I-Mate not going under, CEO says

SPECULATION SQUASHED: Morrison said I-Mate was in the process of recapitalising and would launch new products in the new year. (ITP Images)

I-Mate is not going out of business and is in the process of recapitalising and will launch new products next year, its CEO said on Wednesday, squashing speculation the smartphone maker's delisting in London meant it was closing down.

"Some people think we are taking the company off the market because we are closing down, but we are not. We are taking the company off the market so we can relaunch it," Jim Morrison told Arabian Business in an interview.

"We are more certain of our future now then when we were on the stock market."

I-Mate delisted in London on Tuesday after its share price plummeted to just 0.12 UK pence at the close on Monday. The stock was down 99.66 percent year-to-date.

Morrison blamed short-selling for the dramatic drop in the company's share price, which at its all-time high in June 2006 was 327.5 pence.

Morrison said "the share price was just getting tanked for no reason. There was a lot of short-selling on the shares, which was just driving the shares down".

He said this drove down the share price at the first bid of bad news. "It didn’t really recover from that," he said.

Morrison said I-Mate had new capital coming into the company from technology funds, but would not say how much capital it was looking to raise.

"We’re lining up a couple of funds... There are a couple of funds that are very keen in technology within the Gulf region, so they are going to come in," he said.

He did not disclose which funds were going to invest in I-Mate, but said Intel Capital, the venture capital arm of the world's largest microchip maker, was not one of them.

Morrison said he would look to list I-Mate again in the future, but was more likely to do so in Dubai rather than London.

On spending, Morrison said next year the company planned to buy a factory in China to do more of its own manufacturing and would probably buy a software company to enhance its product offering. He did not say how much the company planned to spend on these purchases.

He said the company was watching its spending closely in the current economic climate, but was not cutting any jobs.

Morrison said I-Mate would launch a new product at 3GSM in Barcelona. He said the product would "shake-up the mobile phone space", without giving further details.

He said I-Mate would continue to focus its attentions on the Middle East and was doing a lot in the area of Arabisation.

I-Mate will leave the United State alone "for the next year or so", he said, following the company's unsuccessful previous attempt to crack the market.

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READERS' COMMENTS

imate....
Posted by Frankie - London, London, UK on Wednesday 26 November 2008 at 17:51 UAE time

What a ridiculous story.

Of course the ceo of iMate is going to talk them up.

Lots of plans... little action.

- they plan to buy a factory to build product
- they plan to buy a software company to make it better
- they plan to focus on arabisation & that market
- they plan to list again on the uae market.

Does imate really stand a chance against
1. RIM the makers of blackberry
2. Nokia
3. Sony Ericsson
4. Apple
5 - 100 the other 95 phones which outsell the imate.

It's dead & won't rise from the ashes is what I reckon.
Only time will tell but I really doubt I'm wrong on this.

I-Mate shares
Posted by john leyland, Abu Dhabi, UAE on Friday 21 November 2008 at 14:15 UAE time


So what about the existing shareholders. Are we going to be allocated shares when I-Mate is relisted.

The Legacy of Imate
Posted by Ayman, Dubai, UAE on Wednesday 19 November 2008 at 21:33 UAE time

As long as Jim Morisson himself as at the helm of this I-Mate, the company doesn't stand a chance. He had no vision and no clear roadmap on where to take this brand. I-Mate is history, as far as I am concerned...

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