Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
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Michelmores shortlisted for ‘Law firm of the Year: The Independents’ at The Lawyer Awards 2024
Michelmores has been shortlisted at The Lawyer Awards 2024 in the ‘Law firm of the Year: The Independents’ category.
The annual Lawyer Awards celebrate outstanding work and initiatives from across the legal industry. The judging panel includes industry experts from the Bar, Private Practice and in-house sectors. The ‘Independents’ category is open to any UK firms that appear in the current edition of The Lawyer UK 200: The Independents report.
https://www.michelmores.com/firm-news/michelmores-shortlisted-for-law-firm-of-the-year-the-independents-at-the-lawyer-awards-2024/
---------------------------------------------------------------
Lucretuis, I don't know if you are old enough to remember this match?
Almost 40 years ago
Benson & Hedges Cup final of 1984
The valued duck
The opponents of Lancashire in the title round were an extremely strong Warwickshire side. Led by Bob Willis, they boasted in their ranks men like Alvin Kallicharran, Dennis Amiss, Chris Old, Norman Gifford and Gladstone Small.
But, when Abrahams inserted the Warwickshire men on a spicy Lord’s track, Paul Allott bowled his heart out. Left-arm seamer Stephen Jefferies provided adequate support and the batsmen found it extremely tough to negotiate the movement. Only Kallicharran, playing a supreme knock, scored a superlative 70 while the rest of the batting withered away. The vaunted batting line up could not last the stipulated 55 overs and were bowled out for 139.
In the field, Abrahams quietly led the side. He did not bowl his occasional off-breaks, caught Kallicharran at mid-wicket off Jefferies, and dropped a rank sitter at point.
He did little more with the bat. The skipper came in to bat with the score on 70 for three, snicked the third ball he faced to the wicketkeeper, and walked back for a duck. Apart from not scoring a run, he had also fallen to the part time medium pace of opening batsman Paul Smith.
Lancashire finally won the match by six wickets with 74 balls to spare, thanks to an unbeaten 69-run association between Neil Fairbrother and David Hughes.
However, the climax of the day was yet to take place.
The adjudicator for the Man of the Match award was the former England captain Peter May. And during the post-match ceremony he announced that the Gold Award would go to John Abrahams. The stunned players of the two sides pinched themselves. Abrahams himself was seen to mouth, “Who, me?”
And the man, who had turned 32 that day but had done little else, walked up to receive the Man of the Match award for his duck, a dropped catch and unbowled off-breaks.
Full read here
https://www.cricketcountry.com/articles/adjudicator-peter-may-presents-lancashire-captain-john-abrahams-with-birthday-gift-209173/
Victor,
I must admit past errors and fess up that relentless negativity about Sycurio has been misplaced. The Sycurio job advert that you posted says: “Sycurio is well funded and growing fast, you’ll be joining an organisation that combines an entrepreneurial ‘start-up’ culture with the professionalism of a mature and established business. This is a fabulous opportunity to gain experience on a variety of commercial matters of an international business.”
I realise how wrong I would have been if I had been drafting the advert and if I had written: “Sycurio has a weak balance sheet, encumbered with £30m of external debt, and is struggling for growth against a far nimbler competitor, which spotted the cloud and channel partner opportunities miles before we did.
The organisation combines a freewheeling approach to respecting confidentiality agreements with aggressive and opportunistic engagement in expensive--and to date--unsuccessful patent litigation worldwide.
We are on track to destroy our IP portfolio. If you believe non-expert experts make good trial witnesses and you enjoy seeing millions wasted on litigation, this is a fabulous opportunity.
You will need to be comfortable engaging with staff at all levels of the company including the CEO and fellow members of the executive team. Our executive team is so fast-moving and dynamic that, within 6-12 months of joining, you will be working with a completely different team.
We have painted ourselves into a very tight corner—help.“
Sycurio. hiring Corporate Counsel Job in Guildford, England
Glassdoor
10 hours ago
Corporate Counsel
Guildford, England
Main purpose of the job
You will also be expected to participate in company intellectual property protection and management efforts and liaise with our outside IP attorneys. You will be expected to have or develop a strong knowledge of relevant data protection and privacy regulations relating to PCI DSS and GDPR.
-------
Key Responsibilities
Participate with the General Counsel in IP enforcement and protection matters including assisting in the management of ongoing patent litigation.
