Gordon Stein, CFO of CleanTech Lithium, explains why CTL acquired the 23 Laguna Verde licenses. Watch the video here.
I've really liked Jose in all of the CME events so I'm happy to trust that he is making the right calls
Ultimately Asos needs to make headway in the US. Their premier offering has created a moat for the UK but this isn't fully up to starch in the US (although recently updated)
A revised womenswear offering and a greater focus of US i think is what will kick asos into teh next tier
I've said before asos would be amazing if they had boohoo's marketing sparkle!
Hopefully a new US CEO and a US focused product head will be the desired candidates. Jose is also an international hire
Well I know it’s not investment banking or CF or your answer wouldn’t have been what it was. Having faith or thinking there’s a point to stats you could be an auditor?
If you want to know how much an auditor is worth in this type of deal then next time you’re involved look at the fees
I may be right or I may be wrong? Sorry. I’ve done this for a living. It’s how it’s done
If you’re buying a business which is 25% growth annually then 3/4 months is already old news. Why would anyone take a view on how good a company is based on stuff that happened 4 months ago when the 4 months to today might be a lot better or worse
The point you make re everyone has different agendas is why companies report Adj EBITDA as that’s a proxy for your cash generation pre capital structure (as once you own it you fund it how you want)
Stats aren’t useful for DD at all tbh as so many of the adjustments aren’t cash. And especially if you’re PE you care about cash as that’s how you work out the funding and returns
The YE just gone and the audited numbers won’t be here until May/ June? At that point you’ve had 5 months pass since the stats
No one does due diligence on annual accounts
The data and period is far too out of date. You run DD off management accounts as you’ll want it as recent as you can get it
You’ll run a rec back to stat figures but if they aren’t around you aren’t waiting for them
Also a trade sale point doesn’t make much sense as ingenuity doesn’t even yet exist as a statutory entity and the other bits are intertwined (back end office support etc)
T4G there is no where you can say where the cost sit in boohoo’s P&L and the reason is is that they consolidate all the p&l lines so what you’re saying is again stuff you’d like to think but can’t substantiate
What a listed business does do is tell you what they spend money on and the big projects. That’s why you can tell where the money was spent as every year in the annual report they tell you. And I copied it all out for you! There is no spend on data and AI. If there was to a material extent they would have to tell you. Asos do. Moonpig do. THG do. As it’s a material spend. Boohoo’s spend isn’t on these areas. Search and read the marketing spend. It’s not on data heads. So verify your waffle before you start making up more stuff!
I’m not saying they aren’t run by marketing or whoever I’m saying there isn’t even the spend you are saying. Again where are these guys? They aren’t in the manchester head office as I can walk past and see!
“ data lake but never gone through with it because our data is complex”. This is when a company is crap with data and why boohoo has only just done it (it’s also why ingenuity is a good idea) as companies with lots of legacy system just put off doing what best in class providers are doing. And then just have lots of inefficiency and cost. It’s like lloyds bank vs monzo. Lloyds systems work but at an insanely higher cost and slower speed. So great example for me Wolf
T4G just missing out and not answering any of my points. Just listing software isn’t an answer
- where are these people?
- why is there no personalised offering from all this data? Actually what is it the data is doing then?
- if material why never mentioned?
- why would data be of use if never in real time (until Sep-21)
- why now sort out a data lake if it was amazing before?
- why do all these other tech businesses who are best in class all not just buy off the shelf salesforce?
Answer something rather than trying to condescending. But you won’t as you can’t answer these
“ so arguably who cares if they've got a fancy database or analytic” ermmmm Richie the answer would be the CEO. This was pillar 4 of the growth strategy in Sep-21 telling us that now they have stable and real time data they can start to use it for growth (hence why I know what T4G is saying is rubbish as the CEO told us himself in Sep-21 that before this the data wasn’t even real time!)
Do any of you listen to the investor update or know this business?
Mulletman that’s not right. Someone would buy them as the takeover rules have “tag and drag” rules
Meaning if someone get control of a certain amount (think 75%) they can force the others to sell for price (usually driven by a formula)
This is just throwing mud article. The bit that annoys me the most is the commerce comment
“Don’t know how much of this is from external clients or THG own brands”. Yes we do! It’s all external clients! 1) as we were told that at the CME ingenuity day and 2) as basic accounting means all intercompany revenues are removed when consolidated. In accounting you can’t make profit from yourself. This is basic accounting
Also Asos has the closest platform to ingenuity. But you can see boohoo doesn’t have it as how fast is boohoo delivery to US atm? It’s 10 days as all it’s platform is in the U.K. ingenuity is global
Asos can they get you to Japan? No
AO can they get you anywhere except U.K.? No
Would any of the above sell you use of their proprietary tech? No. They might have it but they don’t sell it
Ingenuity isn’t some magical secret sauce. It’s just it’s a global network which they have built and allowing people to trade on. But that network offers
speed (12 weeks go live and next day delivery around most of the world),
means you have 0 capex costs (bit risky building a warehouse in Japan to sell Hotel Choclate and turns out they don’t like it!),
localisation
With the internet now demand can be generated anywhere in the world in second. But then you have to wait 2months before you can get a local platform for delivery? Madness and this is why boohoo are stupid
In 12 weeks ingenuity can put you anywhere in the world so you take advantage of that opportunity
You’re an insider based on if you know information. Steve is very pivotal on strategy. Anything big happening then Steve would be very involved. He’s one of Matts inner circle. He’s not a statutory director or on the board but he’s a key player and nothing is happening without him so he would be inside IF there was something happening
However I don’t know how insider rules are impacted if the sale is forced such as collateral? I’d have to ask
Also re takeover it’s not just “add 30% based on a share price over a few months”
You have to buy votes. Atm most of the register is in at 500p or above so if anyone tried to take private at 250p it would get voted down as those holders wouldn’t get their return and are seeing the long term value
When you look at a take private you have to know the buy in average of all the big funds and this is what investment banks advise on
Agree he’s sold due to margin call
You’re an insider based on knowledge not position. If you’re the cleaner at a business and you know they are selling a majority division and you know details of that you’re inside
And they keep a register of everyone inside
So Steve had a loan against his shares. Clearly the price has fallen and he has had to sell
But in the RNS where he has the loan issued it is total 3,926,161 shares as pledge
Yet today he sold 6,926,161 so on the nose 3m more
What you think of this or an error?
