Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic In 2021, an ambitious technology entrepreneur made plans to host a football competition featuring global superstars Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.Robert Bonnier planned to spend an estimated \u20ac80mn-\u20ac110mn to recruit the world\u2019s top players, according to documents seen by the Financial Times. \u201cThe Fans Cup\u201d, to be held either in London or Cardiff, would focus attention on Bonnier\u2019s company Aaqua, a social media start-up.Bonnier says The Fans Cup was an earlier project not connected to Aaqua. But in one version of the plans, fans would be able to vote on which players would feature. In another, Aaqua would charter an Airbus A380 at $35,000 an hour to take guests from Sydney to the match in Cardiff, with lavish stopovers en route. People representing both Messi and Ronaldo had \u201cexpressed interest\u201d in the competition, the plans stated.The Dutchman, a serial entrepreneur and financier who first rose to prominence in the 1990s dotcom frenzy, appeared to have good reason to be so bullish. Aaqua \u2014 a platform on which users with similar interests could connect with each other in \u201cpassion communities\u201d \u2014 was, he claimed, attracting potential interest from Apple and luxury goods conglomerate LVMH.Aaqua seemed to be a project perfectly tailored for the moment. Entrepreneurs like Bonnier were riding the coat-tails of the boom in US tech stocks, while European investors were keen to unearth potential homegrown tech champions that might one day challenge Wall Street\u2019s giants.One of those investors was property magnate Nick Candy, whose Candy Ventures vehicle put money into Aaqua. Another was All Active Asset (AAA), a London-listed investment firm specialising in technology.The football match never took place. In 2022, Aaqua made most of its staff redundant and its Singapore-based holding company sought protection from creditors while it restructured its debts, leaving investors like Candy and AAA facing heavy losses.The 54-year-old financier is now mired in a bitter court battle with Candy, who says Bonnier misled him about Apple and LVMH\u2019s interest in order to convince him to invest.\u201cHe has played me completely,\u201d says Candy, who briefly obtained orders from a London court to freeze Aaqua\u2019s assets worldwide. AAA has also taken legal action against Bonnier, claiming he still owes around \u00a31.2mn after taking a short-term loan from the firm. It won a UK High Court judgment against Bonnier and his wife, Nashida, in December and has begun bankruptcy proceedings. However, the Bonniers argue they are resident in the United Arab Emirates and the UK court does not have jurisdiction.Bonnier has denied fraud, telling the FT that Candy\u2019s allegations were \u201cla-di-dah bullshit\u201d. He is countersuing for around \u00a3100mn-\u00a3150mn of damages caused by the freezing orders and has said in legal filings that Candy\u2019s claims were \u201cspurious\u201d and \u201cbased on imprecise alleged information\u201d. But the ongoing courtroom battle is a salutary warning about the risks of investing in a sector known for its high failure rates where executives routinely promote their projects with a hard sell. Bonnier started his career as a London-based corporate financier at a Swiss bank, but became more widely known as chief executive of Scoot.com.At its peak, the listed internet directory was valued at more than \u00a32.5bn and attracted investment from French media conglomerate Vivendi. Scoot eventually ran out of money and was sold to telecoms group BT for just \u00a35mn in 2002. The following year Bonnier was reprimanded by the UK\u2019s Takeover Panel over dealings in the shares of office space company Regus. In 2004 he was fined a then-record \u00a3290,000 by the UK\u2019s financial regulator for making inaccurate disclosures about the trades.After a spell working in Asia, he set up Aaqua in 2020, aiming to make it a more inclusive, safer form of social media than the \u201cfaceless platforms\u201d operated by US tech groups.Former employees say prospective hires were offered generous salaries and told that Apple was about to invest or was a strategic partner. Bonnier has been described as a consummate salesman. \u201cHe\u2019s got a gift, he\u2019s such a convincing personality,\u201d says one person who worked with him. He appeared to be working all hours and travelled frequently to Dubai and Singapore, often flying by private jet and staying in top-end hotels, including the Mandarin Oriental in Dubai, which he frequents so often he has mail delivered there. He says these trips were at his own expense.He would frequently drop into conversation the big-name executives he had met. In one instance, having suffered a mild heart attack, he told associates how Apple chief executive Tim Cook had recommended a cardiac specialist in California for him. But according to a Bonnier court filing in connection with Candy\u2019s action, his sole interaction with Cook was a 10-minute meeting in 1999, long before the American became CEO.According to court documents filed by Candy, Bonnier claimed that Apple would buy 9.9 per cent of Aaqua through a share swap in January 