-----------------------------
Sycurio. Reviews by of counsel
Pros
"Good people to work with" (in 5 reviews)
"Great culture, great team is a company full of challenges and opportunities" (in 6 reviews)
"The company is rapidly growing so new opportunities are frequently available." (in 3 reviews)
-----------------------------
Cons
"unnecessary amount of pressure" (in 4 reviews)
"The amount of time spent navigating the political infighting, finger pointing and general blame culture was exhausting." (in 2 reviews)
More here
https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/job-listing/corporate-counsel-sycurio-JV_IC3294630_KO0,17_KE18,25.htm?jl=1009263698532
----------------------------
Corporate Counsel
https://careers.sycurio.com/jobs/4407875-corporate-counsel
Letting the court cases run their courses is definitely the most viable option for Sycurio and Livingbridge, in my opinion. They already know that they won’t get the management team to stay, so they have to hope they can trigger a management exodus from PCIP by wearing them down. The hope would be that new people would bring anew perspective on a 90p bid and a quiet life will be the clincher. Fortunately for us, PCIP seems to be as solid as ever.
Well, Livingbridge paid £113m for Semafone - a clearly inferior business.
Candidly, I don't think 7.5x ARR is a crazy stretch for a 90% gross margin software business with low-single digit churn growing at 20-30%. In the states that would be a totally believable price to pay. Look at Darktrace getting taken out at 6.6x forward revenue. Same multiple on PCI-Pal would be pretty much £150m. I personally consider PCI-Pal to be a superior business to Darktrace. Just to cherry pick one example from today, but I think it's decently representative.
Hi Leycrjb.
£150m is a massive stretch at 7.5x ARR.
5x ARR = £100m = . 140p.
If, and it's a big if, Sycurio comes back again, it'd probably start at 120p and maybe they'd stretch to 140p/150p. Can't see it going higher than that. The main reason I'm thinking about it more seriously is because of all the management changes at Sycurio that Victor has flagged up. Sycurio appears weaker than in May 2023. They look to have more reasons to acquire PCIP.
It's the most logical thing, but I'm not sure Livingbridge/Sycurio are driven by logic at this point. I'm also not sure they could afford the £150m it would potentially cost to acquire PCI-Pal at the price that would be acceptable to the big owners.
Hello Leycrjb - do you expect Sycurio to come again with a higher offer? It seems the most logical move. It's interesting to note that the Chairman, CEO, CFO & CTO bought shares in March 2022. Did they think Sycurio was coming to come with a hard offer?
I think we all know that was their motive. I suspect it would take 150p+ to get a sale. Still think that would be a very good deal for Livingbridge.
-September 2021: Sycurio initiated patent case.
-March 2022: Sycurio Chairman asks PCIP Chairman if they are open to being acquired.
-May 2023: Sycurio offers 90p to the largest PCIP shareholders.
Did Sycurio start the patent case to acquire PCIP at a knockdown price? Is that the philosophy?
Isn't Livingbridge's philosophy to acquire PCIP? The first move was Sept 2021, then March 2022 and May 2023.
Morning.
Too much water under the Livingbridge for that. But to give up, goes against Livinbridge's philosophy. So option 1 looks most likely. Nice people to do business with.
Good Morning Riffgo,
Narrows it down, in the sense that acquiring PCIP resets Sycurio with a top management team.
well, judging by the employee discontent and staff turnover, it’ll be hard to bring in a team that will last long enough to understand the true nature of the **** up, let alone fix it for livingbridge. so that narrows it down, i reckon.
Financial Times - March 5th, 2024
One of the dominant factors behind overall private equity returns over the past four decades was declining interest rates. That has now gone into reverse.
Debt is the primary fuel that powers the private equity engine, and between the early 1980s and the 2020s, the cost of that fuel haltingly fell to zero. As a result, even bad deals could be rescued by refinancing at cheaper and cheaper rates, and mediocre ones turned into cash cows to be milked through dividend recaps.
Moreover, four decades of falling interest rates helped increase corporate earnings and swell equity market valuations. Indeed, a Federal Reserve paper published last year estimated that lower interest expenses and tax rates explain almost half of all growth in US corporate profits between 1989 and 2019. At the same time, valuations of those earnings streams have increased because of lower discount rates used to calculate their worth.
Despite private equity insisting that they improve companies, Bain’s latest report on the industry estimates that “nearly all the value creation” in private equity-owned companies between 2012 and 2022 actually came from revenue growth and multiple expansion. “Margin expansion barely registers,” the consultancy noted drily.
With interest rates now higher and unlikely to return to zero — though they’re unlikely to return to the 1980s highs either — the private equity golden era is almost certainly over. Even if central banks begin to trim rates, the scale of the decline from the early ’80s will never be replicated.
2024
-Sycurio CEO departs from company.
-Sycurio CRO departs from website.
-Sycurio HRO departs from company.
-Sycurio Non-Exec departs from company.
