If you would like to ask our webinar guest speakers from Blue Whale Growth Fund, Taseko Mines, Kavango Resources and CQS Natural Resources fund a question please submit them here.
Enfin - " I recommend everyone concerned should write to FTI, and Cenkos and Panmure asking for some « guidance » and information."
I really don't know what for except to grumble - the company knows what's going on and will know the underlying cause - they are not allowed to intervene to push up the SP but they can best serve us by making a resounding success of the cloud implementation and other initiatives - that's all I wat from then now, not consolation.
Steve raised the prospect that we have not done with the roll of new client yet this year - some entities try to spend budgets within a financial year or they don't get money next year - especially public sector - so maybe the year will end on a positive.
Remember what's happening to the SP is no longer related to operations, that's why I think all the scare tactics are ridiculous.
stew200 - there may well be a large seller, but I don't think they are driving this; it's some entity that most likely has a large short position and as I've made clear the nature of the trades suggests to me that entity is also responsible for may of the buys (timings are very suspect IMO). It's a confidence sapping exercise that the MM's gladly assist which is bearing dividends - we certainly have sellers that help it along.
It looks such an easy exercise to me, sell a couple of Million and Buy them back as the opportunity arises to balance the books and help the SP down over many sessions - same thing as pre-selling placing shares you expect to acquire later.
Whatever the mechanism, the root cause is lack of buyers, not sellers, there'll always be sellers - that's why Steve did the presentation - to attract some new blood.
stew200 - many of us have years or decades of experience in investing, but you can't assume anything, everything I suggest is based on experience but I may be wrong. However, something is amiss here, I'm certain it's not a placing, but IMO revolves around confidence - that is the key as potential investors (not us) need to be attracted to buy and keep buying - that needs confidence not only in the company plans buy also that the SP is stable - the underlying value of the business has stopped being a factor except to raise more fears there's something fundamentally wrong.
I'm convinced it will turn around but in the meantime it's no pleasure - don't be drawn in with the scaremongers though.
Give us a break - he's just done a presentation and could not have done that if a placing was planned. The consequences are deceiving the market - they said the capital issue was the reason they couldn't talk to the market prior to the placing.
If I was CEO and you asked me if there was going to be another placing I would not answer or be very careful what I said as he is probably doing - how can he answer, no company can ever confirm a capital raise will not be required, even the best of the FTSE companies.
All he can say is that they are financed for the Short/Medium/Long term or some other general answer - WHICH HE HAS ALREADY DONE.
If looks like a naive fishing expedition to gain financial advantage or a stick to beat the company with - try asking that question to RR. or SAGA and other big companies - you'll get a generic answer or no answer.
Rollercoaster89 - it's obvious you like a few others feigning concern - if it's a red flag why did you watch the webinar that doesn't make sense unless merely to pick fault and why ask a question about insider information again to allow you a negative narrative and why post now as you are never going to invest.
It's clear what your agenda is!!
Incidentally for everyone, The guy running the session said there were a large number of questions and said maybe Steve would answer them afterwards - I suppose he might answer the sensible ones but he has got a critical job to undertake as priority - there were 200 attendees for the event.
AFTER THE PLACING THE COMPANY SAID IT HAD THE CAPITAL FOR IT'S MEDIUM TERM PLANS (I take that as 2 to 3 years, not a few weeks).
There is an attempt to destroy any remaining confidence here, including slapping in sales and buys at under prevailing prices as has happened today to walk the SP down - just use your common sense, a game is being played and anyone can suggest anything however outlandish.
Ocelot77 - We can all take from it what we wish but IMO it was an improved message from the last presentation - with new information and explanation, not merely a more polished performance.
If you were expecting more or a different message, that's OK, I agree they made significant mistakes, especially WRT Meetingzone but I think the current strategy is very good.
Loopup still have Cisco sales, but surely he was talking about Loopup cloud comms not just selling Cisco products via MeetingZone.
Pokerchips - I agree it will take months - I was merely pointing out that the day to day stuff is often contrived and should be ignored - I many investor do worry and I decided to post before one of the trolls came out with a gem like " the market didn't like the presentation" or similar.
The presentation laid out what distinguishes the company and signals the direction of travel for the company, so achieved all we could expect - like all the other presenters he demonstrated a belief that Loopup are special and explained why.
