Member Info for jointhedots

It all about interpretation - I know what you are saying - but I suggest my approach is better as it tells you what you have lost "the real underlying dilution I've just suffered".

E.g. Shareholder owns 10000 shares in a company with 1million shares - equates to 1%

A capital raise for 500000 shares leaves the shareholder with (10000/1.5 million) new proposrtion = 0.67% of the enlarged company - the person has lost ownership of 1/3 of his original share of the company - that's not 50% in my world.

Ignoring the fact new money is introduced which improves the calculation as there is a bigger underlying asset, the shareholder has lost 1/3 of the underlying asset owned.

If they issued the same number of shares as were already in existence that's NOT 100% dilution it's 50%.

Your approach is stark and more shocking but does not reflect what has actually happened to the value of our shareholding - I prefer reality, I'm not trying to be dramatic.

By my approach 100% dilution would never be reached until the shares where worthless, 90% dilution would mean 9 times as many new shares as current because someone has taken 90% of the company's value.

I prefer my method it tells me the proportion of the company I've lost and still owns and the financial changes can be factored in accurately - I won't be changing my viewpoint - good luck with yours if it tells you what you want it's not wrong.

He's not embraced the AIM listing, they are talking to big shareholders (our 2 biggest where in the inner circle prior to the listing and between the bunch of them they control the company (I'm sure they have just filled their boots.

The giveaway, to the disrespect, is IFL listed as the contact on RNS's - they are Financial advisers NOT investor relations, all fully involved in the action no doubt - when I phoned them to complain a few months ago they said the company needed to restrict information to protect intellectual property and plans from competitors - more like keep it from shareholders - that's why an EGM is pointless, we get a pointless vote on the action that is settled.

Only possibility (1 in a million odds at best ) is that a takeover bid comes in from an opportunist - but they'll ignore any approach - we just have to accept this, it's the price for having CEO's so embedded.

It opened with a quote available, offered me a sell at 26p - I always test at open in these circumstances and 99 times out of a 100 there is no quote or it quickly goes into auction - suggests there is no panic - steady selling maybe.

HeresHopin - mate you are wrong, yes it is now well over a 1/3 as they have raised more than the minimum expected. You think what you like - I trust my own maths, I'm confident the proportionate value of the company I will own post capital raise is in line with my own assessment.

For it to be 50% they would have to issue the same number of shares as already exist - that's not the ca

There it is, all done and dusted - the buyers must have been tapped up in advance for the placing and I'm sure company associates took most of the primarybid shares - some of whom will have shorts placed.

Doesn't it just show there is plenty of demand for the shares, they (the buyers) just knew to stay clear until this was sorted - now perhaps we can become a real growth company with the BoD interested in reporting good news. I noticed Zero progress reported for the last couple of month - Really! I don't believe that.

I suspect many of the deals are being held back until the company had sorted it's finances, which it now is and the company is financially robust to support the growth. Client's due diligence would reveal it - they would simply ask the questions.

In the meantime I'm expecting a torrid/painful day today - I noticed the CEO is giving a presentation in October (19th) - that will be very positive and may mark the turning point now he's secured his position.

I'm actually more optimistic this morning for the medium to long term

I'm far too trusting, I think its a mistake many us make.

Like many, I suspected for some time they were up to something, I feared the worst - taking it private, a huge placing or buying something stupid, all options to cover for their mistakes.

I should have trusted my gut feeling, IMO they have betrayed shareholders.

So here we are, my stance is very respectful, that what they have done is despicable, they are scum.

It explains why the SP has been so weak and the BoD had no interest in defending shareholder interests (only the inner circle who as a result of this I suspect hold a bigger proportion of the company on the cheap), It also explains why the company didn't launch the employee share purchase scheme - they knew the price would be undercut.

I think a lot of insiders/staff and others knew about this (or that something was going on for a long time) and so could take action to prepare and even short with impunity.

All that said, it gets me nowhere, we need to consider our own positions and make the best of it. For a start I looked at primarybid tonight and had my finger of the trade button but decided not to buy any more, as it's too much of a kneejerk - the offer is now closed as will be the trade offer probably get update before market opening.

It goes without saying the SP is to be well down tomorrow, IMO the SP will tend to 25p over the coming days depending on the new stance of II's as some PI's will IMO sell at lows offset by bargain hunters when the price is low enough. My expectation is at worst to within 5 or 10% of the placing price, if it falls below I shall buy every one I can afford.

Now the deal is done (disclosed) and debt sorted there is no reason those sitting on the side lines should not buy. I'm actually expecting a good recovery after we hit rock bottom (it happened with other placings).