Sycurio's options vis a vis PCIP:
1. Continue court cases all the way.
2. Make peace with PCIP.
3. Offers a knockout price for PCIP.
1. Going all the way could cost £8m to £10m, and statistically the probability of winning is low.
2. Stops the cash bleed.
3. Brings in a management team who can reset Sycurio and stop a possible future writedown for Livingbridge.
Any thoughts on which option Sycurio will select?
Sycurio LIMITED
25 Apr 2024..Termination of appointment of Simon Hollingsworth as a director on 12 April 2024
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/06963868/filing-history
-------------
Not removed from here, yet
Simon Hollingsworth
Non-Executive Director
Simon is an experienced software investor, and has led all of Livingbridge’s recent software investments.
https://sycurio.com/about/board
--------------
Sycurio’s Post
Welcome Tom Baldwin to Sycurio!
Tom has joined the Engineering Team as a Principal Architect.
“Having previously worked at Sycurio, I’m looking forward to working with a great team on the evolution of secure payments.”
Happy to have you onboard!
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sycurio_newemployee-welcometotheteam-welcomepost-activity-7188107208759332865-TgKT
-------------------------------
Has he rejoined just in time to say goodbye to one of his Patents?
EP3603043 - TELEPHONE SIGNAL PROCESSING
Applicant(s) For all designated states
Sycurio Limited
Pannell House
Park Street
Guildford, Surrey GU1 4HN / GB
Inventor(s) 01 / TAO, Yufei
25 The Chase
Crowthorne RG45 6HT / GB
02 / BALDWIN, Thomas
c/o Semafone
Pannell House
Park Street
Guilford Surrey GU1 4HN / GB
-----
Opposition(s) Opponent(s) 01 14.06.2023 16.06.2023 ADMISSIBLE
PCI-PAL (U.K.) Limited
7 Gamma Terrace
Ransomes Europark
West Road
Ipswich IP3 9FF / GB
-------
02..14.06.2023 16.06.2023 ADMISSIBLE
Eckoh UK Limited / Eckoh PLC
Telford House
Corner Hall
Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire HP3 9HN / GB
https://register.epo.org/application?number=EP18715240&lng=en&tab=main
-----------------
05.02.2024 Brief communication - Opposition proceedings
Concluding remarks
Page 42
https://register.epo.org/application?documentId=LS1SEHUV17HVGLQ&number=EP18715240&lng=en&npl=false
"In business, which is essentially daily warfare, preemptively destroying your potential destroyer is the only logical move."
-Andriy Burkov
Latest missing Sycurio Senior leadership team member and Director
Edward Sweigart
Edward leads the sales, sales engineering, marketing and partner teams, delivering revenue growth, pioneering new markets and identifying strategic partners.
He has held a variety of leadership positions across the cloud and enterprise software market and spent over a decade at PwC driving strategic engagements with his clients. He has worked with a number of PE backed companies including Sitecore and Finastra. Edward has worked internationally for the majority of his career and brings a wealth of experience to the team.
https://web.archive.org/web/20231001215930/https://sycurio.com/people/edward-sweigart
-------------------------------------------
Wayback machine
Senior leadership team
https://sycurio.com/about/executive
------------------------------------
Wayback machine
Board of directors
https://web.archive.org/web/20231001223213/https://sycurio.com/about/board
------------------------------------
As of today
Senior leadership team
https://sycurio.com/about/executive
-----------------
AS of today
Board of directors
https://sycurio.com/about/board
Sycurio. Employee Review
1.0 out of 5
Senior Customer Support Team Leader (Former Employee)
Guildford - 21 March 2024
Was not able to showcase my experience, it was more stressful most of the time.
Senior Customer Support Team Leader (Former Employee) - Guildford - 21 March 2024
What is the best part of working at the company?
Nothing much to learn, not supportive work culture.
What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
When too many activities were scheduled back-to-back.
What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Very unhealthy, no motivation from manager or SLT
What is a typical day like for you at the company?
When no support is given, when most needed.
Was this review helpful?
https://uk.indeed.com/cmp/Sycurio./reviews/was-not-able-to-showcase-my-experience-it-was-more-stressful-most-of-the-time?id=f1993b846e585b0e
I see on Linkedin that Sycurio is advertising for three sales managers, two in the States and one in the UK. My presumption that they're decaying looks to be wrong-headed.
Interesting. Thanks!
Eckoh were caught out by the Covid acceleration to the cloud and had to pay top dollar to get a cloud offering via Syntec.
Both the main competitors to PCIP are on the back foot with their on-premise legacy issues. Eckoh has little to no channel strategy and Sycurio is trying to kick-start such a strategy six years after PCIP instigated one.
