Member Info for bluefred

“A decision hasn’t been made yet” blah blah blah

“Shareholder circular / 75% majority” blah blah blah

Be in no doubt that this is going to happen. They wouldn’t have put out this statement unless they’d already got enough votes.

Death by 1,000 cuts is an understatement with this lot.

It’s undoubtedly the right decision for the business given the state they’ve got the company into over the last few years, but life as a minority shareholder in a private company will be even less transparent than it is now.

Depressing.

This company has had its fair share of dramas over the years, but this is a really messed up situation.

We’ve seen positive actions by management to sell off and realise value from its Turkish and Indian assets - yielding c.£15m in cash. Alongside this we’ve received news of a proposed investment in Blink to develop the parametric platform and bring in a serious / experienced CEO. We now need to start seeing results from this big investment.

We’ve had a restructure that just didn’t go far enough, still leaving the company with a massively inflated cost base, and a Board who just can’t seem to manage the basics of marketing the business to new shareholders and fixing the huge liquidity problem that exists and is at the heart of the problems. There’s a steady stream of selling going on - historically this has been from Phoenix - which is destroying the value, which now stands at below £8m. How ironic that one of the company’s long standing and major shareholders is tanking the value of their own investment.

The share price has fallen from £1.60 when the news of the Indian and Turkish divestments was announced a short few months ago, to half that value as of today. And not a word from the Board as to what is going on, a trading statement, or indeed any words of comfort or reassurance for ordinary shareholders. Perhaps there is no good news. Either way, silence is not acceptable.

I like your optimism, and I agree that even at £2 this is still significantly undervalued......however, the remaining / ongoing business is not profitable. Far from it. Independently, Blink currently has a much higher operating overhead than it generates in top line income and is very much cash negative. Success here is all about whether Blink can get to a place where it can stand on its own, and is both EBITDA and cash positive, before the funds run out.

This is good news from the business, and not a bad price given the declining nature and the single partner dependency of their India operation. The final piece of the jigsaw should come at the end of September when the previously signposted restructuring of the central cost base is announced alongside the interims. This will hopefully address the top heavy structure of the current Executive and Board and leave behind a streamlined, Blink focused management structure. Given the lack of shareholder distributions, it is then a question of getting Blink profitable and cash generative in its own right before the money runs out. I'm not sure how much I subscribe to the much repeated line about tech / platform businesses driving a higher multiple, or even a revenue multiple, in terms of valuation, but I'd be happy to be proved wrong! Basic valuation principles must still apply. The key will be to maintain partner renewal rates, extend reach across Travel / Insurance, get the Cyber product market ready, and drive monthly subscription revenues. Then the shareholders might see a price close to where it needs to be.

Depends when you measure the drop from - it's down 60%+ since the start of this "Transformation Programme". It's even grimmer reading if you look back beyond that for those long-standing holders.

I don't expect to see any further upward movement in the short term. In fact there may be some drift downwards as short term investors take their profit out and Phoenix continue their very unhelpful offloading. A successful disposal of India may buck that trend and give another short term boost, but I'm not hanging my hat on that....although I would love to be proved wrong.

The next change will come - and hopefully it's another upward one - when the signposted cost restructuring is announced in September. Hopefully that will see material changes to Executive and Board costs at the Group level which is long overdue.

Then the final piece of the jigsaw.....the main 3 shareholders simply need to reduce their holdings so that this becomes an investable stock. Maybe another external "Insurtech" investor who sees the potential in Blink? - something needs to break the current deadlock that has been in place for years in order to move this forward and deliver some decent returns.

See today’s RNS re: LTIPs.

Closing price today = £1.40

Entry level for LTIP = £3.70

Super Max for LTIP = £9.00

As a long time holder, I will be delighted if any of these LTIPs pay out even if I have just been materially diluted, but I think that the line between positive aspiration and fantasy has just been crossed. I will be happy to correct the record if proved wrong.

https://www.lse.co.uk/rns/CPP/strategy-and-change-management-programme-xsri41bvwe00idv.html

Is this seriously the culmination of the best part of 9 months work?
Are they deliberately trying to trash the company?
In summary:
- focus on Blink, India and Turkey
- wind down back books
- put in new IT system

How is this any different from what has been stated over the last 12 months or so?? Lazy, pathetic, shambolic.

No mention of Globiva.
No evidence, despite the sp being where it is, of any of the Board buying in. Why should the rest of us have any confidence if they can't put their hands in their own pockets?

This message is only tagged with 'No Opinion' due to the absence of a 'WTF' option.

I agree that the sp is too low, but imo it is being legitimately held back for a number of reasons:
- no market interest caused by no news flow and a Board which is bizarrely reluctant to get out in front of investors. Perhaps this is because it is a Plc in name only and the real interests of the Board are only to serve the major shareholders. Why bother with anyone else?
- not classed as a reliable income stock due to the suspension of the dividend despite the H1 report saying there is £19.3m of cash - 60% of which is immediately accessible. That accessible cash is £11.5m - or 85% of the current market cap. There is plenty of headroom to maintain a dividend at the current level
- the shares are very tightly held which is causing a serious liquidity problem. Would-be larger investors have a problem getting in and therefore would also have a problem getting out. This, combined with the dividend point, makes it very unattractive to add to a portfolio
- the long awaited 'strategy', or 'change programme review' as it is now being called, is taking far too long for what should be a relatively simple exercise. It's unclear whether this is general incompetence or whether there are internal conflicts / issues / disagreements preventing progress. Either way, it's not helping
- CPP is an Indian business. This latest set of results serve to re-confirm that. It has no place being listed in the UK (or even listed at all in reality) and the UK market either doesn't like or doesn't understand businesses like this.

All a bit of a mess really.....

https://www.lse.co.uk/news/CPP/brand-architekts-appoints-pyper-to-board-after-innovaderma-merger-sw4syi624ipa2m3.html

Nothing going on here as others have previously commented. Board guilty of being asleep at the wheel. Perhaps Pyper should focus on one job - that of CEO of CPP - instead of being distracted by other appointments. Continued share price erosion - 50% of what it was prior to his appointment as CEO. Shareholders continuing to suffer with no positive news on the horizon given the last trading update. Big shareholders need to wake up as value is being whittled away....

100% agree, it's a disaster for shareholders. Ogston, Phoenix and Schroders need to be doing something about it, the Chairman has had long enough to turn things around and the share price has halved during his tenure.