So it begins3 Dec 2019 08:36
Following the sale of Tax Systems, we now have two public company investments remaining in our portfolio; AD4 and IDE, both of which have experienced turbulent times over the past few years. However, following our involvement within these businesses we continue to believe they will be returned to a level of trading profitability that will allow MXC to exit and recover the lost value. Significant progress has been made within both businesses in that regard.
In August this year, AD4 announced the proposed acquisition of Cloudcoco Limited ("CloudCoCo") alongside the proposed sale of the loan notes held by Business Growth Fund plc ("BGF") to MXC. CloudCoCo is a business that was founded by certain former sales directors of Redcentric plc with whom MXC worked closely whilst a shareholder in Redcentric plc. At the time of creating CloudCoCo, its founders approached MXC to become a shareholder because they believed that we could add value to their business and help them navigate through the minefield of growing a company from inception. This is what the founders of MXC had done themselves several times before, with successful exits.
Just prior to completion of the acquisition of CloudCoCo by AD4 (the "Acquisition"), we sold our initial investment in CloudCoCo to the incoming CEO of AD4 in order that he had a more meaningful stake in the enlarged group going forward. We remain a significant shareholder in the enlarged business, with a shareholding that currently stands at 15.2%. As a further show of our support for the enlarged business, we waived our warrants in AD4. As mentioned above, we have also enabled AD4 to restructure their debt, with MXC purchasing £3.5 million of the £5.0 million loan notes in AD4 which were held by BGF, and BGF cancelling the remaining £1.5 million loan notes they held. This means that the enlarged group has a lower level of debt going forward, with a longer period before repayment, as the terms of the loan notes were revised so that the term was extended to 2024. The team at CloudCoCo has a proven pedigree in sales and business development and could see that, despite the challenges of getting the AD4 business back on track, there was latent value in the company. I have no doubt that over time they will succeed and we are confident that this business is now in good hands.
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