Sycurio's best hope for a viable future is to buy PCIP. Otherwise, they are a decaying asset and will become a big write-down for the owners. It could take 150p to get the big shareholders interested.
The Zoom Boom could start in H1 25 and into H2 25 and FY26. If that starts rolling and the channel partners are firing JB's idea of 30%+ growth is ementinaly doable. The operational gearing would be transformative. If the luck runs hard then the share could hit 150p to 200p sometime in 2025. 100p looks doable in 2024.
PCIP has had two big strokes of luck: Covid and Zoom. The bad luck was the patent case, which is temporary, the two strokes of good luck are permanent.
#multibagger
Sycurio..Senior leadership team
No longer on the Leadership page
https://sycurio.com/people/angela-cardani-liggett#:~:text=Angela%20leads%20our%20HR%20team,recognition%20and%20talent%20acquisition%20%26%20retention.
----------------
Senior leadership team
https://sycurio.com/about/executive
------------------
Imogen Astley Marsh
Chief People Officer at Sycurio
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/imogen-astley-marsh-051681296?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.co.uk%2F
-----------------------
Wayback machine
https://web.archive.org/web/20231130140100/https://sycurio.com/about/executive
-------------------
Recommendations received
Click here to view Kevin W. Clancy’s profile
Kevin W. Clancy
“I have had the fortunate opportunity of working with Imogen over the past year as senior leadership team colleagues at Sycurio. Imogen is exceptionally knowledgeable regarding HR matters and is a tireless worker always striving to achieve the correct result. We successfully collaborated on a number of complex business projects, some of which were novel in nature and required creative thinking and analytical skills. Imogen excelled at such efforts. From a people perspective, Imogen displayed the firmness that is required of an HR head but also the compassion necessary to properly manage employee issues. I highly recommend Imogen.”
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/imogen-astley-marsh
----------------
According to Linkedin.....PCIP 122 employers.....Sycurio 120 employers.... Down from 132 in Dec 22
--------------------
How many employees does Sycurio have?
Sycurio has 132 employees as of Dec 22. The total employee count is 16 higher than it was for Dec 21.
https://tracxn.com/d/companies/sycurio/__FWCQXkgw0y916uNR4aolYB-OyaA3VgxPbXGyuebsY-o#:~:text=Sycurio%20has%20132%20employees%20as%20of%20Dec%2022.
--------------------------
Today Linkedin
Sycurio..View all 120 employees
https://www.linkedin.com/company/sycurio
----------------------
Today Linkedin
Pci-Pal
View all 122 employees
https://uk.linkedin.com/company/pci-pal
Try putting this in the search engine
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/660...
GOV.UK
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk › media
ODF
6 days ago — DWP. Digital & Professional Services. ecm_10012. PCI Pal - Secure Card Payment System (SCPS). PCI-PAL (UK) Limited. Customer Payment Service ...
This Contract is up for Tender
DWP PCI Pal Secure Card Payment Service (SCPS)
A Contract Award Notice
by DEPARTMENT FOR WORK AND PENSIONS
Source
Contracts Finder
Type
Contract (Works)
Duration
2 year
Value
£3M
Sector
TECHNOLOGY
Published
22 Mar 2022
Delivery
16 Mar 2022 to 15 Mar 2024
Deadline
10 Jan 2022 23:59
1 buyer
Department for Work & Pensions
Blackpool
1 supplier
Pci Pal
Ipswich
Description
A PCI Solution to ensure that cardholder data is protected and secured when handled within DWP and to ensure compliance against PCI DSS and contribute to securing cardholder data for GDPR purposes.
Award Detail
1 Pci Pal (Ipswich)
Value: £3,320,434
https://bidstats.uk/tenders/2022/W12/771227681
---------------------------
New Tender £6M-£13M
The specified contract start date is 01 Sep 2024.
Source
DWP
Contracts Finder
Type
Framework (Services)
Duration
3 year
Value
£6M-£13M
Sector
TECHNOLOGY
Published
29 Jan 2024
Delivery
01 Sep 2024 to 31 Aug 2027
Deadline
13 Mar 2024 13:00
https://bidstats.uk/tenders/2024/W05/815661113
--------------------------------
Spread sheet with ratings for the DWP Contract.. FY 23-24..Q2..Jul-Aug.
If you open this link ( I used open office)
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/660...
FY 23-24..Q2..Jul-Aug..DWP Contract number 788... Pci-Pal Customer Payment service availability.. 99.99..Rating Good
FY 23-24..Q2..Jul-Aug..DWP Contract number 2253. Pci-Pal Voice Agents availability inbound.. 99.99.. Rating Good