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This is interesting, because another firm, Tuckers Solicitors was recently targeted and was fined for not securing sensitive court information properly. It sounds like the same hackers are now targeting Ince.
Ince launched a cyber security 'solution' in February 2021. I read today that Ince itself has been hacked and is being held ransom by the attacker:
https://www.legalfutures.co.uk/latest-news/ince-group-granted-injunction-after-ransomware-attack
TShaw2, your wise words are informative. Thank you.
On several occasions (including today) I have written to the CEO expressing my view that Ince should be focusing all their attention on striving for excellence in their core legal business and avoid being drawn by distractions like Arden. I have stressed there is so much to do to increase the performance of the existing Ince company which is clearly quite a complex operation with low profitability compared to their turnover.
He said in one of the online investor sessions approximately one year ago that he wants the share price to be higher and so demonstrate more respect for the Ince business by investors. He said that to achieve this he believed they needed to keep doing more of the same with Ince i.e. keep improving the core legal business.
As a significant shareholder, I have asked asked him to drop the Arden takeover immediately. Arden is now surely a ghost business and almost worthless, all due to repeated serious errors of knowledge and judgement, with respect to the takeover, at Ince and Arden, with the consequential questions about Ince's professionalism, which may hopefully not be fair when considering their core legal business.
The sooner we exit the attempted takeover and leave this mess behind us the better.
in the SP - maybe market hasn't realised yet either the incompetency of management - I still hate to think there are ulterior motives in nthis deal
Is suspension imminent?
Most of which has no liquidity. Some will also be used to pay for future losses as history has shown. Look at retained profits, one of the most important indicators in a company that has been public for north of 10 years.
As a market maker and occasional underwriter the must hold this cash for regulatory obligations. Life jackets on a boat cannot be sold unless the boat is sold after all.
Depends on Biles / Brown tenacity to secure the deal. Brown takes approx £220k from an entity which hasn’t retained any profits. In good years it flushes our cash by way of dividend or uses it to pay for losses made immediately in the following year. So with a dwindling number of corporate clients and a moderately successful career at RBC well behind him, his prospects are slender. Ince saves bacon in as much as pension contribution likely higher and there will be a golden goodbye when he has to go.
What is in it for Biles is either a function of very poor judgement or some friendship with Brown. If they decide to deal break then a number of clients will have already left depending on the next few days as Arden will have to decide to inform clients now (point of no return) or pre-empt deal break and hold fire on that. They have regulatory obligations so expect a transparent approach. By the end of trading today all brokers in SMID will have formulated a strategy to work out which of Arden’s clients are worth pitching for. Many are loss making and have major negative ROE so expect only some are worth pining for.
As I have posted a few weeks ago, Arden have a staff turnover on a 12 month basis of over 35%. They are heading into a terrible primary market and have consistently failed to raise cash for secondaries, Ondine being one example. Family office that I know was approached for the raise. They wanted to raise north of £100m but had to come back with a smaller raise as cash not found in market. Now that price is under water.
See my previous posts for the maths on the deal and how it is value destructive for both parties.
In chess this is known as Zugzwang. You must make a move but every move is worse than you started
What about Arden’s £5m cash?
Cant see anything other than INCE withdrawing the offer for ARDN.
If that is the case however I assume Arden will continue as now - with NOMAD status and their clutch of corporate clients?
Arden achieved the blockbuster result of £0.8m….
Still with negative retained earnings. Now they have lost NOMAD as predicted by SMID brokers in October and as highlighted, embarrassingly by the FT in relation to their own faculties to run the deal.
Arden derives the majority of its revenue from its dwindling corporate clients, down from 47 to 42. The majority of these will be NOMAD status. Now Arden will have to tell all of them to find a new NOMAD. None will transact through Arden now. Most micro cap companies have one broker and require a NOMAD on AIM. So it’s fanciful to imagine that the bulk of Arden’s recurring revenue will somehow have another NOMAD but use Arden for transactions, the real discretionary ‘fee earner.
So now Ince have charged on with a valueless transaction. The NOMAD issue was a ‘known quant’ in October but the dynamic duo of Biles and Donnie Brown clearly smelt some personal value creation here. What mutual back scratching was done then will now be rewarded by the market with long lasting scars.
No recurring revenue. Arden’s corporate clients will fall by Atleast 50%. Every shareholder, Arden and Ince is now underwater on this deal.
Chocolate tea pots are Atleast edible. Worthless shares might suffice as kindling.
Yep, and Ince are lawyers.
