Member Info for bobocaca

They admit that in page 57:
"
- DT has real product with legitimate sales (unlike a few frauds we saw)
- A few of the industry players we sampled had a (qualified_ good opinion of DT's products
"

SP dropped 2% momentarily, looks like QCM has not given up, but SP recovered quickly.

People were worried when they did not know what kind of fraud or troubles QCM was accusing DT of. Now we know they are nothing serious. I bet they regret releasing the report, which provide grounds for DT to explain themselves.

I could read the article here
https://www.ft.com/content/9abdd17a-b34b-4613-b299-fbf341e32d62

A lot of them echoes what i said earlier that the channel stuffng allegations were pre-IPO before hiring of current CFO; even if they true, it only happened to small region and immaterial to revenue. Robust accounting practise has been in place since the CFO came into power and did not find any evidence of breaching in core markets (UK, US etc).

New revelation:
Berenberg’s head of European equities since July 2020 and its former head of European research, is married to Darktrace head of investor relations Luk Janssens.

Think the quiet period is after quarter's end, or 2 weeks before the report release. Something like that.

Darktrace had been too soft. They just kept their head down when Shadowfall attacked, when TB walked away. This invites other shortsellers to have a go. QCM never expected DT to fight back this time with £100M. DT should double down like taking legal action, to deter other opportunist shortsellers.

I'm surprised they bought back only half a million shares yesterday, meaning the other 7+ millions were bought by genuine investors.

josey agreed. From QCM's response, I think even if the allegations were true, they might be a thing of the past with insignificant financial value. They didn't accuse anything related to the product/technology, nor foul playing in major markets.

My interpretation of DT and QCM's statements:

There may be some 'innovative' sales tactics pre-IPO. However, the regions and businesss mentioned were tiny and negligible to overall account. DT hired CFO from outside to clean up the mess and made sure everything was done correctly. Therefore, the questionable transactions have never been included in the company finance.

QCM's response sounded desperate and worried.

Darktrace should sue QCM for defamation. The management is too soft, and allow other to bully them with baseless claim. The board should replace Poppy with person with stronger personality.

new shorter Quintessential Capital Management, 0.86%

Don't think a tiny 60k buy from a director could cause 7% rise. Perhaps another RNS later today?

He sold £1.3M in 2 months ago.

Neither she nor ML is employee or in the director board, they do not have any insider information. It is not a bad thing that they sell their shares but at this pace, there will still be many years before they sold out all their shares to cut off tie with Darktrace.

Lending, despite different methods, but we both can agree Darktrace is a solid company. It is still growing, just a little slower due to macro economy that is affecting everyone. The economy gotta be turning around in 2H.

Darktrace's nett P/E from last financial year is in excess of 1000. If you rely on P/E, you wouldn't be buying Darktrace.

Most often than not, tech acquirer is more interested in the tech rather than profit. If you don't live under rock, you must have heard about AI tool called chatGPT. It is loss making but is worth $29B and Microsoft is increasing its stakes in it as this provides an opportunity to topple Google's search engine. This is how I look at things. There will be companies looking to buy Darktrace to complement their products rather than eyeing for the good P/E. Established companies have channels to monetize new tech easily.

Lending, indeed adjusted EDITDA remove shares related cost, and share buyback reduce the profit. It is not ideal but at least the company is trying to do something to support the share price. However, I think perhaps that is the single reason why it is no under £2 already(answer to Ade). The company WILL ALWAYS give shares to employees. Without the buy back, they will simply print new share certificates to dilute the share value.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not shorting Darktrace but I'm simply seeing the company as startup rather than Buffet's view as a blue chip company. Just 4 months ago, TB approached Darktrace when it was 375p (before leakage). One day, the company will be bought. As we can all smell the fear in the room, so do board and the big shareholders. I'm sure they will soften their stance when approached again.I don't know where my optimism comes from but I think the share price will pick up again in April after the next trading update.

On the other hand, RoyalMail's hack should be a wake up call to UK companies who think cyber defence is only a nice-to-have service.

I re-read the trading update, it is actually not that bad. The full year forecast remaining growing with positive adjusted EBIDTA. The one mistake people make, especially Lending, is to apply Buffet's theory to investing UK tech stock which he never did and will never do.

oldgold22, there is no age defiition for startup but your definition of 5 years is definitely too limiting. Darktrace IPO'd after 8 years and many reach 10 years or more.

Due to lack of profitability record and other metrics, the valuation of startup is somewhat arbitrary depend on what investors think it is worth is the funding round. However, there are many startups remain loss making, or even couldn't find product-market fit, but if they are acquired, the founders can suddenly be multi-millionaires over the night. Darktrace is in worse situation than startup, that it is now in open market and can be shorted. However, I expect Darktrace, like a startup, to be acquired for above 500p. There are a few acquisition examples in the past year. I do not afraid Darktrace will go bankrupt like crypto exchanges as they have good product and tech which be of interest to bigger companies. However, the SP makes me uncomfortable too.

Why do I talk about startup? I once worked for a startup, it nearly gone bankrupt, and I quit. A few years later, I got a call from the founder telling me the company is sold and I'll be getting money for my shares. Well, I have now lost all those money in Darktrace, plus all from crypto years ago. Sigh.... but I hope history can repeat itself and a company will one day come and buy up Darktrace. Even if this happen, it will just be tiny profit or just barely breakeven, still, better than the massive loss I'm sitting now.

A startup may not be making money but may still fetch the investors a good return when it is exits (IPO'ed or acquired).
Although being a public company, Darktrace is just like a startup albeit a bigger one. At the end of the day, its true valuation will be revealed when it is acquired. Until then, I see only bear in the share price.

as title.