other than IP?
A floating charge is just there to establish the bank as a preferential creditor in case they default. Otherwise if the company became insolvent, the bank would only be entitled to its share of what is left of the assets in proportion to what they had lent. If the bank expected them to default then they would not have lent them any money! A floating charge does not mean necessarily that the bank would be entitled to those assets, if they were of a higher value than what the bank had lent them, for instance.
I just took a look at the December 2015 accounts and they show that they burnt £1m in the year, and had £1.1m left. Again, the bank will know their provisional 2016 numbers and their forecast by now, and would not have lent them money that they didn't have the cashflows to repay.
The game may be rubbish, the project may be a failure, but a registration of a charge is not a cause for concern in itself. Maybe for instance, the company saw an opportunity that needed more cash?
- wlesieutre 9y agoI'd expect the loan is effectively borrowing against anticipated Squadron 42 sales (the single player game) to keep development moving faster. God forbid they delay that again. Once that's out they can pay the money back and continue work on Star Citizen's persistent universe. As to the ongoing debate over whether the project is "a train wreck", it would be prudent to wait another month or two for alpha 3.0 to land. This contains the first procedural moons, landing locations, significant overhauls to networking, more fleshed out NPCs/missions, initial version of cargo hauling, and more. If they can't deliver on that then by all means get all doom-and-gloom. But it's not that far off to wait. Official schedule still has it targeted for July, but a slip back to August won't surprise anyone.
- dang 9y agoPlease don't use uppercase for emphasis. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
- wlesieutre 9y agoOfficial clarification from CIG if anyone still finds their way into these comments: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/1/thread/re-uk-tax-rebate-advance-for-foundry-42/277779 https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/for... tl;dr It's an advance on a tax rebate (for SQ42 development) and avoiding currency conversions. The collateral specifically excludes Star Citizen. The primary collateral is the tax rebate which the UK government probably isn't going to default on.