Member Info for Globex

Translation Ingenuity is doing well because it's an expertly crafted parasite, the host might be f*cked in the process but don't worry about that

The bottom line way to look at the company is it being mostly being a vehicle to generate cash through placings.

In last 2 years alone they've raised: £5.6m (August 23) + £9.9m (March 24) + £7m (Jan 25).

Based on that you can almost set your calendar on when the next one is coming.

That's money that might as well have been set on fire because it is not commercially viable and cannot sustain itself very simply because the revenue is too low and overheads too high. It is no longer a startup, it's been going for almost 20 years now. If it can't make money at this stage, the most honest thing they could do is shut the doors, but they won't as long as shareholders continue to endlessly support these placings.

Agree that THG should not touch RevB with a bargepole given the debt and bargain bucket brand positioning.

It's a non-zero risk to watch for though as links include Revb being floated by Zeus at time John Goold was at helm and Moulding himself - at least at one stage - having a stake.

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-9797897/Boohoo-Hut-Group-backing-beauty-Revolution.html

Would not be at all surprised to see some token buys from certain board members in run up to AGM. Bit of a pre-vote classic to relieve shareholder pressure. Up to a certain point the economics probably make sense if it means being waved through with decent numbers to secure their salaries for another year.

He's hard to read but his approach to stakebuilding in other down on their luck retailers seems to be to either sit there quietly (Asos), or go totally nuclear (boohoo).

Who knows which side of him will unfold here, but MM rolling over and accepting Frasers Plus payment option (unlike any other non-Frasers owned company) suggests things are pretty chummy.

On the other hand it's hard to imagine MA being overly ecstatic about the sheer level of value loss he's had to bear in a short period of time, eg it was only last October he first bought in as part of that 49p placing.

Agree weather has to be a booster this year. Halfords citing stronger numbers from cycling has to be a promising sign. Plus GBP much stronger this year will help with import margins. Trading wise a lot seems to be going in the company's favour.

It actually is a bit absurd how cheap it is now based on the assets alone, priced at less than half book value! Insane really.

Agree LoveLosses and with Jcj07 today.

Even quality names in sector like Publicis and Omnicom are down over last year, ad external agency spend continues to be slashed across board, not much hope here when this was struggling even at the best of times. Then you have the S4 specific issues like Sorrell at 80 years old with no succession plan, revenue in decline, coupled with continually surprising the market to the downside with nearly every trading update for last 3 years, no wonder share price hit all time low today.

Right now this must be the most degenerate investment prospect on whole of LSE

His more recent hits include Patisserie Valerie which for shareholders went to zero, being chair of Pier Group which was recently delisted on the cheap and The Revel Collective which is still listed but has seen a share price drop of 90% in last 12 months. Pray he doesn't get on the board imo.

PI recourse is pretty limited given numbers as you say Ephemeral but AGM is biggie. Will any of the IIs go rogue? Not on the evidence we've seen so far, but surely even their saintly patience must be severely tested at this stage with the absolute rout management have overseen.

Voting wise, aside from the obvious to go against, Sue Farr another to keep an eye on. Her role is supposed to include scrutinizing any conflict of interest and on that front she's currently performing a bit of a kamikaze mission regarding her future prospects. I don't know if there are any unseen sweeteners in it for her, but you do wonder what on earth she's thinking, even as a bit of lightweight, torching her CV like this.

Leases need looking at too, not all of them transferred to Ingenuity so double whammy of MM being major creditor here too. We know at least one is for a term in region of "18-24 years", absolute insanity. Depending on when that started MM may well be in his 70s by then, sorted income for life at least. They took on so much space in annual report they say they are now having to sublet space they took on, and ask MM's Propco permission for that. Why couldn't landlord take those units back and at same time stop charging? Why was there not break clause like you'd get in a normal commercial tenancy? At the same time they're leaving what was a thriving hotel in prime location sit empty for years on end? As someone else said the conflicts of interest here need to be forensically looked at.

Ingenuity's tentacles run that deep, beyond all the services it provides, now that it's a separate legal entity it's effectively the plc's biggest creditor, aside from existing RCF/term loan providers. When you couple this with MM's convertible notes, the plc starts to look much more vulnerable than it did say 6 months ago, before all these shenanigans began.

When you have someone running the show with a track record of financial engineering, you start to look at risk factors that might seem extreme and wouldn't apply to normal companies with decent governance. For example just taking that creditor position, means if the plc eventually did fall over, Ingenuity would have a far greater claim on the assets than regular shareholders. MM has thought of everything.

Ingenuity is more than just a supplier, it is absolutely integrated at every level. It acts as an all in one landlord, but more than that it also operates the warehouses, as well as being ecommerce operations, IT back end, all marketing/social media, order processing at every step, you name it.

Best way to track ranking and likelihood of future demotion is always official source

https://www.londonstockexchange.com/indices/ftse-250/constituents/table

Just order market cap low to high. Excluding bought out IDS it's 3rd from bottom as of now. Slugging it out with fellow peers in the official basket case category like Mobio and Ferrexpo.

Claim that big can only mean the claimant ended up in an extremely bad way - or worse. A company in this sector should be insured to the eyeballs, so either means policy was inadequate or insurers not paying because of a major policy breach. Neither scenario good. No wonder NHS ditching them. To cap it all immediate departure of CFO. So many of these Aim scandals keep happening, it's an absolute gutter.

Absolute scandal that Great John Street Hotel, why has it been shut for more than 3 years? Btw it's actually even worse than FT say as company doesn't even own the freehold, Moulding got it as part of pre-IPO property bundle. So company pays for costs but zero stake in it.

The thing about these writedowns is they're surely only just getting started. If anything they've been too conservative but of course it's in their interests to juice up some of those legacy valuations as without them there's not much else left, now the hard assets have been stripped away. By way of example that absolute clown paid £275m for Cult Beauty alone. Comparing that single acquisition to market cap of whole company today just about sums it up.

One thing that does make me laugh is how creative some of Moulding's excuses have got. This time around Q1s he talks about tough comparison with Easter in Q1 last year that much you'd think this was an Easter egg company. He's even resorted to talking about having one less day this time around, with this year not being a leap year. The David Brent of plcs.

So much financial engineering to wade through, even the F1 sponsorship been swept under a fiscal carpet.

"The Group entered into a sponsorship agreement in 2023 with Williams racing which has not delivered the expected commercial returns, as such, this has been identified as an onerous contract. "

Cost of onerous contracts given as £7m+. But don't worry, for our 7 million Moulding got to put up a good Instagram photo of himself hanging out in the paddocks on company money. What a total t*t.

Putting aside the stuff they have no control over, what I've come to realise is management simply not proactive enough. The messaging has now become a bit hopeless, like they're endlessly waiting for a situation to improve when it might never happen. They really should act with a bit more urgency, if these outflows carry on indefinitely, eventually the whole thing falls over.

They could easily pivot the model, diversify, do something/anything differently. It's a case of adapt or die. eg they could try and expand into wealth management - use the Schroders model, even passive management, increase fixed income offerings while interest rates high, etc, tons they could look at. Has to be better than current strategy which seems to be a case of sitting there expecting different results while always doing the same thing.