Potential investors can take it or leave it, but at least we now know the CEO's views (I don't feel we did before).
The early sales this morning are IMO most likely from the same entity(ies) that are trying to paint a negative picture and slap down enthusiasm - they know how to do battle and when to cool things down.
Any potential investors from the meeting will do research and decide action - so discouraging them is a logical goal. It will be in the coming weeks that the reaction will become clear - not today.
IMO there is a game going on (battle) and so far we have been losing, lets hope that marks a turnaround, IMO we should make no mistake there are enemies at work here, not just trolls on the BB.
Another takeaway from the presentation - no hint of or reason for a capital raise, all is going according to plan - scaremongering about this was used to beat us with a few session ago.
JammmyC - so you are not going to buy shares, so why not dig into research on the others and simply ignore this?
The audio was not terrific when Steve was adjusting his headset but every word was clear - how does it reflect on Loopup products - it was Via Zoom.
WRT what really matters "what he said" it was very positive.
i.e.
Still time for more 2021 contracts
2022 to be materially better.
Existing business still generating cash.
Clearer/new market opportunities for the recent company acquired. Looks very promising.
Partnerships seen as a major revenue opportunity
Rolling out Cisco solution next year (that's new). New revenue stream
Steve see a new breed of Telecoms providers/consolidators developing with Lookup hoping to be part of it. That was a very bold statement at the end
etc
Very positive messaging with better body language from Steve and clearer sense of purpose than previous efforts.
I was pleased, but you give it the swerve by all means and best of luck with what you eventually buy.
RichWG - in the company description they describe themselves as rapidly expanding so there is a reason for the new staff and the jobs themselves paint a picture of new work to deal with - junior sales / marketing roles and porting coordinators in multiple jurisdictions.
I recall one of the IT development advertisements talked of developing the customer support portal - that's new work.
Pokerchips - who cares, if a new bunch of shareholders (flippers) saw us up to 26p then buggered off, by then some new flippers or longer term investors can take their place if the company produces the goods.
Any buyer is a good one IMO, surely nothing is worse than no buyers at all, we need new blood.
smacks - thanks for reminding us, it is noteworthy what Mello are all about, they say they are:
"Mello is an open community of serious and high net worth private investors. We run investor events which bring together investors and quality listed companies."
The other sponsor targets Institutions - so all bases are covered.
We are fielding 2 senior directors , so I reckon there is a good chance of an update on Monday or Tuesday.
More going through, another 50000 buy.
Directors showing a bit of willing may be!
They are going slowly and very obviously so inviting anyone to jump in. Nice change for a Friday.
150000 in buy gone through without a sell response in the last hour!
That's a change. Buy's usually get slapped down, are they our of ammunition!
Niche Market - I suppose Lookup are still on steep learning curve on who to target for best outcomes and who to steer away from.
It's quite obvious they haven't got the capital clout to fight all battles and need to be selective. the size of the likes of RingCentral and Zoom means they can successfully target outliers.
They said at the start they were targeting large enterprises with multi-national presence. Presumably there are some relatively large companies being pursued but the figures given suggest at an average of around £100k/annum is firmly establish.
I posted they other day about the 124 (24) companies using MS teams with more than 100,000 users, I suspect Loopup may have concluded those big fish are too big to land unless they throw themselves in the net and come willingly. The chase for those companies I suspect will take a lot of effort and will most likely take forever and deliver nothing in most cases. Poor risk/reward ratio.
I little further down the food chain, those with over 10,000 users number over 3000 - that is a much bigger addressable market and some of those will have 10s of thousands of users - in reality we only need 1 or 2 biggish companies.
I believe they they are now better equipped now and recognise their market opportunity than a year ago - looks like SME's and very large companies are out unless easy pickings and they actually clarified the target market
IMO it is very important they don't waste time and money on fruitless activity that with experience may be can be spotted early on and put on a back burner - it's not like hard sell tele or doorstep sales.
So it's Professional Services, Internationally focused and as they further clarified in the last RNS "LoopUp's target market for its Cloud Telephony solution: relatively large, relatively international enterprises."
I think the word "relatively" shows where effort is focused and it's not with the very large enterprises. Nothing is ruled out but I expected the average contract win to be of the order of £10k/per month in the medium term with their new partner hopefully delivering a range of SME's in the new year - that market is a total unknown at present and could be anything.