2021 followed by a further 20 per cent later, in a deal known as the \u201cDante plan\u201d. Bonnier categorically denied that in his defence documents.A separate budget plan, seen by the FT, shows Aaqua expecting an $800mn investment from Apple. A detailed draft memorandum of understanding between the two companies, to be signed by Bonnier and Apple\u2019s chief financial officer Luca Maestri, was drawn up. The plans for The Fans Cup state that Aaqua would become \u201ca hosting location for all of Apple\u2019s football content\u201d. Bonnier denies misrepresenting Apple\u2019s potential interest in Aaqua. Apple declined to comment, but a person familiar with the company\u2019s thinking says that it \u201cdid not invest in this company and never planned to\u201d. LVMH, the luxury goods group controlled by the billionaire Arnault family, was also presented as a potential investor, according to Candy\u2019s court filings. But Bonnier\u2019s interactions with Bernard Arnault and others consisted mostly of encounters at social events, including one in Paris in 2014. His court filing says that these were \u201creasonably large gatherings where discussions were mostly of a social, cultural, musical nature\u201d. No investment was ever made by LVMH. LVMH also declined to comment.However, some investors were attracted by Bonnier\u2019s vision, allowing Aaqua to raise tens of millions of dollars worth of funding. Nick Candy, who with his brother Christian had led the development of London\u2019s luxury One Hyde Park complex, sent his right-hand man Steven Smith to meet Bonnier in around August 2020 on the C\u00f4te d\u2019Azur.Bonnier told Smith that Apple, along with either LVMH or the Arnault family, were planning to invest around $1bn in Aaqua, according to Candy\u2019s court filing, although Bonnier denies saying this. The same filing states that he later sent Smith a document in which Apple and LVMH were described as \u201cfounding\u201d partners and in early 2021 forwarded a draft agreement between Aaqua and Apple.Joel Hogarth, managing director at Aaqua\u2019s adviser Eliot & Luther, told the FT that Aaqua \u201cbelieved its social media proposition would be attractive to companies such as Apple and LVMH, and admits it used them as examples in generic corporate materials\u201d, but that it \u201cnever at any point made any legal representation that any particular company had made\u00a0a\u00a0commitment to invest\u201d.\u201cThe \u2018founding partners\u2019 were what Mr Bonnier believed and believes would be organisations that would become part of the Aaqua proposition\u201d once it had demonstrated proof of concept, Bonnier said in a court filing.In February 2021 a deal was reached for Candy Ventures to exchange \u00a36.75mn of shares in Audioboom \u2014 a listed podcast publisher part-owned by Candy that Bonnier thought could be a good business fit with Aaqua \u2014 for Aaqua shares and the option to buy \u20ac10mn more. Rodger Sargent, previously an executive director at AAA, was another enthusiastic backer and by the end of 2021 the investment firm held a 32.5 per cent stake in Aaqua. Sargent described the interest as potentially \u201ctransformational\u201d for AAA and joined the board of Aaqua\u2019s UK entity. Bonnier also wanted to engage the businessmen David and Simon Reuben, who had made an estimated \u00a324bn fortune in property, metals trading and shipping.According to an announcement dated November 2021, which appears to have been drafted by Bonnier but was never issued, an investment vehicle called RB\u00b2 owned jointly by Bonnier and the brothers would become AAA\u2019s largest shareholder. When asked whether the Reuben brothers ever had any involvement in such a venture, a spokesman replied \u201ca clear no\u201d. Bonnier told the FT that RB\u00b2 was \u201can invention of Sargent\u201d and that he had \u201cmade it crystal clear\u201d that he had never met the brothers.Bonnier handled meetings with investors himself, and employees say they saw few signs of who he was meeting. Despite his grand vision, they were increasingly having doubts.It was \u201cthe weirdest company I\u2019ve ever worked in\u201d, says one former staffer. \u201cI kept wondering where\u2019s the product?\u201d A version of the app was released to a limited group but not to the public. Bonnier \u201cwas always saying he was working 24\/7, but I couldn\u2019t work out what was going on\u201d, the person adds. Others questioned why the company had a large content moderation team in Singapore. In late 2021, Aaqua appointed Colin McQuade as a director and Maria Bista as group chief operating officer. Both had worked in senior executive roles at Barclays and Sky, but things quickly turned sour as the new arrivals became concerned about the company\u2019s business plan. A meeting between McQuade, Bista and Bonnier in early 2022 descended into a heated row in front of a busy dining room at the Dorchester hotel, according to people who observed the incident. Bista and McQuade resigned from the company after this episode.By the end of 2021 the company was burning around $4mn per month, according to documents seen by the FT, and conditions were becoming tougher for employees. Staff members fell in and out of favour, according