Business Plan

Executive summary

The area south of Providence is arguably the most heavily travelled 0.0 region in Eve. Traffic enters this area from Empire through the HED-GP gate, from Providence and from Curse. From here it filters down into the industrial centers of the great southern alliances - FIX in Catch, Stain-Alliance and Stain Empire in Stain, Esoteria, Paragon Soul, Ascendant Frontier in Impass and Feythabolis, to The Five in Tenerifis and Red Alliance in Immensea.

By necessity, inhabitants of the southern alliances use the same area to travel north, back into Empire carrying spoils of war, goods and valuable minerals they don't sell in the local 0,0 markets.

The ISS will build the 'ISS Marginis Outpost' in the nucleus where the great trade routes meet - A neutral trade hub in 0,0 space, accessible to all Eve-players - and become the first 'Yulai' of 0.0 space. For the 0,0 community in the southern regions, the ISS outpost will be a haven where 0,0 alliance members and private citizens from empire can trade and exchange goods. The presence of the outpost will help facilitate a larger permanent population in the 0.0 regions affected by it.

The outpost will be built and controlled by a separate corporation controlled by ISS, called ISS Marginis Outpost corporation [ISSMO].
Shares in this corporation are offered for sale to all pilots in Eve, will cost 10m isk per share and have an expected annual return dividend of 5.5m ISK as well as provide an asset for sale.

Details on the ISS Marginis Project are outlined below. Some aspects of planning have been withheld or summarised for security reasons.

Outpost target market

Station Visitors
The primary target group of visitors to the station are expected to be the neighbouring alliances and empire traders with the stomach to run 0.0 trade routes.
The secondary target-group is POS operators and NPC hunters in the surrounding area.

The stations visitors are expected to be trade based:
- Inter-alliance sellers of POS products (Raws, Processed Materials, Advanced Materials)
- Inter-alliance buyers of POS products
- Alliance and inter-alliance sellers of named loot (Escrow)
- Empire buyers/sellers of Advanced Materials
- Empire sellers of Tech2 ships and equipment
- Alliance buyers of Tech2 ships and equipment
- Empire sellers of compressed ores (eg. Passive Targetters, Small Hull Repairers).
- Nearby POS owners
- ISS Alliance Members

Neighbouring alliance populations (potential visitors)
The figures below show number of pilots in the alliances claiming the neighbouring regions. While not all these people are expected to trade or actually reside in the regions, it shows and indication of the size of the Eve-Population in the area.

Huzzah	258
CVA	241
The Confederation	313
Stain-Alliance	2452
Ascendant Frontier	2259
Firmus Ixion	1073
The Five	1078
Stain Empire	397
Veritas Immortalis	597
Interstellar Starbase Syndicate	1000
Total population nearby	9700

Estimated Visitor Numbers
Looking at 'Jumps in Last hour' between the neighbouring alliances and empire, average hourly traffic that would be routed to a successful trade outpost is 50 - 100 ships per hour. The majority of these jump levels show travel to/from the HED-GP <> Keberez gate to empire.

Project Timing

Details of the construction and deployment schedule are not released for security reasons.
From end of the IPO process, a 1.5 month plan for the construction has been devised.
This project is being managed by players that are OOC project management professionals.
The Outpost to be operational on December 1, 2005.

The phases involved will be:

Investor Acquisition plan

Investors
Investors will be people looking for somewhere to make their ISK increase without performing effort for doing so.

The two key benefits to attract investors will be:
- Monthly Dividends (estimated at approx 5% per month (60% per year) based on IPO share price ie. 500k / share)
- Re-sale of shares which increase in value.

It is anticipated the following types of investors will be interested in buying shares:
- Pilots & Corporations in Neighbouring Alliances
- Wealthy Individuals (High net worth)
- Traders
- POS owners in nearby systems
- Established Players (Low/Medium net worth)

Share Buying Proceedure
- A separate corporation 'ISS Marginis Outpost' [ISSMO] is created for the purpose of owning the station, selling the initial shares and returning dividends to shareholders.
- Count TaSessine and Serenity Steele both maintain the only alts in this corporation who check the wallet and issue shares.
- To make the shares accessible by the broadest number of players regardless of wealth, the share price is to be set at 10m ISK.
- Shares will be issued by the ISSMO only in minimum quantities of 10 shares (allows max. 360 separate transactions
- In the event insufficient shares are sold to realise the project, the cash will be returned to investors and the corporation closed.

Steps for share issue for Corporations:
1) Corporations transfer the ISK to the wallet of 'ISS Marginis Outpost' corporation.
2) [ISSMO] Director/CEO Checks wallet within 24 hours.
3) The [ISSMO] transfers the shares to the corporation transferring the money and an evemail sent to the pilot initiating the transfer.

Steps for share issue for Pilots:
1) Pilots transfer the ISK to the wallet of 'Countessa TaSessine' [ISSMO].
2) Countessa TaSessine checks wallet within 24 hours.
3) Countessa TaSessine transfers the shares to the person transferring the money and an evemail sent to the investor.

Steps for share trade:
As it is not possible to use a 'trade' window or escrow to sell shares, the buyer and seller must make two transactions. This leave the possiblity open for scams. (eg. person x receives ISK from person y, but doesn't transfer shares to person y).

To avoid a scam market occuring, a trusted 3rd party will be arranged for re-selling shares between pilots and for selling amounts smaller than 10 shares. (To be announced).

