Member Info for Dartron

What are the other 2 tips?

As much as the results were ok, there is no urgency to take these shorts in. General market liquidity provides net outflows so why chase price? AT has low chance of a bid, due to debt, no levers to pull to fight against shorts like buy backs or dividends (or even M&A). The shorts will see this as relatively low risk, and will also still feel that AT is on the back foot (operationally given M&A integration, debt reduction and macro). Oil price not looking to favourable either. The days of £3.00 may be gone, but I don't see it rerating to anywhere Berenberg's target.

The NCC trade I mentioned has more urgency, with a £70M share buy back announced. That is real attrition for short sellers. 16% of mcap being bought back over next 12 months. Price is not going lower. Risk increases, cost of capital bytes. Not a tip, but it follows on from my last post, if your interested in how and when shorts exit.

Its possible some shorts may increase or unload at this level, just because mean reversion is a valid trade. The AT results are good, but there is not an actual hurry to cover here, hence my sell out. If you recall we broke £4 last time a short exited, and went back to near £3. In summary, its not a binary event that plays out over 1 week.

Love a good GGG r@nt

Yeah chart shows someone has been buying this for a few days. I agree could be M&A

Tailed my stop up, and sold out at £4.20 this morning. Looking for a retrace now, but meanwhile NCC is a much better short squeeze set. DYOR.

£70M (2 brokers, whole of 2026 most likely) = 16% of company at current mcap.

PLUS 4.6% short interest. - so your up to a near 20% buy back this year.

Average volume looks about 1m per day, so buy back should have meaningful effect.

Should start any day now, looks like desperate last attempt to collect shares from shorts at 134p. Couldn't resist doubling up again.

Can we just get one thing straight.. This isnt a car for sale, pinned up in the local post office. You could probably count on one hand the number of parties able to buy this, and I mean from an operational POV, not financial. We already know Mediclinic are sellers (according to Mills) so that doesnt leave many other buyers. The notion that some unknown party will throw their hat in the ring for this is ridiculous. The sky news article was also ridiculous. Rothchild's who are handling the sale, clearly have to have some time scales to work to, but in my view if there are any buyers, they will already have been in talks over the last 12 months. The time scale for this was always going to be around 6 months from the original announcement (September). Therefore we are nearer the end than the start, but realistically nothing was ever going to happen on the 20th, and this is also verified by Spire not making an announcement that the date was important. I can understand why traders would exit today, if capital may be tied up for another 2 months or so. Its one to to put on the back bench, and I think there is a strong likely hood patient capital buys the proverbial £1 for 50p set up.

Yeah, and the share price is disappointing TBH. I think they mentioned on the investor meet they might address the SP next FY year, and I guess if they know Otus are selling they are not in a hurry to provide liquidity to them, but none the less a decent business like this, its not a great look when no one wants to support the share price - no institutions, and the CEO bought 500 shares a year ago. I said it before, but I would like them to take this back private. Just no point in it being listed / no point in being invested. CEO holds a blocking stake, so probably explains some of the lack of interest. At nearly £1m to be listed, they could put the money to way better use - and so could I with my capital.

Harwood still says over 300p in the recent vox market interview. I would be happy with 250p personally, my ave is little over £2, but I have been here over a year.

Their shoes are awful, in a world where people want branded foot ware. If you want cheap crap, you buy it on Shien. Cant see how SZ will continue. Its a good comparison to Card factory.. SZ, completely stuck. What else can they do? CF, buying acquisitions, growing their offering, multiple geographies.

Just looked -18% on the day and now 25M mcap.

Added some CARD to one of my accounts today. Its primarily for income, so 8% yield and likely capital growth is all I need to think about. Though I do think Card can make a better go of funky pigeon than WH smith did.

Sold my PRV. Realised a 20% gain on a sizable position over 6 months. My thesis played out which was price would rise due to Giorgio buying and Saba short. Have too many small caps, and wanted to rotate in to larger caps to continue catching the Ftse bounce. Talked it through a lot with AI, may not see an offer soon from Giorgio. He effectively has a blocking stake and no real reason to buy the rest. Of coarse, he may well do, now I have sold out. Good luck holders.

Because in that scenario, a holder crossing 30% would have to offer the highest price that he paid in the last 12 months. I assume this would be more than they need or want to offer. So better to wait for the 12 months to lapse - JSE is not going any where, and there is no threat as they are blocking holders. So they can run the clock down. It might even make sense to wait for around 2 years, if Trump really wants cheap oil. Perhaps the plan was never to buy JSE outright, but rather engineer an exit for themselves. As I say, nobody could for see the macro. If there is to be no sale, perhaps they will push for shareholder returns, again buy backs wont work as it will push them over 30%. Perhaps a dividend is the best out come in the near term.

