focusIR May 2024 Investor Webinar: Blue Whale, Kavango, Taseko Mines & CQS Natural Resources. Catch up with the webinar here.
London South East prides itself on its community spirit, and in order to keep the chat section problem free, we ask all members to follow these simple rules. In these rules, we refer to ourselves as "we", "us", "our". The user of the website is referred to as "you" and "your".
By posting on our share chat boards you are agreeing to the following:
The IP address of all posts is recorded to aid in enforcing these conditions. As a user you agree to any information you have entered being stored in a database. You agree that we have the right to remove, edit, move or close any topic or board at any time should we see fit. You agree that we have the right to remove any post without notice. You agree that we have the right to suspend your account without notice.
Please note some users may not behave properly and may post content that is misleading, untrue or offensive.
It is not possible for us to fully monitor all content all of the time but where we have actually received notice of any content that is potentially misleading, untrue, offensive, unlawful, infringes third party rights or is potentially in breach of these terms and conditions, then we will review such content, decide whether to remove it from this website and act accordingly.
Premium Members are members that have a premium subscription with London South East. You can subscribe here.
London South East does not endorse such members, and posts should not be construed as advice and represent the opinions of the authors, not those of London South East Ltd, or its affiliates.
That’s precisely why we should be concerned. Today’s ruling states that litigation funding must be a DBA. Any funding contract that is not currently structured as aDBA is invalid and unenforceable as of today.
It may be as simple as amending the contract to say DBA somewhere in there but I don’t know for sure.
DBA definition by Thompson Reuters Practical Law:
"An agreement between a representative and a client, whereby the representative's agreed fee is contingent on the success of the case and is determined as a percentage of the compensation received by the client."
Yes Guvvi. They'll need to amend their agreements going forward. That will also impact their economics and business models because (as I understand it) DBAs are limited to 50% of the net returns, which was a major area of concern for the Supreme Court. Goodness knows how they re-negotiate all past agreements??? Nightmare. But this will all be horribly complicated so a proper lawyer needs to explain all this. I certainly dont qualify !
See RNS dated 20 July 2023 (last paragraph before commentary from CEO):
"In line with our usual practice LCM's returns are calculated as a rising multiple of invested capital over time."
This is not a Damages Based Agreement (DBA) and therefore we should not be concerned!
Burford capital is flat
Except i suspect you just need to alter your agreement slightly to avoid it being classed within the realms of being a DBA. I highly doubt this will undo an entire industry where access to justice is always to be encouraged.
Exactly Guvvi - potentially renders all Litigation Funding Agreements unenforceable. Only firm not impacted by this will be Manolete (MANO) as it buys (rather than funds) its cases, which is a peculiarity of insolvency which MANO specialises in.
Https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/law/shockwaves-as-supreme-court-rules-litigation-funding-deals-unenforceable/5116775.article
Reading all the daft suggestions of bear raids, market makers controlling XYZ and the like i thought i'd highlight why the drop in price today.
Decision above came out late morning and made news regarding litigation funding enforceability.
First news on this was june 2020, so 3 yrs ago.
I think they normally aim for 2 to 4x return. So guess x3 on invested capital.
1. INVESTED 1M USDOF 4M AS IN FUND
2. X3 BASIC RETURN
3.EARN DOUBLE BASIC RETURN AS BASIC performance fee.
So maybe 6m usd due. Then there might be outperfmance fee.
If we get luck tanzania will drag their heels to pay out.
While this might not impact how much tanzania ultimately pays, our money will stay invested and i expect our return multiple might increase :)
Hard to say. So many stocks on aim seem to be fundamentally cheap i suppose you may want to chase something else
I mailed lcm asking if we are due an rns for the latest award i posted.
I think the answer arrived after close with the 250k sold at 30 seconds past 8am, that plus another 70k kept the lid on it until mid afternoon, there was nothing on the book into close. Hopefully that 2m volume day has cleared them out - has to be distressed / forced or there is no chance you’d be dumping like that. Maybe Odey had a 1% holding?