Dilution is not 50% by the way it is nearer a third as the new shares are 50.5% of existing number resulting in 150.5% of shares and the post capital raise - I believe the logical like for like share price should be (25p x 50.5 + 40p x 100)/150.5 = 35p. Remember they are introducing new capital to contribute to the average, it's not all one sided.

So it is not unreasonable to expect 35p when the deed is completed.

I'm p**sed off, but take some consolation in that - they only bought a small business what if it had been much bigger or if they had waited until after the update and then applied a discount, or bank refused to negotiate. Finally, lets not forget that post deal they are in a much stronger financial position and presumably with good software development staff (valuable asset), and new company capabilities to sell.

I'm surprised, can only assume tomorrow each day now, and trust I get it right tomorrow.

Assuming there is nothing new on the core business income, I'm most interested in the news on the rate Cloud Telephony sign up. The actual revenue this year is going to be small (a few million at most) but at the rate of conversion to date I reckon they can realistically sign up another £10m of business this year.

That leads to exactly what the company said in the last update - material growth , IN EARNINGS, next year and a tendency to move to growth late this year. It will be baked in as the clients signed up this year will contribute for a full year instead of just a few months in some cases.

As they have said this is a transformational year/

There is so much to fight for and though there have are many specialist Cloud Telephony deployment companies, all are new to MS teams because teams has only recently come into existence as a fully capable product.

I read an article yesterday that suggested MS teams user base is likely to grow to 300 million by the end of the year before tailing off when all the potential users have it, and a good percentage are planning/opting for Cloud Telephony. Every time new figures are released expectations are smashed - why should we assume Loopup can't win even a small % of the booming business, yet so many ex-shareholder assumed just that.

We really do need more numbers from the company, they need to restore confidence, confidence in growth is everything for this company and what is currently missing.

stew - that's the spirit, post some real information.

I think the blogs are great and actually are very positive even if not targeting shareholders, for instance one of the statements wrt MS teams is:

"What we are also seeing is as organisations are continuing to review what other benefits these services can provide, there is an overwhelming interest and aggressive deployment of Microsoft Teams Phone System."

That is about as bullish a statement as you can get without providing company specific information "overwhelming interest and aggressive deployment of Microsoft Teams Phone System.", sounds like growing sales to me. For me that suggests sales are going great guns and the pipeline of opportunities is in a very healthy state - if that is not the case then I suggest the company is failing miserable and the staff haven't a clue (I'll be shocked if that's the case) - I just can't see the company not enjoying sales success when demand for the service is so strong.

Hopefully, there'll be some positive news, especially some new partners and a big client or two - not one significant partner disclosed yet - I hope they are saving them up.

It's based of thin trading (someone actually sold cheaper than the bid to set the narrative - all contrived to ensure we stay thoroughly deflated about the company.

Things are not always as they seem, three trades reported so far this morning - all sells including mine.

In reality they are all buys.

I just topped up a few (5601 @ 37.33p), but IMO the price is already assuming a bad RNS so IMO on balance the upside is greater than the risk - Nothing in life is without risk.

I believe the results may be due to be released on Wednesday.

They seem to be tied to Wednesdays, last year was Wednesday, September 23. Though to the best of my knowledge they haven't officially advised a date, however the linked website is suggesting the next financial update in 2 days.

As long as it's soon I suppose it doesn't matter.

https://www.tradingview.com/symbols/LSE-LOOP/financials-balance-sheet/

bigsmoke - we just have to put up with it - the kids get home from school and start with the mischief - usually when mum doesn't keep an eye on them.

We need to avoid being dragged into their childish world.

WRT to the reference to the term "MultiNational", which Loopup appear to be increasingly referencing in their comments, I looked up these and there appears to be under 1000 of these in the truest definition.

I generally very big outfits and if Loopup are genuinely in with a shout of winning these, the potential for quick expansion is massive as they are typically employing 10s of thousands of people and many over 100,000 and the biggest 1million +.

My understanding of this is that we are talking about - large companies with significant operations in multiple countries and continents, not some small operator with a couple of overseas reps, there must be millions of those that will in many instances generate meagre returns - the definitions are very loose - but I reckon most people image a large outfit.

For instance do the big legal firms qualify as multinationals, does the likes of Travelex? If so then Loopup already have dozens of Multinationals - personally I think Loopup are getting excited about a different level altogether.

Loopup's pipeline consists of company's with an average contract value of £10000/month (£120, 000/annum - that alone tells us they are not targeting small outfits and every win is significant, but are there a couple of big fish in there - there must be to generate that average.

