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It has been absolutely shocking. I invest heavily in private equity and understand that it’s very high risk. I’m not a professional, though I like to research and go with ‘sensible’ investments. This has worked well over the years and when I look at some of FFWD’s and SEEDs investments, the only reason I can see on many occasions their reason for investing in them, is the fact of their association with that business.
Https://www.lse.co.uk/rns/BARK/ A link to check out a bit more history of the company as it was previously known
Https://www.lse.co.uk/SharePrice.html?shareprice=BARK&share=Barkby-Group
The cool kids where I live would say. "The dog's done a McDermott"
It will give more information to those new to Roadside Real or Barkby Group as it was formerly known as
If you search on Google. LSE BARK you can find the BARK company details. RNS's, Chat etc for this site. Though it doesn't work when you type it into the 'Share search box here'
Well, the annual wage bill and expenses equate to around 5% of the fund, and I don't see any investments appreciating, so lets hope he's getting a decent interest rate from the cash in the fund.
I’ve invested in Private Equity for many years. This has rarely looked like a good investment, though one as a recovery play several times over the years. This time they have more money than the SP. Once that is invested, they really don’t have much going for them, as history would show. I’ve still got money invested here and would like to believe I could get somewhat of a return before cashing in and investing in a real fund or company. People who are new to investing quote the “ it’s overlooked and worth more than the current SP”. The sad fact is, the market is right, it’s around its true value at the moment. NAV around 6p. A good well run fund might trade around 5p. A small or badly run fund maybe 4p. A badly run fund with bad market conditions like the markets over the last year maybe would be worth 3p. A fund without a fund manager and Ed in charge……..2p. I’ve invested for a bounce….never for a long term investment. More of a gamble. My fear is all the cash is invested in half brain companies, at that point they also lose the cash element that’s supporting this SP. I’ve seen many funds liquidate over the years to balance the value to investors. That was done by real companies that had fallen in favour and NAV was no longer represented by the SP. Ed is either delusional or Just keeping his gravy boat alive.
That really is the only decent thing to do, liquidate the fund! Imagine Ed invests all of the cash and a year down the line they have to raise cash for their wages and running costs. Imagine trying to do a raise, it would be like a fire raise sale. Investors currently wont buy even though the money per share is less than the share price, imagine it all being invested in his associates businesses. Then they might struggle to even raise at a huge discount to 2p.
It was bad enough the £600k being written down to £13k,
and now the RNS states it is worth £5k.
Funny how the RNS has the ‘we are pleased to announce’ . When the £600k original investment that has been written down several times, £400k then £13k and now today they are pleased to announce £5k. !!!!
Would we notice any difference if Ed was away for a year?
He’s got interests in many similar companies. As a NED he has very little to do with the day to day running of the fund. NED’s main role is to monitor the BOD.
They had a similar issue several years back when Lorne and Jim were still on the BOD. Due to their high wages and expenses at the time, it equated to annual running costs of the fund at over 12% pa! If the fund was making 30%+ pa then it wouldn't be an issue. The NAV here is lower than it was around 7 years back!
After the high profile BOD left this fund to avoid embarrassment- following years of many investments written off ( including a single £5m investment written off ) in their own interests and that of their close associations. Ed was given the Herculean task of turning this around.
He’s been at the helm for several years now and after high hopes from investors waiting for an exit after years of failure, he didn’t disappoint in providing more of the same from the previous BOD!
Shouting from the roof tops that Seed would have a £50m mcap following the sale of the last big hope - Leap gaming . Even when he knew it was another failure, only getting their investment returned after 7 years of investing and working with them. Yet, he still gave this impression of the fund turning around. Seed have held investments and let them drift to zero from over £3m, when they could have cut their losses and made a stop loss - because of their close associations with the companies they would hold and write it off. Not the best investing technique
I like your dry humour reefles. Ed took over the fund even though he was not a fund manager. He had even admitted that he isn’t that great at picking stocks. Investors still gave him a chance after the last BOD disappeared following many imvestments written off ( invested in their own and friends interests )including a single £5m investment written off. That’s when it was left to Ed.
Seed certainly have a large amount of cash right now, and there are a lot of companies at rock bottom valuations. When Ed says everything we own is for sale at the right price, the unlisted holdings can be very hard to sell, though can yield good returns. Whereas a lot of listed holdings have been allowed to dwindle away to, in some cases zero. I often think they are not sold due to their associations with the companies, they need to cut their losses as most investors would do.