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You would have around 12+m shares to fight for, from passive funds even grabbing 3-4m of those over a week would help massively. Excemption can be granted but would have to prove you weren't manipulating price.

Announcement of demotion would be on 18 Feb 2026, implimented 23/3/26 So Wednesday could be volatile. It is such an opportunity to cannibalise the share count. I think short term this will look horrendous, but its a billion pound business.

Using RCF to finance 40m at 6.75% interest buys 9.5m shares currently earning £12.5m net adj profit. A brilliant use of cash as the company could pay that back in 15 weeks

I think Ziff Davis is an American version of Future

P/E bottom feeders should be the backstop. I was looking at the Ftse small Cap at the weekend, Sheerluxe is not far off that on its own. That will double going

it US.

Can I ask if anyone would be happy with P/E offer of £6 so they could asset strip and make £9? surely a bit of patience, we were at £6 in Dec saying how cheap this stock was

I think lack of volume is emphasising the drop, and being the cheapest stock in the 250, demotion is almost inevitable, that's when a dump of shares could tank this to mid £3s briefly, this uncertainty and AI overkill not a popular buy ATM. I do think chair and board changes, the final years results being broken into 3 separate categories for clarity, Fidelity increasing its stake do suggest Go Co could be sold off.

One big opportunity that is more than likely is actually demotion from the ftse250. Although it would force a glut of passive tracker funds to sell{research says 10-13m] shares, not only would these funds be the main lenders to shorters, thus recall shares short liquidating. But large liquidity event like that would allow Future to get in and buy up a large chunk, up to 9.5m shares in a few days at around 2x EBITDA. £23m ebitda for £40m. then look to sell GoCo . once the market sniffs that we will be at a value to re enter Ftse250 Passive funds need to buy shares . The worst thing that could happen to this stock would be lowball p/e offer. New chairman would be hung for that.

These prices have PE licking their lips, cash cow, arbitrage, but unless these effectively 20 companies decide to throw the towel in at £5-6 they will want more, fair value seems to be around the £10 mark so who knows. It would certainly create a stir.

Most of these funds bought in at £10, £15 or £30, surely they are waiting for a rerate. But paying for their expenses by taking fees from shorting hedge funds.

I can't see these institutions accepting an offer at that level, or they would have started offloading already. An offer from the likes of KKR Silver lake or Bridgepoint would however probably start the most almighty short squeeze, and hopefully they would coincide that with an increase in buy back action. At the moment, at current volumes the cover time for all shorts is 4-5days. add in ANB AMro and the price would go vertical.

I can see either May 14 showing that they are on track to hit targets or an offer will cause the inevitable hopefully violent squeeze.

Google /Reddit deal allowing content to train AI 2024 $60m per year

News Corp/Symbolic, an AI journalism start up. $250m over 5 yrs

It would appear that the likes of Blackrock and Vanguard are likely the main lenders to the shorters.

The important point is that the free float of shares is very small as the vast percentage of shares are owned by funds that don't sell their positions. The buy back is only magnifying this.

The Utilization rate, ie shares on loan relative to the total lendable pool is at 96.5%. Very high,

To me the big boys control supply and demand, allowing the cheap purchase of a dying liquidity pool by Future, ultimately financing their increasing positions.

These institutions and actively managed funds have a huge wealth of knowledge in the AI field at their disposal. They aren't running for the door.

I asked AI why these firms aren't selling if AI was such a threat:

1 Brand Moats, They bet Google will prioritise High authority, human tested reviews over AI slop to maintain their own search quality.

2 Diversification away from Search, Go compare direct traffic and Tv advertising.

3Deep value and cash flow: P/E of 3.5x is normally seen as a distress valuation usually reserved for companies going bankrupt.

Future generates a massive amount of cash 150m+ a year. Institutions argue that if AI causes a slow decline in traffic over the next 10 years it will have paid its entire market cap in 3 or 4.

4 Data licencing. They are betting that eventually companies ie Google and Apple will have to buy quality data to train their models. Future has 20yrs of niche data and expert reviews. Reddit and Newscorp have already signed multi million dollar deals with Google and ChatGpt. Institutions believe Future is sitting on a data goldmine.

5 the Buyback. Institutions happy to sit as the company cannibalizes it's own shares thus increasing their stake in the remaining profits.

