Member Info for AutomationGuru

@Break, any way you can paste the contents of that Bloomberg article into the chat?

As if we needed any worse luck today, the U.S. market is being torn apart on the fear that the U.S. government will default. So all of my other investments are tanking simultaneously. FML.

Surely the U.S. government won't default unless our leaders are dumber than I thought they were. Then again, I said the same thing about my Blue Prism investment being rock solid unless management is dumb enough to sell at a lowball price. Lesson learned. The idiots are running amok in this crazy upside-down world!

Here's an offensive little tidbit from the announcement:

"The Blue Prism Directors have agreed to pay a cash bonus to Ijoma Maluza and six other employees, subject to the Acquisition becoming Effective. The bonuses would be payable after the Effective Date as part of the next practicable payroll. The aggregate amount of all such bonuses is £1,054,000."

Ijoma Maluza (CFO) should be the most ashamed of himself of anyone. After dumping over 35k (nearly all) of his shares for as high as 1,733 GBP in February (~50% higher than takeover price), he is voting to approve the acquisition and will likely get several hundred thousand pounds for doing so. That's just dirty.

Fortunately, they need 75% shareholder approval to make this go through, and only have 23% locked up via letters of intent from the terrible board/management team and a few large investors. All of the articles are written as if this is done, but it is not even close to done even if a second bid doesn't emerge.

I think news is coming tomorrow too. If not, Qatalyst has done NOTHING to "bring top dollar" to this process. Where's the third bidder? Where's the bidding war?

This has got to be like the movie that seems like it's over with a terrible ending, and then all of a sudden the hero saves the day with the happy ending.

@Jamster/@Alco098, I'm with you that this is sketchy. I keep analyzing this one particular sentence from the Bloomberg article.....

"While Blue Prism’s board is endorsing the Vista offer, other suitors could still emerge, the people said. Representatives for Vista and Blue Prism declined to comment."

Question 1: Who are "the people" familiar with the matter if neither party (Vista or Blue Prism) have commented?

Question 2: Who is using the word "endorse"? Was this the author of the article taking liberties, or is that what "the people" said? How can news that the board is endorsing the offer come out at the same time that the offer itself is announced?! That doesn't make sense.

This is fishy. Either these are tactics to get another bidder to step up to the plate in a hurry, or there are corrupt actors here with conflicts of interest.

Did anybody catch this in the announcement....."One of Blue Prism’s independent directors, Murray Rode, was previously a longtime member of Tibco Software’s management and served as its CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER after its purchase by Vista."

So if Blue Prism will be merged with Tibco (for the benefit of Tibco shareholders), and Blue Prism's board member is its former CEO, then Murray Rode probably still has a load of Tibco stock thus benefiting from selling the company for peanuts against the best interest of Blue Prism shareholders. In fact, I don't believe Mr. Rode has many Blue Prism shares, so its in his best interest to go against Blue Prism shareholders.

Then, you consider that Blue Prism's CFO sold basically all of his shares in February for 1,600 (50% more than the takeover price), he is also not incentivized to do what's best for shareholders since he has no skin in the game.

This is so jacked up! If this goes through, there will be LAWSUITS! Mark my words. Only saving grace is another suitor could come along and swoop this up for cheap, and the board would have to go along with it. Otherwise, this is at a minimum unethical, and at worst, corrupt.

This offer is garbage! Should be AT LEAST 20% higher than current share price. The Blue Prism board should decline it, as this is giving away a wonderful company for peanuts. The good news is that I think a competing bid will emerge if this is how low the hurdle is.

Co-founder, David Moss, just disclosed an hour ago that he moved 30% (600k) of his 2M shares into a trust. You likely wouldn't do this unless you thought a deal was going through given that you lose ownership and control of your shares when make a move like that. Looks to me like he's looking to transfer the shares at a lower price, so that when the shar price pops, the appreciation occurs in the name of the trust. Smart move on his part, but the timing of when this happened may just give away that a deal is all but imminent.

I think there definitely will be an opening offer (or two) on the table by the end of the day Tuesday. The offer(s) may or may not be high enough for management to accept, but I think it will be well north of Friday's close price resulting in an early to mid-week pop in the share price. After that, it will come down to negotiation and whether there are multiple offers to see how high we go from there. Onward and upward ladies and gentlemen! :)

Anybody notice that there were 8 huge buy orders of 150k-500k each in the final couple hours of trading today? Tea leaves look favorable heading into next week. Monday/Tuesday are going to be fun. :)

HODL! :P

@jimbo63, I hope you're right. I always thought Microsoft would acquire an RPA vendor. $2B USD would be nothing for Microsoft, and you'd have to think they would benefit by acquiring Blue Prism and using its IP to quickly improve Power Automate to better compete with UiPath and Automation Anywhere. Stranger things have happened.