IMO Loopup are now simply enduring the pain of the time lag from the start of the sales cycle (6-8 months) which means the revenues from new contracts don't immediately (they ramp up) replace lost revenue which may well be immediate. That's why they project material growth next year, the growth will already be baked in with this years wins and as more leads are progressed. It just gets better as the power of compounding successive wins gathers pace and the lost businesses tends to zero.

No one can honestly say there is not significant room for improvement - IMO the problem most likely lies with our inexperienced BoD (at running an AIM listed company) taking advice from a retained expert (IFL) that see's no reason to engage private shareholders - I speak from the experience of having contacted them.

That aside. I'm ever hopeful they will learn and start to communicating, I believe they'll open up when good news start to flow; I'm very pleased with the action taken by the team with Webcasts, trade shows and the company blog - a concerted effort appears to be being made.

I noticed there are two new blog entries one about the importance of phone/device selection - that actually got me thinking that perhaps Loopup could enter into a relationship with a phone system supplier as Zoom have done.

The other perhaps provides the best explanation of what Loopup see as their Key/Strong selling points (not unique - don't need to be), blog includes:

"As we consider and recount how Microsoft Teams has consolidated management of UC technologies across the business and how Microsoft Phone System will enhance this experience still further, there is however one area of the PSTN world that remains complex, requiring considerable effort to manage and understand. I am of course referring to the world of the carrier.

Cloud telephony addresses so many issues associated with maintaining and supporting traditional on-premises equipment, but doesn’t address the issue for multinationals who still require relationships with different local carriers in regions across the globe. Carriers by nature have to be regulated in the countries that they provide service. Meaning they are typically regional, owing to the physical networks that they own, hence why the world’s largest carriers tend to provide services to users in a relatively small range of countries.

These services are often locally managed by teams and personnel in the countries these services are provided. This results in little to no central administration, meaning there’s a general lack of understanding from a centralised business perspective as to what services are being provided where, what the cost of these service are, and how long these contracts have left to run.

As you can see, this is a considerable barrier to those looking for a single, consolidated platform.

Having recognised the opportunity to address this final hurdle and streamline the management and administration of the whole UC&T environment, thus ‘closing the loop’, LoopUp are able to engage with customers and act as a single trusted provider across all elements of your Microsoft Phone System cloud telephony estate.

Engaging with LoopUp enables you to have all your users on Microsoft Teams Phone System from one service provider, on one global network, administered on one management system – wherever in the world they may be."

Clearly they are targeting / prioritising Multinationals, international out

Paddyboy1 - you're right, there's no interest, the upside is that any renewed interest should see a strong recovery.

Unfortunately, the management have not provided any reason for anyone to pile in, sadly you are a case in point - you would not be even be contemplating selling if the management were providing a compelling business case.

I've said it many times - it's all down to the management, they've caused the problems and they can sort it by simply achieving operational success - they don't even need a bottom line profit if they report growth.

I'm still hopeful the results will contain some pleasant surprises.

Ian.B - you say "office workers who have been working from home for 18 months and will have already sorted their call/meetings provider contracts."

That's obviously not the case, or there would be no business for anyone, isn't there an annual customer loss percentage of about 18% for the sector besides companies adding new services - Loopup have lost the less discerning customers (non-PS) and seem to have accepted that those clients are not worth fighting for. But customers are reviewing their changing needs like never before - lots to fight for.

Loopup's efforts are focused on growth of PS, Cloud Telephony particularly targeting companies with an international requirement - that strategy has not been tested yet, the customer losses you reference are annoying but predictable as covid caused customers to review their needs like never before and after the initial spike many switched to new, cheap, suppliers that came to the fore (e.g. Zoom).

I'm not scratching my head - THEY'VE TOLD THE MARKET they expected to lose customers because of increased competition and a botched MeetingZone integration. Covid simply masked the impact which was incubated in H1 2020 and only became apparent into H2 2020.

They said of MZ integration:
"While this major transition project was successful overall, the Group experienced subsequent intermittent service issues during November and early December 2019, which gives rise to the potential for higher than normal churn in H1 2020. All service issues have now been resolved and normal high-quality service levels have been resumed. We are focused on mitigating any potential impact."

So they screwed up and almost certainly set in motion a sequence of events where customer went to the market to consider their options - decisions to move are not instantly implemented but this compounded other pressures.

IMO those for the off will by now have acted - the company make a point of highlighting the growing number of clients now switched to committed, more reliable contracts.

The new strategic approach is working (as far as we know) and is not impacted by the above factors, and if they've spent the cash to push ahead with growth then GOOD - investing in the future is not a negative IMO.

Sorry guys, I'm going to have to go and have a lie down, the trading in this share is far too hectic for me. It's dizzying, please look after the fort whilst I'm away, it's moving so fast I hope I don't miss a major change with almost 1/2 hour trading left.