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Things have been eerily quiet. There has been absolutely no activity on the chat boards, no news, no apparent interest in Blue Prism for at least a week. Has anybody else think it's odd that Blue Prism has not announced the date when they will be voting on the Vista takeover bid? Who has a theory on what is going on?
@Lsoc85, I bought in for the long term as well. No matter how low the stock price went, I wasn't ever too worried because I knew it would come back as the industry grew 30% per year between now and 2027. The only way to lose was if management sold the company for a bad price locking in losses and eliminating the option to ride out the volatility. I put the odds of that circumstance very low since only a moronic (or corrupt) board would do such a thing, but here we are.
I'm making money elsewhere on what I sold instead of leaving this tied up for 3 months. But I can assure you that if the bid fails and the price drops significantly, I remain interested in buying back the long-term upside.
@Lsoc85. I sold out as well - dead money at the moment. May buy in again either after a failed bid or if we hear news of another bidder.
Worst case scenario, if you really believe in the company - Vista will IPO Tibco in 1-2 years. You can then invest in the combined company if the deal goes through.
Disappointing to see you go, AG, but I can't fault your logic. I'll be holding because when I bought in, I bought in for the long term. I might well get stung but that's investing... you win some, you lose some! Ha!
Love the company, but I think the share price tanks when the bid fails to get 75% approval. I think there will be a wide chasm between what Vista would be willing to sweeten the deal to, and what shareholders require to sell. For example, I invested 1.5 years ago thinking that this was a 3x-5x return between now and 2024 after hours and hours of research. I thought that by fall of 2021, the share price would be double what it is now, especially after the UiPath IPO and resulting valuation.
Bottom line, I sold my shares because I think the market will react negatively to a failed bid and realization that Blue Prism is going to have to right the ship on its own (and after cleaning house on the board and management team). Once the share price settles, I may be interested in buying back, but I'm not going to sit here and wait until January to receive a buyout price that I can sell and receive now while also risking a 30% plummet if and when the bid fails.
I'm holding in the hope that Vista have a budget of $2bn and they are willing to pay it if it looks like shareholders will reject.
But that's only going to give a modest profit. Better than a modest loss, mind.
If they did increase to $2bn that would put us on c.£14.90...
With the negative attitude of the board, I've lost hope of anything above that... and it won't have been the board that will have squeezed out the extra value, it will have been the shareholders by rejecting the current scandalous valuation.
Obviously the sp may crash if the deal is rejected and Vista don't increase their offer.
Bleak.
Looks like any optimism of a materially higher counter bid has pretty much disappeared.
Place your bet as nobody knows if another offer comes in or shareholders vote for the deal (unlikely)
In the meantime the price should do very little +/- 3% from where we are.
As no shareholder vote date has been set, we don't even know how long the wait will be
Hi Guys,
Anyone knows where this is going as still holding
@jamstar, great points! And you have to wonder how many of those 27 prospects didn't submit a bid because they either felt like it was a lost cause or the process was too rushed as Coast Capital eluded to. That said, I don't see them coming back to the table either......at least until the vote fails to get 75% approval. Then, anything is possible.
AutomationGuru, I think you're right - this will take time. To be clear, sending feelers out to 20 odd companies is typical. I guess now they know the going price, someone previously approached may still put a bid in. I can tell you from my current corporate
strategy experience, we get approached almost daily by the likes of Qatalyst with companies that want investment or are looking to sell out. In many cases we pass because we are brought in too late to the process, have no resources to give proper diligence, or we think the asking price is too high.
I still think it might be worth holding a position but maybe take some funds out for a few weeks for better investment opps. I can't help but look at the 8.3 forms and see very little selling activity and folks like Polygon keep adding. What do they know that we don't?
@Dave321, To my knowledge, they haven't announced a date but I believe they eluded to it being in "weeks". So likely by end of October. That said, I would speculate that it will drag out past the initial vote. Even if it goes through, shareholders probably wouldn't get paid until 2022.
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-10065877/Blue-Prism-hits-claims-bosses-sold-cheap.html
is this sold
Does anyone know the date of the vote?
I agree with your analysis. I think I’ll sell into any strength over the coming days, as this looks like it’ll roll on for a while
@lostinspace69, I think the Vista bid fails in getting 75% shareholder approval and there will NOT be a better bid from another party between now and the vote. Then, one of two things will happen:
1) Vista sweetens the bid in order to get the holdout shareholders to approve in a re-vote. Even if they do, doubt they'd be willing to pay enough to sway the holdouts.
2) Activist investors get involved, clean house on the board and management team, and the company lists in the U.S.
I worry the downside risk much outweighs the upside at this particular point in time, but I'm monitoring the situation to see if a catalyst changes that.
What do you all think?
AutomationGuru Agreed on all of that. So, how do you see this playing out from here?
This all but confirms that there is no white knight coming in to get a better price for shareholders. Hard to believe that 15 strategic companies and 12 financial companies all either failed to submit a bid or couldn't beat Vista's 1,125 GBP.
I also found these blurbs interesting...
"Blue Prism's Process Was Led by an Experienced, Unconflicted Board"
"Coast's assertions of conflicts of interest on the part of Murray Rode are entirely unfounded, as he has not been employed by TIBCO since 2019, has no financial interest in either TIBCO or Vista affiliates, and played no role in the outreach or interactions with Vista and TIBCO."
"The interests of the Blue Prism Directors who also are shareholders are wholly aligned with the interests of the Company's public shareholders."
