Member Info for JMUK26

I think you might be in denial oldbutnotwisa! She isn’t going to come out of this smelling of roses, clearly. As I said yesterday before the statement was released today, something has come to light which made her position untenable. She won’t return, and her shares will need to be sold. No way she can take it private.

I suspect that new information has come to light more likely. And not good information...

Nice to have a general update on what the businesses are up to, but that is all they have included. Nothing material to report, so not sure why they have issued this update. No statement regarding performance or whether they are currently on track to meet forecasts. Pointless really.

They are small purchases but a purchase is a purchase. There are many companies with share prices that are in decline who‘s management aren’t buying.

Performance of LCM has certainly not lived up to my expectation to date, nor performing as it advertised itself since listing. It is not deploying capital and building it's case portfolio quickly enough, or concluding cases in a timely manner. Appreciate it has little control of this so when it loses a few cases in a row like it has, it is very noticeable, and will hit end of year figures hard unless there are some successes to offset. I think its a bit unfair to suggest management have done anything dumb or insane, it's just annoying that they have lost some cases. LIT cases are large, announcements infrequent, and earnings very lumpy, but generally if the thesis is right this should - by the law of averages - turn itself around and have a string of successes to recover these recent losses. Anyone paying any attention to analyst forecasts are just plain idiots. There is no way LCM can forecast when case conclusions are going to be reached, so the analysts have no chance. All they can do is use a conservative historical average based on current investments, and case duration and over time they should be there or there abouts overall. I continue to hold, and may consider adding if it drops much lower. It really does need to start delivering though.

Finally an update! Whilst it is disappointing not to have a lucrative offer on the table, you have to give credit to the board for

not accepting anything which undervalues the business - which it appears was the case. Maybe the stall on growth last year worried them, who knows. That's not to say the acquirers won't come back in the future though. Overall a slight underperformance on the prior year, but a much bigger order book, up a substantial 130% on this time last year. That gives a strong signal that we should be back to growth this year. This announcement is not bad news in my eyes, Touchstar need to look at succession planning and focus on growth and it won't be long until a predator starts sniffing again.

Ouch, trading update this morning and only 1 trade so far all day. Lack of volume makes holding many AIM shares hard work regardless of what the company is actually doing. All numbers here look good again, except we have swung from a net cash to net debt position. Management need to explain why? Appreciate there was an acquisition but half that payment isn't due until April 2025.

Agree, yet another frustrating update. LCM just cannot get any momentum going with their performance or share price. Just when I thought things were getting ready to snowball last year we get a year of dud performance. 5-6 years of holding this now and back below where I initially invested - what a waste of time and opportunity given it is my largest holding!! I continue to think it will come good and when it does it may snowball quickly, but we need a little bit of luck with case wins / completions to start building some momentum and prove the model before we can expect a real movement in the SP. At the moment it isn't quite delivering what it advertised.

Growth is slowing due to economic climate, but they made this very clear in the last update and said to expect flat performance as per the broker targets. They have exceeded that performance, hence the SP spike. They are doing well, when others are struggling. We have just done a deal and will be working on merging it, there is little chance and little reason why they would need to chase a big deal within the next 3 months. I'm not sure what you are worrying about.

Well, what a complete and utter shambles this is. For any long term shareholders that stumped up the cash when it was required to see the product through development and testing, have been absolute **** on here. The board has watched the SP drop around 20 fold over the last few years, whilst they mess about not securing any orders whatsoever. I would much rather have seen them raise cash once or twice more to secure the first orders, and dilute me hugely, as any product success would likely see long term shareholders break even once again. Unfortunately a sale is only likely to look after the board of directors, as they will accept a measly price of a few pence on the condition that they are employed afterwards. Typical AIM.

Anyone else get the feeling that the radio silence from the board is all an attempt to get the share price down, knowing that investors will be inpatient and think there is no suitable offer? Only to then reveal a “great” offer at £1.20 and wonderful 40% gain, despite the so sitting at around £1 prior to listening to offers. Seen it all before so maybe a bit cynical.

I don't think so, it's just the market is getting bored of the managements over-promising and under-delivering. It's looking like another big fund-raise is coming, and on the basis that they have only recently done one and struggled to get a good price, this one is going to be even harder and more dilutive, hence the price drop in anticipation. Selling at anywhere near these levels is unlikely to be helpful to anyone not least the directors who have take a lot of payment in shares. They need to commercialize the product and starting making money, no more talk, no more testing, no more improvements. If the product is so good they should at least be able to start making some money now and refine later. This year is make or break.

Ouch, what a drop!

Can't say it's not really deserved through. Management have continually promised commercialization for over 2 years now and repeatedly failed, stating multiple engineering upgrades and never ending testing. The latest update suggests the product still isn't fully developed and revenue isn't starting to flow anytime soon, hence another big fund raise coming up. If I hadn't already lost so much on this one, I'd be out at this point as I'm not confident they will make this work. May as well sit tight and hope for the best now though!

It's a small dividend, but losing a chunk of it to un-redeemable tax each year is effectively just eroding my shareholding a small amount each year. It's a poor use of capital and buy-backs make much more sense given the London listing. The directors state it is to attract institutional investment, but a 1-2% dividend yield where you lose a good chunk to tax isn't going to appeal to anyone, if anything it's a negative unless you live in Australia. I think they are a good company but 5 years of holding has left me with little to show for my long term thinking and patience with the SP at around the same levels it was shortly after listing. I hope I am eventually rewarded, but just doesn't seem to be an appreciated company.

As usual, after good news, the SP is once again drifting back down to around the £1 mark. This company just cannot get any momentum in the share price. I see that they disappointingly announced another dividend which will be highly taxed for us UK residents. It's such a selfish move given they decided to list in the UK, why not just do the buy-backs.

Litigators fee is an approximate figure for now as it is unclear in the RNS's what it will be. I have allowed around 5x current invested capital. May go higher depending on Poland playing ball.

Management are due a 6% bonus, and an additional 3% bonus for key legal advisers. If this is taken as a percentage of the full award, then we are talking around £23m (which would be a bit naughty, so worst case). More likely their bonus will be taken after deduction of costs, so hopefully a smaller figure.

Well pointed out. The more Poland delay the better for us ultimately. Still a lot of upside here. Investors seem to be pricing in a lot of risk.

252m award

-50m litigators cost

-23m management fee

-10m tax (not management say "if any")

-123m Current market cap

=46m (or 37% upside from here to get adjust market cap to expected cash in hand).

The current assets are not even included.

The current SP is priced with allowance of a 20% haircut to the award.

People could have traded out a month ago for the same price without this crazy spread though? I think it will have to rise up again to equate market cap to cash in hand once things are a little clearer.

I'm with you Mark - completely baffled. We are now back at the SP we were at BEFORE the announcement that we have been awarded £252m. I'm a long term holder here and whilst the award was not as much as I was hoping for, it is still a huge amount of money and what we receive will be well in excess of the current market cap. Strange reaction and probably time for a top-up. I anyone else can shed any light it would be appreciated, but I think its just a very strange market at the moment, and once it started going down, people snatch and sell whatever holding they have left as they don't want to keep waiting.