Member Info for GoCPI

I'm shiite at timing the market and hence been accumulating over the past few weeks and I started buying in a bit of anger after the Q4 update. The plan is to now wait till the recovery takes hold in the sector, and an explosion upwards in the SP after the FY23 results are announced. :-) There, that was my full-blown attempt at ramping.

GLA..

"Yes, there has to be signs of change by Q2 ....everywhere would like that...Tech companies are continuing to reorganise their divisional structures , we can see by the continued big job losses since January...so hopefully that exercise will end and then a stronger focus on the year ahead can start

" If there's a decent reversal in the ad market "..yes, but I see it as being gradual and not a sudden reversal to good times"

Yes, I'm good with the above. I follow the tech sector closely ( I work in that sector) and we have holdings in the likes of NVDA. As I previously said, could S4 go back down to new lows in the coming weeks - of course, I'm not blind to the possibility that it could particularly if the commentary with YE2023 earnings release is dire, but I based my investment on my outlook that tech spending broadly close to bottoming out as recessionary concerns im the US are fading and confidence will be back up more when rates are cut. That's the bull case and you (and a few others) give us plenty to think about on the flip side too. It nevers pays to be blinkered to just one possibility. :-)

Poker - these points are broadly known to the market, and when there is a recession (and there was an ad market recession from H2 2022), the market broadly knocks down a stock price to a point where it is priced to fail. This isn't anything new and S4's SP has been put through the wringer in the past 18 to 24 months. The opportunity, for me, is to assess if the turn in that sector has arrived and if it does, how that could impact the SP of badly beaten companies. If there's a decent reversal in the ad market, it won't be the likes of Publicis or WPP or Omnicon that'll outperform, it'll be the likes of S4. That's where my chips are placed.

P.S: I have no issue with your comments on overpriced acquisitions. I have no doubt they were overpaid, prior to the ad market recession, and fair value now if they were to go try and sell them, would be a lot lower.

Mad Mouldy makes up whatever he wants. If he wanted to be transparent, all he had to do was to put out Apollo's actual bid price, after making that fake Belerion bid public - surely that would've been the 'transparent' way to go??

Yep, 13th and the 15th are the par 5s at Augusta. I think Domboy is confusing TPC Sawgrass for Augusta. ;-)

Good start to the day and good to see a move off the 60p bottom of the trading range we're stuck in.

It's not that they're losing clients, they've lost revenues from these clients in 2023 as they pulled back their ad spend because of recessionary concerns in the US. There's a big difference. The whole Gen AI disrupting Ad market theme has been well played out in the market and is partly why S4's stock price is where it is now. If it turns out that 2023 was indeed a blip, and my bet is that it is, then the rebound in both ad spend and S4's stock price will be, splendid. That's the bull case.

I think matt and many others have laid down the bear case many times over too and we can never rule that out as a big risk, but therein lies the opportunity for outsized gains if that theme doesn't play out. And we have a very seasoned management team at the helm to guide S4 through this storm - that's another positive.

"The probability of anyone buying SFOR soon is LOW .... the risk right now of buying Goodwill and Debt in a downturn is not worth taking...IMO"

This and the other points Poker made about SFOR, I agree with. This isn't an acquisition story at this time, IMO. If there are improvments noted in the economy and green shoots emerge in the digital ad spend, and if the SP doesn't move much, I'd say then this is a acquisition target. But, we're not there at this time.

Verney - Different people, different perspectives, different ego levels. It takes all types to make a market, and a message board.

One thing is for sure that they needs to be a turnaround in the US digital ad spend, and not just at the Meta, Goog, AMZN level, for there to be a re-rating here. Do I think it's undervalued at this level, I do and hence I'm buying. Could it go down lower, maybe even a lot lower, from these levels? Of course it can. Once the ad market recovers, the rebound could be sharp, but that's maybe a 2025 story?

@PokerChips - you are on spot on, IMO. Well put indeed.

JCJ - And that's why I'm not predicting that we're at the bottom for the share price. Could it go lower from here? Of course, it could until, I'd suggest FY23 results are out at the end of next month and we get commentary on how the revenues for S4 are shaping in Q1 24 and if MS is seeing better spend signs from tech companies. I suspect we may have to wait till end March to get a steer on the spend environment for S4.

Chaps - the ad market, digital in particular, is in the midst of the worst downturn since the GFC. Obviously, the stock did well from 2018 to 2021 as revenues were jumping and the high stock price facilitated multiple acquisitions. No one complained about MS when the going was good, and then of course tech spending got slammed in 2022 and got even worse in 2023, and the effects on revenue forecasts/EBITDA last year are only too obvious. Companies were quickly dropping ad spending as they were convinced a US recession was nigh - in that world, forecasting becomes arduous too and the SP is where it is.