Presumably, the partner has clients they have already identified for conversion, I suspect their clients will move faster than new/cold leads.
IMO the Strategy is well focused, it's just about implementation now.
As the company says 20% of the (£63m/annum) pipeline is at a late stage, that is £12.5m/annum potential, interestingly at £100k/client/annum that provides for around 125 potential deals which have written proposals or later.
That is potentially a massive jump in success rate in their Niche market sector (doesn't include any SME's) - I think the market has totally discounted it or doesn't believe it - I also think the first 2 quarters of 2022 could be make or break for sentiment.
The CEO hinted that the bigger companies were taking a long time to progress things, rigorous approval processes I guess; but once the pipeline is primed and thing are moving then it is a one off delay as there will be a steady flow of completions and when some stability becomes evident that will help immensely.
The company made clear that significant growth would only occur in 2022.
Pokerchips - I'm sure you are right, but trust needs earning - they need to demonstrate they have fire in their bellies and not just indigestion from gorging on shareholder cash.
What has happened to those late state partnership negotiations? Surely we are due some news. They've been at it all year and now we have less than a month left before year end - though welcome I expected more than 1 deal.
In the last few days trading has dwindled to practically nothing, maybe the calm before the storm or perhaps a seller has finished - irrespective there are still few buyers taking up shares which IMO is the root cause, I'm sure practically everyone who owns shares feels somewhat robbed at this point in time.
All posts on the BB are also down to a few regulars and associated trolls; I've been for what seems like forever for the BoD to pull some good news out of the bag but they keep delivering Sh**e and trying half heartedly to polish it up for us.
However, I've given a little thought to our CEO's attempt to encourage new institutions probably on advice from IFL and brokers (having spoken to IFL it's clear to me that Pi's don't even register on their radar, they're all about IIs IMO).
It actually suggests that the BoD intend to stay as an entity and do not plan a capital raise - how can they go and speak to potential investors and blatantly mislead them?? If they are going to give an update then surely that would be before the presentation - or how can they speak honestly and how would a potential new investor feel in new information was dropped afterwards that changed the investment case.
So they may want an improvement in the SP - but why? Absolutely not for our benefit. Perhaps they are getting a lot of pressure from our big shareholders (may be put on notice to up their game) who now expect a rising SP and not to be trapped in with losses. Some of them probably expected/expect to be able to rebalance their holding with a tidy profit and any new investors to pay a premium.
Remember of our 2 biggest shareholders, one in on the BoD as non-exec and the other was an ex-director knows the score, their, the CEO's, strengths and weaknesses .
Apparently, they have reported 94% growth in their large customer sector in the last year (revenue of $100.000/annum plus).
Interesting statistic as it is exactly the group Loopup are targeting - clearly the market is there, Zoom have 2507 client though. Loopup are miniscule, but so was Zoom only a few years ago, we will eventually pick up disgruntled customers from Zoom and others and lose some - that's the way the market works.
Also interesting is an article about large users of MS teams, it states there are 124 with more than 100,000 users - that compares with a figure of 24 on Loopup's website - who is right? Those are the companies that would transform Loopup, I guess we have a slim to very slim chance of winning a really big client, but there is always a chance.
Lots of room for growth though and take up of Cloud Telephony accelerates.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/zoom-lands-more-large-customers-in-q3-beats-market-estimates/
https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-teams-hits-250-million-monthly-active-user-milestone/
No not Loopup directors this time, they supposedly sold shares for Tax reasons as I recall - it didn't go down well (with me at least.
However, I suppose the news that Satya Nadella has just sold half his holding, allegedly for Tax efficiency, for more than $285 million adds a bit of support to their case.
Why hasn't Microsoft's SP collapsed??? lol.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ceo-satya-nadella-sells-about-half-of-his-microsoft-shares-11638329781
Maybe Steve has decided he want to make amends - I just noticed that Steve and Simon Healy CFO (our departing Finance director) are giving an investor presentation to what appears to be a low-key forum primarily aimed at institutions (website has articles sponsored by major investment outfits).
I don't think it will be much, but the message it portrays is Very significant, just making the effort is a positive rather than appearing to be indifferent - perhaps they've finally filled their boots and want the SP to bounce back.
It is apparently free to register - shame it's via Zoom.
https://quoteddata.com/events/mello-progressive-event/