Starts making sense.

Aggressive buy back strategy.

CEO is basically a puppet, But chosen to run the tech heavy strategy.

All AGM resolutions are approved with such high numbers.

I'm sure they have conversations with the hedge funds, and could easily scratch the itch when they felt the need.

What is certain with 25m in buybacks remaining, we will be below or very close to 90m shares by 1/10/25

I have taken comfort from the fact the big boys own Future. I did some research into the breakdown

Top 5 holders own 35.2%

Top 10 56.7%

Top 25 79.5 expected to go up to 82% by end of 26 if they retain their positions

why concentration matters:

Voting power. Resolutions requiring 75% approval can be passed or blocked by the group of 25, they effectively control the strategy, ie buy backs, M&A, sale of GoCo

Liquidity So much stock is held by large 'sticky' institutions the daily free float relatively low, this is why small moves by hedge funds[shorting 5-6% of the stock ] can cause significant price swings.

Takeover target. It is an efficient target for private equity as they would only need to convince a small number of holders.

All these big funds have not shed their positions, I think they are all in for at least double this price, so any takeover talk would be at the £10 mark.

Very low liquidity could lead to a very big short squeeze when the time comes. I feel the big institutions are letting the shorters keep the price low, Future reduces the pot cheaply. They increase their % without adding shares.

If the buyback reduces the pot to 90m the top 20 holders increase their ownership from 79.5% to 83.7%.

Ai . reducing the share count to 90m liquidity squeeze becomes very dangerous for short sellers with few shares to cover their positions, potentially causing a rapid spike in price.

Could be fun!!!

Excuse my misinterpretation JG68.

With FCF at 10m a month , from Sept to Feb 40m + 27m cash in hand as of 1/10/25 67m

27.5m out from previous Buy backs and 4.5 this one 32m ,16m divi thats 48m with Sheerluxe 40m on credit facility @ 6.6% I imagine they are reducing that as a priority, then Buy Backs will increase, along with rectifying net debt back to 1.1x EBITDA.

I would assume they will look to up the purchases to complete by September. and probably announce a follow on in May.

JG68 however foulish I may sound, if I didn't believe in this stock I have taken the loss by now and reinvested the money elsewhere. Not sat on this chat site expecting the best days are behind us.

I think they have front loaded expenditure into H1 . since 1/10/25 27.5m of buybacks last tranche, 5m this time, Sheerluxe on revolving credit 40m and divi 16m that's 88m spent. They have a remit of 9.6m by next AGM I believe, usually more than 10% bb per year needs approval. Lets face it if the share price isn't likely to head north anytime soon, then they aren't losing out on price. They sure as hell won't scare off hedge funds with another 30-40k share a day.

I certainly bought a lot of these at £6.50 level. May not see that again before we see £2.50 but as long as there is no need to sell i'm confident i'll walk away with 50% profit some day.

Coinbase was $370 nov 21/$32 Dec 22 /$444 july 25/$150 today. It's ups and downs

Greggs is interesting though. for 6 months its traded a range of £15-17, about 10-11x earnings, while disclosed short positions have risen from 1.7 to 12.95%.

It has no buyback operating , its heartening to know Future can buy 10% of its shares, pay a 4% divi, and still have £50-60m for other things at these prices.

Working from EBITDA 2025, take out goco completely and allocate 50% of Amort/Dep. it approx 36m

What's left ? EBITDA 143m -A/D 36m -Finance 30m = 77m -tax 20m= 57m statutory = 7.1x stat and 5x Adj at 81m.

Autotrader and rightmove after large falls still trade in 15/16 P/E range. A lot of disruption built in,

The company has debt tied up until 2030. All bonds were bought by large institutions in July last year at 6.75%,surely they did due diligence on Futures prospects before committing tens of millions each.

Internally as a tech driven business with a CEO in the development field who must have an interest in the AI domain. If the threat was so great, would they not be looking at Aquisitions over buybacks and internal AI development.

I would be fascinated to here from Panmure analyst this week, his valuation seemed to revolve heavily on crystalising market value from sale of GoCo. Oh dear!

Future can buy back 9.6million shares until next AGM that will have it to 85m, anything close to 2025 results would probably have this back up to 750- 850m. £10 a share Must take my rose tinted specs off occasionally.

2.25% EBITDA sorry