RunThose, Mills has over committed IMO. He has used some of his investment trusts which have no business investing here, such as North American Smaller Companies, in order to get his stake to what 3% (from memory). I agree that there is value to be had here, and I remember that interview, but I don't think he is in the driving seat here. He needs this to work as much as the rest of us with large sums invested here. The stake more likely allows him to participate round the table, and possibly use some of his contacts to facilitate a good outcome. He is described as the adult in the room, according to chat GPT. Anyway, what intrigues me is that his investment trust Achilles is co run by Robert Naylor. They seem to do a lot with property, i.e. Urban Logistics (SHED) TO by London metric. So Im wondering if they might be the wild card, that rather than finds a outright buyer, manages to find someone to take the property book only. This still unlocks value for share holders, and is another avenue to consider. In that case a deal might be done with paper from the purchasing REIT. I ran this past GPT, not that likely, but also not impossible. It mentioned a new vehicle for healthcare infrastructure (forgot the name) not public listed yet. The other candidate would have been PHP, but they dont have the funds due to the Assura acq, I would think. GPT said if that scenario played out, it would as likely be a sovereign fund or foreign REIT. It would still be an exit for us, we just need the value unlocked. It doesnt really matter who or how.

Zanab, I disagree. The reality is that boards do not have full control over the share price, it is the market that decides the price. In this environment of small caps derating, uk economy looking Shakey, fears over the budget, IHT relief... the share price performance of card is quite a lot out of their hands.

Regards your rant about the board: Card Factory went into the pandemic with a highly operational, store-heavy model, thin margins and Leverage that mattered if trading went wrong. They then oversaw a period that included: COVID shutdowns, Severe UK retail cost inflation, Wage hikes, Energy spikes, Freight and sourcing disruption. And yet EBITDA recovery was achieved - Fact. EBITDA collapsed during COVID (as expected), then recovered materially. This wasn’t passive - cost base was reset, Store economics were re-worked, Margin discipline improved. Executive incentives are explicitly tied to EBITDA and cash metrics, so the recovery is not subjective — it is formally recognised by the remuneration framework. If EBITDA hadn’t recovered, LTIPs would not have vested. Those that say the board have the wrong strategy, have you took a step back? this is a business that sells greetings cards. The only strategy they need is to stay relevant, which they achieving in my view. Yes they have invested in a few things along the way, that's part of the equity, not lost capital. To my knowledge they have not written them down. The fund Teleios, just doing what professional investors do, which may cover a multitude of reasons, probably incomprehensible to you, given the quality of your post.

Richard Griffiths showing on the 8.3's with almost 3%. Very bullish, and another 3% pushing for a sale.

Large volume at end of day, would have thought if there was a seller, they would be cleared out now:

I wonder if Barclays will be flat tomorrow.

08-Jan-26 17:11:31 171.171 -4,740,000 Unknown* 172.80 173.20 -8m O

08-Jan-26 17:11:31 171.171 4,740,000 Sell* 172.80 173.20 8m O

08-Jan-26 17:10:52 171.171 -4,740,000 Unknown* 172.80 173.20 -8m O

08-Jan-26 17:10:52 171.171 4,740,000 Sell* 172.80 173.20 8m O

08-Jan-26 16:57:01 171.171 -4,740,000 Unknown* 172.80 173.20 -8m O

08-Jan-26 16:57:01 171.171 4,740,000 Sell* 172.80 173.20 8m O

08-Jan-26 16:57:01 171.0171 -4,740,000 Unknown* 172.80 173.20 -8m O

08-Jan-26 17:06:08 173.40 15,000 Unknown* 172.80 173.20 26.01k O

08-Jan-26 16:57:01 171.0171 4,740,000 Sell* 172.80 173.20 8m O

Early stage funding? Come again!

The company has lost £32m+ cumulatively since inception. That’s not “one bad year”. That’s structural loss-making.

Every year they lose money, retained earnings go more negative → equity gets dragged down.

Sisteract is right about the management knowing how to play the Aim game. Anyone else playing is a mug punter unfortunately.

And also - hypothetically - It might be quite easy to buy 5% of this company. While day to day liquidity may be poor, I bet if you rang a decent broker he could find someone who would be more than happy to get out with 'something left'. Its literally going to zero this one, bet they do that and buy the IP from the administrators. One last final FU to share holders.

I think it’s worth paying close attention to what’s happened at Auction Technology Group (ATG), because the parallels with YouGov are pretty striking.

Both are asset-light, “platform” businesses. Both suffered from the same market narrative: “the platform doesn’t really make money”, “is the moat real?”, “is this just a services business in disguise?” Meanwhile, shorts leaned hard into that narrative and crushed the share price — ATG from ~£10 to ~£3. Sound familiar?

Fast-forward, and ATG has now received multiple offers from the same large shareholder, with the board arguing the bid undervalues the business. That’s a pretty textbook outcome for an AIM name that’s been de-rated far beyond what its underlying assets and cash-generation justify.

Which brings me to YouGov.

The market has allowed YouGov to fall to a level where a buyer could realistically see immediate upside simply by taking it private. I held throughout 2025 in anticipation of a bid, but if anything I think the odds have increased rather than faded — especially with most large investment banks now forecasting a pick-up in M&A activity this year.

The key point is this: what public AIM markets struggle with, private equity often loves.

What PE sees (that AIM doesn’t):

Cost base can be tightened off-market

Pricing power can be pushed quietly

Long-term product investment without quarterly tantrums

Bolt-on acquisitions using cheap debt

Shorts removed instantly by a bid

ATG has already shown this model works perfectly on AIM.

I’m not saying a bid for YouGov is imminent. But when you look at the valuation, the business quality, and the ATG precedent, it’s hard to argue that YouGov isn’t now firmly in credible takeover territory — arguably more so than at any point over the last year.