Https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-moulds-cbe-34a0ba72
Our chairman. Sits on board of citibank and IG index.
No mug, multi milionaire.
When you want to follow inside money you want a big play. 4.5 million pounds pls, and someone clever!
Sellers.
Honestly if an high rated multimilionare ex invwstment banker chairman is buying shares in 1m gbp and 0.25m tranches. Consistently for 7 months.
Don't people think it is a good buy. You dont spend 3m + gbp with no reason!
Where are they mopping up shares from though? One funny thing is that if there do happen to be any undisclosed naked shorts in the market they are going to be sh*tting themselves at this news. The chairman first bought shares in earnest in December 2021 (725k @89.2p) to add to a prior 250k holding. I think 19 months is fair enough warning for anyone wanting to get on board?
Whole thing is setup.
Chairman has what 5m in shares. All accumulated recently.
On board and votes for fair value accounting to show what they know is there.
I would not be surprises in insiders and mopping up shares again today
They aren’t sales at all, there has been a false spread all morning so almost all are actually buys, someone doesn’t want this to go anywhere at present.
Left field suggestion - are they making this change to try to deter an acquirer or alternatively to force their hand? It’s been trading very strangely over the past few months considering the raft of good news.
Looks like they are representing Panthera resources
The real mtm should includ the performance fees i agree, but i bet it will not.
The whole thing is silly because we value mtm based on current investments.
If you had a company slapping put 200pct returns and know they can continue to do that then it needs another multiplier. Just doing mtm on current investments assumes company will stop...but it wont
Crazy market. So many people selling into it. Not sure what they want. 40m cash, another confirmed win for 15m usd not even announced. Dividend and a better view to show value.
Why did they bother to hold!
Yes, however the cost figures released to 31/12 are just for the LIT share of invested capital. The forthcoming FV change will surely include some further uplift to account for the 25/35% Fund management performance fees? I could be wrong on that but it would seem logical.
Either way, I agree that maintaining some level of conservatism would be sensible. A$300m as a first port of call would be fine - it should rapidly grow as the rest of Fund 1 + the much larger Fund 2 is deployed. Will be very interesting indeed to see how they approach it.
Not sure what the fuss is about.
You can produce 2 versions. Historical cost and fair value. Investors can then see it in 2 views.
We just had something make a 1200% profit and had no idea we were looking at that type of return
So did HC really allow us to guess a realistic valuation?
That would be 120p or 50% higher.
Without baking too much into the fair value figure
They are conservative by nature ( hence last to keep coats a/c). They will not mark it up massively and then risk writedowns. Even if some items are making 200%+
Unlikely 300m gbp+.
They had 150m aud in portfolio in last release. .
I could see 300m aud. That would be conservative 2x on funds employed and we have has some cracking returna on 100%+ recently
that's all fair comment, however any company that takes a contrarian approach to the industry norm is liable to fly under the radar of the vast majority of investors. for better or for worse, bur, obl & mano all use fair value accounting, lit are the odd ones out. fwiw i suspect they'll continue to provide far more transparency around underlying business performance than their peers - it's also important that they have a ****genous fund structure so far, which contrasts dramatically vs peers.
i reckon balance sheet equity post fair value realignment is likely to be in the region of £200-300m, based on the growth of aum since they ipo'd.
I don't love the shift to fair value accounting personally. It will allow easier comparison to rivals and highlight that LIT is cheap and make it easier to value, but that shouldn't be the driver really. As frustrating as it is to see the share price going nowhere for years, it would have eventually when cases mature and profits are booked. We are seeing those cases mature this year and I can only see this going one way. I much prefer the honest and simple approach they employed previously of booking a profit when it is made and not guessing on success rates which is ripe for error.
At the end of the day they've tried to do things a different way to the rest of their industry - that's admirable & it certainly led to a more transparent balance sheet (good luck trying to decipher BUR...), however, today's news is undoubtedly the right decision & a major step forward.