First, the statement that Blue Prism's board is a group of experienced experts in selling tech companies is laughable. Everyone knows it's a collection of clowns with pedigrees that fall far short of undertaking this sort of thing. I've read the bios of every one of them.
Second, the reason there is a conflict of interest is precisely that many of its directors (including the F*c$ing CFO) don't have skin in the game. In fact, they're being bonused to go along with the bid. That's textbook conflict of interest.
Third, you can't tell me it's a coincidence that Murray Rode didn't have any part in leading Blue Prism to Tibco, or vice versa. He was the former CEO and Vice Chairman! It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out that there are underhanded dealings going on here. Where there's smoke, there's fire!
Good to get others perspectives. Perhaps we were trying to use robotics in the wrong place or implement it in a place where there are too many variables in the input (basically we were trying to remove the need for the manual input of data from reports into a system and replace it with a robot). The reports are inconsistent in formatting and therefore there were just too many times that the thing didn't work and every time it required somebody to configure the robot to resolve errors. I am sure in some instances robots can be great, but this whole experience has put my team right off it. Big bill and very little to show for it.
Robotics has its place. I've helped implement a project at a UK bank way back in 2015 when I was in management consulting and saw the benefits first hand, but it is no silver bullet and success depends on the implementation.
Most firms saw this as an alternative to offshoring jobs by instead making higher quality jobs supported by robots handling the mundane.
The main risk is longer term, better systems/ software will create fewer tasks to automate/ digitize. Banks and insurance companies love robotics because its a cheap band aid to fix legacy systems where a core replatform could run in the hundreds of millions of pounds
I have the opposite experience. I work with four large banks and one insurance company. They all use BP , they were quick to implement processes and they all see great cost savings and good quality on the running processes. They all startet implementing in 2016 and still expanding number of robots
As somebody who works at what should be an ideal client for Blue Prism, let me say that whilst robotics will have some areas where it may add value, the costs of execution and the effectiveness of what is delivered are not there yet. We spent 6 months getting a robot designed and implemented (not with blue prism) at huge costs and the end results are that it takes longer to use the robot than what was previously done. I’m sure that this will improve with time but as the idea of robotics was to save time and money and improve accuracy, currently we are miles from there. Sure will change and improve with time but suspect blue prism will not be the company to take advantage of it. Just my take on it is that shareholders should take the offer. If you read management statements they are clearly not that optimistic about blue prisms prospects as an independent entity. My view is take the money and run, think people got rather overexcited about the companies prospects which I doubt will materialise. The purchase price is still many multiples of revenues.
LONDON - 6 October, 2021: The board of directors of Blue Prism Group plc ("Blue Prism") (the "Board", the "Blue Prism Directors", "Blue Prism" or the "Company", as relevant) (AIM:PRSM) values shareholder feedback and is committed to maximizing value for all shareholders. The Board has reviewed a letter dated 30 September 2021 addressed to it from Coast Capital ("Coast") regarding the offer for Blue Prism (the "Vista Offer") announced on 28 September 2021 (the "2.7 Announcement") by Bali Bidco Limited, a company wholly owned by funds managed or controlled by Vista Equity Partners ("Vista") and has the following response:
Blue Prism's Sale Process Was Extensive and Thorough
The Board, with the support of its independent advisors, conducted an extensive market check over four months that included outreach to 15 strategic parties and 12 financial sponsors (including Vista and TPG) and initially resulted in the submission of two non-binding proposals from Vista and TPG to acquire the Company. After discussions and negotiations with both parties, Vista submitted their final proposal which represented a value that was both the highest in the process and superior to the Company's standalone alternatives, which the Board concluded was worthy of recommendation to Blue Prism Shareholders.
There is no obstacle to a superior offer being proposed, and the Board is free to recommend any such superior proposal were one to be made. The parties previously contacted by the Company's advisors, or any other interested party (other than TPG subsequent to their Rule 2.8 announcement on 29 September, 2021, except subject to certain circumstances) may submit a competing proposal at any time (subject to the rules of the Takeover Code), and the Board, if it so determined, would be free to recommend such a proposal without the Company incurring a termination fee.
The Vista Offer Reflects an Attractive Premium and Value
The Vista Offer represents a 35% premium to the Closing Price of a Blue Prism Share on 27 August 2021 (being the last Business Day prior to the commencement of the Offer Period) and a 34% premium to the volume weighted average Closing Price over the three months ended 27 August 2021. Moreover, the 5.8x[1] FY21 revenue multiple implied by the Vista Offer represents a 42% premium to Blue Prism's multiple based on the Closing Price on 27 August, 2021.
The Board's decision to recommend the Vista Offer reflects its belief that the Vista Offer provides greater value and less risk than Blue Prism's current standalone prospects and potential standalone alternatives.
While Coast indicates that it has "communicated the operational improvement plan developed with sector experts and prior management team members over several months", it has not yet provided the Company with a detailed plan, including the financing of any such plan, capable of assessment by Blue Prism's Board.
Blue Prism's Process Was Led by an Experienced, Unconflicted Board
Really depends on the scenario. It would be a positive to the stock price if activist investors take over. If the same crew stick around we could see £10 with the offer being somewhat of a reality check on valuation
Good point @jamstar - there is that at least. I just keep wondering what happens to the share price when the acquisition falls through? Does it tank back to what it was in August before the takeover interest started? Seems like the upside is limited (with this bozo management team dead set on selling), but the downside is still very real if the market reacts negatively when they can't get 75% shareholder approval. What do you all think?