Member Info for janebolacha

California Bar quite open and positive on litigation funding.

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/california-state-bar-opinion-on-litigation-funding-could-have-sway

The California Bar seens to be far more positive and open to the growth of litigation funding.

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/california-state-bar-opinion-on-litigation-funding-could-have-sway

With a MC of less than £40m and, in fact, only about £20m after deducting free cash, and profits this year likely to be some way north of £10m, the present valuation is ludicrously low. To be clear, I have nothing against caution as such. However, Mark Briffa has come across as downbeat and as being braced for rather poor results in the future, rather than seeing the strong recent performance as a springboard to future growth. The market reads that does not see that as simply caution and his coments are perhaps one of the drivers of the fall in the share price. Perhaps he does not get it, that the market is, through the now very low valuation of AIR, actually passing judgement on the perception it is able to gather on him as CEO. These kinds of perceptions and situations can end up feeding on themselves, as this one seems to be doing.

This article is interesting as it seems that air freight capacity constraints are building fast. Together with the ever faster spread of the Chinese plague and signs of governments already losing control even before winter is here, AIR ought to have numerous opportunities in the coming months to pick up extra business, despite Mark Briffa's very cautious remarks a few weeks ago.

"Stefan Krauter, chief executive of cargo-partner, anticipates that the demand for charter services will remain high: “Since the beginning of the year, we have received numerous requests for full- and part-charter transports of urgently needed goods, the majority of which came from the pharmaceutical, healthcare and PPE sectors.

“In recent months, we have also noticed a growing demand from the high tech and automotive industries. In view of the expected peaks in the coming months, we advise our customers to start planning early to secure their supply chains.”

Typical cargo shipped on board of these full and part charter flights consisted not only of the expected large shipments and the seasonally contracted repetitive shipments.

“There has been an unexpectedly high amount of very time-critical shipments this year, especially during peak months. We were able to ensure immediate availability and the fastest reaction times for such emergency shipments,” explained Stefan Krauter.

Other forwarders have also been expanding their air cargo charter operations over the last few months as it appears much of the bellyhold capacity that makes up around 50% of overall cargo space will remain grounded."

https://www.aircargonews.net/business/supply-chains/cargo-partner-the-latest-forwarder-to-expand-airfreight-charter-operation/

Hochschild Mining upgraded to Buy from Hold at Panmure Gordon Panmure Gordon analyst Kieron Hodgson upgraded Hochschild Mining to Buy from Hold with a 366 GBp price target.

Read more at:
https://thefly.com/n.php?id=3176248

There will likely be many opportunities here for air cargo charter companies such as AIR:

https://theloadstar.com/air-cargo-not-ready-for-biggest-product-launch-in-history-the-vaccines/

Here you go:

"Thank you for your email.

I can confirm that these shares will remain on the AIM and will not be transferred to the US, which will be the case for all DEGIRO clients. This is the default choice with our custodial broker. "

That is really interesting. The securitisation of law claims actually makes sense in these crazy times, given the low or negative yields on so many kinds of investments now and perhaps for years to come. An asset class divorced from the normal business cycles, divorced from political shenanigans, divorced from the effects of pandemics. The zeitgeist calls for Burford, perhaps.

@Warno01:

I have just spoken to DeGiro and they have confirmed to me that my shares will remain on the Crest system.
They tell me as well that they have taken similar action in respect of all their Burford holders.
You may want to check for yourself, however. Their phone number is 00.45.89.88.62.81.
Fingers crossed that they have done everything correctly!

(Now let's see whether I can buy a few more today)

I meant they seem to have closed those phone lines "because of the virus"!

@Warno01:

They seem to have closed down their phone help lines in countries other than Netherlands.
Now, I don't know whether that means that emails to "local" email addresses are being attended to.
I mean emails to ..............co,uk or...............fr or ...........es and so on.
None of my emails have been auto-acknowledged.

I have spoken on separate days to service agents in Netherlands.
Not sure whether they are taking in the urgency now of getting this done.

Tonight I have re-sent everything to klanten@degiro.nl and finally received an auto-acknowledgement.
So they have the documents and I'll call them in the morning.
Fingers crossed.

(I prefer using CREST but don't intend really to trade BUR very much so if I have to be on the US platform, well, so be it)

I've just called them again and sent them all the relevant documents from the Burford website..
They have promised me an email to confirm my election to stay on CREST.
No sign yet of the email.

The question of whether or not different brokers continue to offer trading in Burford shares over today and tomorrow may perhaps be related to the question of settlement of transactions. I use DeGiro and settle immediately in cash when I buy shares. Since they are very low cost and since I live outside UK in any case, I'm quite happy with that. I do not have two or three days before payment becomes due. With the UK broker I used previously, I did have that short settlement period during which payment was still outstanding. It could perhaps be the intention to use that void period most brokers are now applying in order to ensure complete settlement of all transactions in Burford on AIM before the dual-listing takes effect on Monday when some of the shares concerned by those transactions may well have been transferred to the US platform. There may not be any nefarious intent on the part of those brokers. I seem to recall there were hints of something like this in the documents provided on the Burford website.

The availability on Nasdaq of Burford stock as from next Monday would actually form a great news story for Bloomberg, Fox Business, CNBC and other media. I mean the story of litigation funding, how Burford got started, who are the management, the types of cases Burford has been involved in, the greater democratisation such funding facilitates of access to Law, and so on and so on. I do hope that Jim Ballan, Head of Investor Relations, and Burford's media team are already working on this opportunity for media coverage. Chris Bogart was formerly with Warner Media, he ought to have loads of contacts in that business that he could call on.

Are there any litigation funders quoted on NYSE or Nasdaq? I know there is LexShares for people to invest in but they have entry criteria that set a high personal wealth bar to investment. There will almost certainly be a thirst among ordinary investors to get a stake in this fast-growing market, especially given the particularly litigous nature of business there over the pond. A company like Burford with clear market leadership, a decent track record over already a decade, a good pipeline of business and of unrecognised profit entitlement, strong and stable (sorry!!!!) shareholders including sovereign wealth funds, North American management based in the US, a PER of only about 10. business and results unrelated to the standard business cycle, all that ought to appeal strongly. There may be quite a few angles in Burford that might appeal to the Robinhooders, who knows, a tweet from Barstool Dave Portnoy to his millions of followers seems to drive them into a buying frenzy.

We shall see...................

Includes comment from AIR.

https://www.businessairportinternational.com/features/trip-planning-during-a-pandemic.html

Buying is possible today.
I have bought two small lots, through DeGiro.

"Thirteen commercial litigation funders from across the world have lined up to launch the first global trade association for the rapidly growing industry.

The International Legal Finance Association aims to advocate for the industry in a climate where business organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have sought to sow doubt about the benefits of third-party capital. The organization anticipates spending roughly $1 million in its first year."

https://www.law.com/americanlawyer/2020/09/08/litigation-funders-unite-to-form-global-advocacy-group/?slreturn=20200914044242

They might be dreaming of finding mugs enough to take up another century bond! LOL!

Seriously, though, the idea of petrobonds, hypothecated on their oil reserves, really ought to be very feasible.
provided there is some effective independent mechanism for enforcement.

Article from Seeking Alpha:

A lot of work done here by this writer.

"Although Mr. Market is right that there are better-performing mining companies currently operating, I believe that there are few that are better valued."

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4378716-hochschild-minings-stock-price-lags-yet-potential-remains-strong?utm_medium=email&utm_source=seeking_alpha&mail_subject=today-s-articles-on-global-investing&utm_campaign=nl-global-markets&utm_content=link-48