Replies to post #13902 on China MediaExpress Holdings, Inc. (fka CCME)

[martych]

I understand how everyone is looking for potential solutions and certainly contactly Jacky with some well-placed suggestions can help. However besieging him with numerous emails that are outside of his control will run the risk of minimizing the impact of those that are possible and actionable.

DT will not do a special cash audit prior to the 10k. The internal process associated with issuing an opinion and a report on internal controls is in motion and to try to preceed that with a separate effort and statement on cash would take weeks of internal effort, negotiations and eventually rejection by National as a separate opinion prior to completion of the entire audit. Remember DT still has the option of withdrawal if they see anything shady during the process. Were they to issue a separate cash audit report it would come attached with risk that they won't accept prior to all their audit work being completed.

Also note that I don't know of a situation where a reputable audit firm would agree to an engagement to be overseen by another. Just won't happen due to the risk to their franchise. Imagine Ernst and Young being able to state in future bids that DT isn't reliable because EY was hired to ck their work.

[ericad]

Completing $30 mil buy back would be best option. One thing that always smells bad in the Chinese small cap sector is that you don't see many dividends and you don't see many buybacks. CCME has a buyback plan in place and a dividend plan in place. Something that always bugged me is that many of these companies are selling for very cheap, but they are not buying back their shares. Most are in growth mode so they don't have the excess cash. CCME has the extra cash to buy back shares. At these prices and under these allegations, it would make sense to buy back shares because that would be accretive to all shareholders and to management that owns a lot of shares. It would be nice if they max out the $30 million buyback and then send a press release out saying that they brought back more than 2 million shares.

For people who know about auditing, they know that it is very very hard to fake cash on the balance sheet unless the bank or auditor is in on the fraud. So you should be satisfied that the cash exists already. If you think the auditor can be fooled or that the bank or auditor is in the on fraud, then a re-verification would not convince you anyways. But one thing that is irrefutable is actually giving the cash back to shareholders in a dividend or a buyback. I think a buyback is most accretive at the current prices. It may help to announce the actual dividend amount and the date, even though it is a bit early (I believe they are waiting for the 10K to make that announcement). The strongest possible statement is to buy back $30 million worth of shares. If current forward earnings projections are correct, that would be an approximately 25% return on capital because the forward P/E is about 4. The side effect is that it also proves the cash exists at the same time! And if they really want to hammer it in, declare a second buy back plan after that, just to put some fear into the shorts.