Why waste time and money when even a child knows nomad is supposedly independent
Yes, a shambles.
"Arden will not remain eligible to act as a Nominated Adviser in accordance with the AIM Rules for Nominated Advisers in the event of the Change of Control."
Did anyone at Ince or Arden read the Rule Book?
Shambles
Means recovery here is certainly truly underway. ..
Early 20's was way too low for this company, and a window of opportunity to add few (which I did....) I am fully expecting this to be at more than double the current price before this year end....IMHO.
GLA.
Put another tick in the box, we trade ex div today. We are once again a dividend paying company.
@APD708 - I use a shareholding monitoring service and this was the largest sell down over the last month (@970k). As of March 4th they still held 11,797 shares. One would assume these have now also been sold. The shares were held in Charles Stanley & Co Client Account. I don't know if they offer retail brokerage (I will check) in which case it is possible it is a retail client/s and not one of their funds. The fact that we have not seen a form 8.3 filing suggests it was retail and for more than 1 client. HSBC - HSBC Securities Services Trading Account was the next largest sell with @420k shares sold. There are still @ 150K shares registered under the HSBC umbrella.
So top 5 shareholders currently hold 42.3% of the company
Hi erratum, hope you are well. How did you work out Charles Stanley Group existing their whole position?
It looks like a good chunk of the sell down from about 32p in late February was mainly Charles Stanley Group exiting their whole position (@990k shares). Seem like they either had redemptions or panicked, given their haste and lack of price sensitivity.
And I will be over the moon, and back if the SP will keep recovering 1,2p or more on a daily/weekly basis.....:)
I will be over the moon if they pay a final div 1p!
@APD708 - You are spot on in your analysis, until will hear from the company after the purdah caused by the T/O we will be at the mercy of the vivid imagination and neuroses of the market and certain individuals need for liquidity, I would note we have not had any TR-1s indicating selling by substantial shareholders. The share price is being set at the very fringe and it is understandable why some people are seeing shadows around every corner.
This situation will not last much longer and In the near future the company will come out and tell us how they are doing. When they do it is my suspicion that they will tell us they are actually doing pretty decently. It is also clear that a lot of people do not understand Ince's accounts. The claims that company is not profitable are incorrect and any one who can read the accounts will see that. Once certain exceptional items roll off in the coming months it is clear that the underlying profitability is decent.
The issue the company faces is its cash management and I have no insight here other than to say it is normal both at Ince and in the legal profession for this to be seasonal and they faced a similar issue at the same point last year and it resolved in the second half of the financial year. So on a probabilistic basis I am happy to take the risk on this issue.
When the Company speaks to the market again and provides a forecast it may well be that at a 20p per share it is on a p/e of 2.5x for next year. If that is the case I suspect the shares will trade up ! With respect to the dividend I am not sure I agree it is insubstantial. In April we will get an Interim of 0.5p and the final div should be at least 1p (maybe higher) so that is 7.5% yield at the current share price and that should grow to at least 12.5% yeild for next year. I am like a pig in mud at the moment.
What is the investment case private investors consider with Ince? I don't know much about institutional investors hence I am focusing on private investors.
Are the private investors investing in Ince as a value or growth investment? As Ince is an international commercial law firm, focusing mainly on shipping, insurance, energy, aviation and trade, while offering a full commercial legal service, one would think Ince could surpass £100 million and have an ambition to touch £150 million per annum in revenue?
My concern is with a back drop of global conflict/sanctions, rising interest rates for some years to come and rising energy costs (which will persist for at least a couple of years one would imagine) the revenue, profits and spending power of its clients will certainly have an impact which may put downward pressure on Ince's annual revenue ambitions.
So if not double digit growth, then would private investors invest for dividend payment which are so low and not worth mentioning about.
With both views value/growth considered, what is the investment case for Ince one would wonder?
Could be why the SP is dropping. Market thrives on news. Prolonged no news is certainly not good news in markets.
Then would the old adage "There are No Bad Assets, Just Bad Prices" give some hope to private investors in that the SP has dropped to its lowest point and slowly the market 's interest increases in Ince.
I am certainly tempted to invest more at this SP but I won't until positive news start flowing more frequently.
Let's see.
And total silence from our fat cat leader
I wonder if Biles could be tempted to do a private or management buyout given the firm is now only worth <£15M? I am almost 80% down on this one, by far the worst in my PF. Terrible investment...
SP at 19p.., must be time for another pat on the back for Adrian Biles .. the muppet