Also it’s a bloody good job Matt cleared the charge off his shares or Barclays might own 22% of this now!
He’s PCA with Matt so would be locked up. Also he does all the talking for the investor calls and is a key strategy man. If he knew something great as about to happen he wouldn’t be selling
Hopefully this is just as he took part of that loan and bought a big house etc and needs cash but otherwise why would he be selling down here
We want Steve to have £8m in the game
.....has sold most of his shares
I wonder if he is out the door? I like him though. He does most of the chatting on the analyst calls
Also this confirms there no material things happening behind the scenes or he wouldn't be able to sell
Because he’s stumped. He thought it was just the tech. When ingenuity is the marriage of tech, physical assets and content with speed and global reach
Get another example of anyone who can do all that end-to-end and in 12 weeks
@wolf - "spend on it projects and data doesn’t have to go through Capex and the balance sheet" agree and that's why i cut out all of the P&L narrative as well. So when the baord are saying "we have spent on technoilogy and this is why" I listed all those exercises that they spent the money and time on
"Your basis seems to be that that it’s not happening because BH haven’t mentioned it on an investor call and ASOS have" - no my basis was that I pulled out all the narrative of technology spend since 2016. Also the CEO told you in Sep-21 that they have only just built a data lake (it's data extraction 101)
@T4G - apart from a cruddy article and you saying you went on a interview once there is nothing to support what you're saying re boohoo's data
I can tell you asos's is better and give examples such as go on the app and the items you see are curated for you. PLT can't do this. It's just "what's new"
Boohoo didn't have a data lake so how on earth were they doing anything in data before? You've never answered that
Asos have all these tech guys - so do THG and so do Moonpig. All these tech businesses have data teams in the hundreds and where are boohoo's? I mean where would they even be? The Manchester office is tiny and the top 2 floors are for modelling and then buying so you couldn't have more than 20/ 30 tops if the rest were just data analysts
"You clearly have never seen how sales force is configured for its individual clients" - so please tell me why asos, THG and moonpig have 100's of these guys yet boohoo got this for jsut a salesforce fee? The board of all these guys should be fired if it was that easy! It's not just having the data it's having all the heads to read it and make it useful
https://www.economy-ni.gov.uk/news/asos-create-over-180-jobs-northern-ireland-new-tech-hub - 184 being added
Where are boohoo's heads on this? They aren't in Manchester
I mean listen (and please do) to THE CEO of the business JL. At the sep-21 he says that the upgrade to the data lake is now the first time that they can have data and reporting in real time! I mean come on! Asos have had that years!
"you don't recruit a Crm and retention function without data" - a CRM is just basic contact info. Does it know preferred size or suggest this to customer? No. Does it curate the products they see? No Does it tier when a customer gets an app notification based on when they most often open app? No (I get asos notifications at different times to gf)
So why not tell us - where these data analyst are? Why they have never been a material part of IT spend (since 2016)? Why everyone else has 100's of them? How on earth the data was useful when not in real time or in a data lake?
I fully understand the power in data and that's why I'm saying it's annoying that there has been huge underspend here! I want more spend and heads in this area
It's a derivative as in a derivative in the accounting world. It's not a derivative as in "I want to create a product to short the housing market and someone take the other side of the bet" and theres an active market for that
"THG has said so in their accounts" - as above
"and now....the market value must be less than the price potentially paid by SBM" - depends on the model used to value it and why the share price isn't relevant. The option is a right to buy shares in the future. the "value" of that asset (as it is none publicly traded) is up to both parties to view
At THG's half view, softbank re-visitied their model and compared the performance at that date to the performance at option sign date and the business had overperformed. So update the model and they think they are in the model
The other side of the bet is you and I as THG shareholders. Softbank (at THG's half view) viewed the deal as even better value. That value gain to them is our theoretical loss
"and I still think "someone" is on the other side of that Option, shorting the share as a hedge against the Derivative" - we are the other side. As we are selling the stake in ingenuity and they are buying it. There was a value agreed and now softbank think that value has gone up. Suggesting we sold it too cheap. So they gained and we lost in equal measure
The CFO explains this at the video half year. It's an equal charge to what softbank has it it's accounts. We are the other side
Short answer poker
No a call option in this regard is just a promise to buy shares at a point in time
It’s not a hedge tool
The loss THG saw last year on the option was as SoftBank saw a gain. Ie their investors had seen an improvement in the value of their deal and therefore that’s at a non cash loss to us
Also the cost of the option was just legal fees setting it up