Activist investor Coast Capital has changed tack and is prepared to back a possible private equity takeover of U.K. automation software maker Blue Prism Group Plc.

The investment firm’s founder James Rasteh, who had called for Blue Prism to seek an alternative to a potential acquisition by TPG or Vista Equity Partners, said the company’s management had now earned his trust.

“Coast will be supportive of whatever deal gives the company the best opportunity to improve its prospects,” Rasteh said in an interview Thursday.

Has anyone here ever bought something via live auction with a known deadline from a site like Ebay? What happens?

More times than not, most of the price escalation happens at the very end before the expiration of the deadline. It's bad strategy to come right out of the gate with your best price because the price get expensive too fast, creating a higher probability that interested buyers will be priced out from buying something they strongly desire to own. So instead, they stalk the item of interest, slow play their bids, and then at the very end.......BAM......bids start rolling in and the price skyrockets. That's exactly what should happen here.

Morale of the story: this was always going to happen this way.....an initial pop on the rumor, flat price for a couple weeks, and then early next week expect fireworks as the sharks swirl waiting to strike. The worst thing you can do is get scared and sell prematurely convincing yourself that nobody is interested just because it's quiet this week when clearly there is high interest.

I'll remind everyone of the article that came out just a week or so ago predicting that bids will come in at 7.5x-10x sales. Taking the midpoint of that range (8.75x sales), the price target should come in at 15.35 GBP or 21.34 USD. That's a 33%-40% bump from this exact moment.......in less than a week!

If you "paper hands" this thing, you may never forgive yourself. Patience my friends.

Good find @JCash202! Happy to see they're continuing to put out good PR and announce exciting developments even in the midst of buyout talks. I continue to believe that the more bots can "think" via AI, the faster intelligent automation adoption will skyrocket. I love this company. I'm really torn on what I want to happen this week. A buyout for a 30-50% premium would be nice, but I'd love to own the company through the AI/bot revolution.

@joatman, I think you're spot on. It's the calm before the storm, and I wouldn't expect much volume until the big news hits. One week to go before the September 28th cut off (next Tuesday, but my spidey senses are telling me there will be news before the end of the week.

Global sell-off today on the fears that one troubled company in China could ripple through the global economy like the next Lehman Brothers. I'll easily take the other side of that bet. If Blue Prism dips along with the tide of the overall market, it's simply another opportunity to get in before September 28th.

Greedy when others are fearful. Fearful when others are greedy.

@latpulldown, I completely agree with you. Even if it's only buying the customer base, why wouldn't UiPath do a leveraged buyout or acquire via its own shares to pick up an additional 10% marketshare instantly?! If it acquired by giving Blue Prism investors a premium price in value of UiPath shares, it would only dilute by <10% and immediately grow its revenue by 25% and take out a top 3 competitor. It's a no-brainer to me, and the same logic applies for other big enterprise software companies looking to cheaply get into intelligent automation.

The emergence of a 3rd bidder is reasonably likely, and could even be a reason this is dragging out a bit. In fact, that is what Frank Quattrone was hired to do.......rustle the bushes to stir up more interest and get top dollar for the business one way or another. We have yet to see what fruits his involvement will yield, which is another reason to HODL these shares with diamond hands as if your life (or at least your retirement ha) depended on it. :)

Another day of waiting, scouring the internet for every article I can find, and refreshing this chat board incessantly. Come on Blue Prism......our fortunes await. :P

@jamster, thank you for outlining everything from the 8.3 forms! Very helpful.

I think everyone needs to calm down about TPG disclosing that it doesn't own shares. Reasons.....

1) TPG could be doing this to get this exact reaction where the share price drops giving them more leverage to offer a lower bid and scoop up the company for cheap. It strengthens their position, and might not be a reflection of their interest in acquiring the company.

2) We don't know how many other competing bidders we will have. It's not TPG or bust.

3) The company is still DIRT CHEAP at this level. If it is acquired, it will be for a much higher price.......but even if it's not, investors are protected on the downside due to it's inexpensiveness. Sure it might drop a bit lower if no deal goes through, but nobody holding here should have to worry about making money on the stock over the long-run if they have to.

4) The short-term upside is still in place. An article yesterday stated that a range of 7.5x-10x sales would be an appropriate range for a buyout price. That translates to a midpoint of 1,535 GBP or 21.34 USD. Anybody who is selling now could be missing out on 35%-40%, and will be kicking themselves in just two short weeks for not waiting it out.

5) The long-term upside is also still in place. If a buyout falls through, investors might actually be better off since the company is likely to go 300%-500% (by my estimation) over the next few years. And if weak hands panic and the share price goes lower temporarily, it's another opportunity to scoop up more shares on the fear of the crowd.

Breathe in. Breathe out. It's all going to be ok everybody.