to those who worked with Bonnier, and he could quickly lose his cool and shout at them.In a January 2022 email, he asked executives for their suggestions on a message he proposed sending to senior staff criticising \u201chumanly disrespectful\u201d expenses claims. \u201cDo you know\/realise how much time needs to be squandered for someone wishing to claim for a stupid cup of coffee or dubious taxi journey \u2014 it\u2019s utterly insane,\u201d he wrote.After January 17, all employees\u2019 expenses would be automatically rejected. \u201cMost if not all of you receive more than generous pay packages and yet it never ever seems to be enough,\u201d the email went on.The company told the FT that \u201clike any person at the head of an organisation\u201d, Bonnier had to ensure staff understood \u201cthat they needed to be fully transparent and accountable\u201d.Meanwhile Candy, whose Aaqua shares had since been exchanged for shares in AAA, was growing nervous. In June 2022 he demanded Aaqua provide a full account of its dealings with Apple and LVMH, but did not receive a response.Fearing that Aaqua would sell its remaining Audioboom stake, which would depress the company\u2019s share price, he briefly took out court orders freezing Aaqua\u2019s assets. These were later discharged after Candy failed to put up \u00a31.5mn that the court had requested, but in a message to staff on July 29, Bonnier said the freeze had left Aaqua \u201clegally unable\u201d to pay salaries. He added it would apply for legal relief to pay employees.\u201cThere is nothing and nobody that can or will stop us in accomplishing our crucial mission of becoming a lasting force for good around the world,\u201d he said.But the pressure was beginning to tell. In one virtual town hall, software engineer Gert Nelissen queried the lack of communication. \u201cAre we being scammed?\u201d he asked Karin Clarke, chief people and culture officer. \u201cIs Aaqua going to foreclose? Are you still able to look in a mirror?\u201d Bonnier responded by describing Nelissen as \u201ca first classless [sic] idiot [for] writing and posting a message like this\u201d and added: \u201cAs founder and CEO of Aaqua I hereby fire you on the spot\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009I have no f\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009idea what you ever did for Aaqua.\u201dAt the end of August, Bonnier told employees the freezing orders meant Aaqua had to make immediate redundancies. \u201cMy overriding personal objective continues to be that you receive your financial contractual entitlements,\u201d wrote Bonnier. But staff were not paid August salaries. Some later took the company to employment tribunals and won awards for breach of contract and unlawful wage deductions.In October 2022, Aaqua\u2019s Singapore-based holding company was granted creditor protection pending a debt restructuring. The travails of its main investment left AAA \u2014 which had a market value of more than \u00a3500mn before it delisted \u2014 facing the prospect of substantial shareholder losses. Its directors, including Sargent, were left to field inquiries from angry investors.Bonnier attempted to secure alternative financing for Aaqua. A Belize-based company, Jati Sejati Investments, told the FT it had been in the process of arranging \u201ca substantial amount\u201d of financing from an investor in the UAE. However, it was unable to do so because of the court order, according to Jati Sejati and an Aaqua court filing in Singapore.We may be able to work together again to continue Aaqua\u2019s missionA subsidiary of Mirador FZE, a family office in Fujairah, part of the UAE, was lined up to buy Candy\u2019s AAA shares for \u00a313.5mn, according to a court filing by Bonnier. Candy told the FT he considered the Mirador proposal \u201cillusory\u201d and he had seen no evidence it was actually prepared to make such an offer. Mirador FZE\u2019s owner Diarmuid Clohessy, who had had previous business dealings with Bonnier, could not be reached for comment. Bonnier had told employees in August 2022 that he hoped \u201cwe may be able to work together again to continue Aaqua\u2019s mission\u201d. But last year Singapore high court judge Aedit Abdullah refused the holding company\u2019s application to extend protection from creditors.In his ruling, he described the valuation of Aaqua\u2019s intellectual property as \u201crather optimistic\u201d before noting that \u201cthe app graveyard is full of costly and expensive apps which have come to nought, despite the best hopes of those involved.\u201d Additional reporting by Adrienne Klasa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic In 2021, an ambitious technology entrepreneur made plans to host a football competition featuring global superstars Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.Robert Bonnier planned to spend an estimated \u20ac80mn-\u20ac110mn to recruit the world\u2019s top players, according to documents seen by the Financial Times. \u201cThe Fans<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-109160","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-tech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109160\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}