Initial Interest
Preliminary discussions with potential investors has shown levels of interest sufficient to go-ahead with the project:
- ISS Management: 5bn ISK
- ISS Members : 10bn ISK
- Wealthy Individuals: 10bn ISK
- Neighbouring Alliances: 12bn ISK

Share Release Plan
The share release plan is to be staged in phases of exclusivity to the key pilots and corporations, in order to reach the following objectives:
- Provide a bonus to ISS alliance members for their efforts in seeing the outpost built
- Provide stability through shares sold to neighbouring alliances
- Ensure that no one-group monopolizes all shares in the outpost (Multiple stake-holders).
- Ensure that all shares are sold to realise the project

Detailed planning is as follows:
All times are Eve-time.
29 sep (1800 hours) to 3 oct (1800 hours) : ISS members exclusively
3 oct (1800 hours) to 7 oct (1800 hours) : ISS & Neighbouring Alliances
7 oct (1800 hours) to 16 oct (1800 hours) : All players and corporations in Eve

Dividend Issue
- All funds from the outpost will go to the ISS Marginis Outpost corporation [ISSMO] (as per game mechanics).
- Dividends will be issued on the 1st of each month
- The whole amount in the ISSMO corporations wallet will be issued as a dividend to shareholders.

Accounting Security
- After the outpost is launched, an independent auditor or board of auditor alts will be given access to the ISSMO junior wallet access to verify all funds are indeed going to shareholders.

Location Selection

The outpost will be located in the 'Southern' Part of eve in unclaimed space between the southern alliances near Stain/Immesea/Catch/Tennerific/Curse/Providence.

The optimal location for the Trading Outpost has been selected by balancing the following criteria:
- Mid-way point between the Southern Alliances and Empire
- Distance from NPC Stations
- Proximity to existing frequently travelled routes
- Large number of gates in the system
- Number and distance of primary and alternative routes to Southern regions
- Number and distance of primary and alternative routes to Empire
- Number of moons in the system
- Moon raw mineral types
- Proximity to Ice fields

The specific location chosen will not be announced until the outpost is complete.

Outpost Security

There are two phases to the security. The following techniques will be used in each phase to ensure security

Build Phase
Security measures include:
- Only 2 people know final location of outpost until 1 hour before launch.
- No information published on deployment progress
- Multiple systems with sovereignty claimed in random systems in area.
- Large professional mercinary force employed for launch and defence of construction platform.

Operational Phase
Security measures will include:
- Multiple shareholders from neighbouring alliances and broader eve
- Multiple sovereignty POS run by ISS Management Corporations (ISSO, ISSN, ISSL)
- 50%+ Moons contain POS
- Only Large and Medium POS Used
- 30 days fuel reserves maintained in Outpost
- (Confidential) days fuel reserves stored at POS
- sovereignty POS will be independently economically viable
- (confidential) Backup 'Rapid Deployment POS' stored in Outpost
- sovereignty POS will have (confidential) weapons including Hardening arrays and EW
- ISS will allocate part of 'Defence Budget' to defending station
- Will be training ground for ISS Defence Forces (ISSN) and anti-pirate
- Docking policy (see below)
- Distribution of Insta-jump bookmarks

Station Management Policy

Office rental policy
The gallente outpost has 16 offices available. Allocation of offices will initially be as follows:
- 3 for ISS Management Corps: Interstellar Starbase Syndicate Operations, ISS Navy Task Force, ISS Logistics
- 5 for Neighbouring Alliances: One each to corp nominated by the owners of Immensea, Tenerifis, Impass, Stain, Catch (Alliances must invest to claim office)
- 8 forBig Investors/Public Auction: Investors who invest more than 3 Bn ISK will automatically be offered an office at normal rent conditions.

- If any office remain available, they will be auctioned on eve-online forums. Any ISK realised will go to shareholders as first dividend.
- After this, any corporation with neutral or +ve standings will be able to rent offices, enabling the free re-sale of offices by intvestors to other corporations
- Any offices that lapse rent and become free for more than 24hrs will be re-auctioned on eve-online.

Factory and laboratory rental policy
Factories and labs will be assigned to ISS Management Corps for revenue generation (They will still pay maximum fees for rental).
When factories are re-programmed to be 'Per Job Basis' as per recent Dev Blog, they will be opened to all-commers.

Station Launch

Outpost Budget

Build Budget

Notes:
- Unspent ISK from the construction budget will be issued in the first dividend
- ISS fees will be paid either as ISK or from the 3600 shares, depending on the IPO outcome.
- Emergency Fuel reserves are to ensure sovereignty in the case of the station or trade routes becoming blockaded. They are sold to the ISS Managing the POS at the investment price, no less, no more, and the funds will be used to replenish the supply.

Operational Revenue

Notes:
- Docking Fees per m3 of volume will initially be 0.4 ISK
- Docking Fees are based on the following docking average amounts per 24hrs: 60 Industrials, 20 Transports, 40 Cruisers, 1 Freighter, 40 battleships. This is approx 8%-12% of the traffic currently passing through the region.
- Offices auctioned during the setup of the ISS Marginis will create a one-off dividend hit (this will help compensate for the share return between end of the IPO and launch of the station)

ISS Marginis II Share Sales

Overview

Why Invest

How to Invest

Business Plan

FAQ

Press