Roll in 2024 and what we're finding is that the US is nowhere close to a recession. Tech sector broadly is doing quite well and with rate cuts on the May horizon, it isn't too farfetched to expect a decent recovery this year, probably more H2 loaded. But the market will front-run that expected growth in the coming months, IMO. Granted, the buck stops with MS, but there were unavoidable economic factors at play for him in 2023. I remain convined that he can right this ship and S4 as a company, and the stock price, will be in a good price by this time next year, irrespective of whether this drops more in the next few weeks, IMO.

Buffett is and Munger was 90+ and they still run/ran Berkshire pretty well. I can't see the issue with MS being the Exec Chairman at 78 or even 85. Just because the stock's fallen circa 95% from the bubble highs doesn't mean that now's the time to cut MS out. Losses are painful and a reason for some of you to lash out for change, but unlike shiite leaders like the CEO at THG, MS is on the ball and has his finger on the pulse of the global economy and incessantly promotes S4 to the wider market participants.

I think we've all acknowledged how shallow the UK markets are and given our bulk of revenues are from the US, there's probably a medium term case for moving the listing to the US if the stock price doesn't fully track financial improvements should they materialise in 2024.

Spot on, BrokeNSmoke.

SMS is still pretty relevant as far as I'm concerned and we need his heft in the ad world to pull us forward just as the digital ad market is turning around in 2024.

SNAP had run up from circa 9 bucks to nearly 18 in about 3 months on the back of Q3 revenue growth of 5%, with an expectation that the growth would be hotter in Q4. Q4 revenue growth was still good at 5%, but missed the whisper numbers for higher revenue growth and their Q1 revenue growth forecast was in line with Consensus, versus a guide higher similar to Meta.

Bottom line is Snap went up 100% on overly bullish expectations that didn't materialise and is giving back 30% tonight. We haven't had any such run for there to be an awful day tomorrow just because Snap didn't blow it out of the water.

"To be successful in USA, you need a high % revenue in dollar." GTC - that's not necessarily true. You need good growth and that's something that THG hasn't been capable of in the past 2 years and that's shown in the SP. The problem areas are clear and in no particular order. Till more than one of these are fixed, we're probably in a trading range.

I can't see why THG can't list on the NASDAQ. All they need to do is a reverse split, say at 1 to 5, and get the shares outstanding down. But Lazy Mouldy has no interest in putting out quarterly financials/forecasts and I doubt he'd go down that route, despite what poor Crafty constantly drum rolls on this board. ;-)

1. Lack of revenue growth

2. Plenty of FCF going to Ingenuity which can't seem to make any clear progress towards being CF positive

3. Mad Mouldy being the CEO and the myriad of governance issues at the company

4. The lack of investor base/depth at the LSE

Auson, yes indeed. Closer to home for SFOR, we also only need to look at Meta, Amazon, Goog - they're all sitting at all-time highs and their ad revenues are relatively robust. Even SNAP broke multi-quarter negative revenue growth streak in Q4, and they're very digital ad revenue dependant. The near term may be a bit painful, who knows, and the LSE lacks in investor depth unlike the US markets, but I remain confident that there will be a change in S4's outlook in next quarter or two.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/05/digital-ads-show-signs-of-rebound-as-meta-amazon-point-to-growth.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/05/snap-to-lay-off-10percent-of-global-workforce-around-500-employees.html

Unfortunately it looks like death by a thousand cuts to our holdings until either there's news on the digital ad market turning around OR there's rate cut news from the fed. Snap's revenue decline was halted in the last quarter, after quarters of ad revenue decline and that's a good green shoot. However, knowing the relative lack of depth of the UK stock market I wouldn't be surprised if we keep drifting to lower levels until there's a clear sign of rate cuts in the US - big sigh!!!

"next stage of the story- multi bag ?"

Yes, only if AH can deliver on more cost cuts and find way to grow revenues. I'm rooting for him, but we'll know in 5 weeks time.

I just spotted this old Linkedin post from 4 months ago and maybe many of you have seen this. In this post about the FCA and a director there who stood up against the media, you have a majority of Mad Mouldy's brown nosers kowtowing to what he says (like many on here, might I add) in their replies, but I can see Giles commented and so did this chap, Jamie Gallagher, who obviously holds a good chunk of shares and asks all the right questions of our MIA CEO. Maybe there's a Mad Mouldy masterplan at work that we're not privy to, but I'm not holding my breath.

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7113507526247100417/

@Giles - thanks for asking him on LinkedIn and this response from Mad Mouldy is telling. "But there’s not much point spending £15m a year in costs to be on the LSE for the directors to be the investors. Might be worth you asking the LSE and FCA what plans they have to stop the mass exodus of investors from the UK market "

Instead of him constantly complaining, he could do a lot more than just going through the motions and just talking the talk.

1. What could he do to get THG back on growth/profitability trajectory? There should then be a rerate.

2. Instead of always moaning about LSE, list THG on the NYSE or NASDAQ, either as a single company or split by divisions. OK, who'd be interested in investing in Ingenuity as a standalone entity at this time is beyond me and there's that.

3. Fix the governance issues that no one seems to like

There's no real chance that any of the above will be addressed in the near future, and only a rising economic tide can help THG's (and our) fortunes.