The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode featuring Jeremy Skillington, CEO of Poolbeg Pharma has just been released. Listen here.
Well, Livingbridge paid £113m for Semafone - a clearly inferior business.
Candidly, I don't think 7.5x ARR is a crazy stretch for a 90% gross margin software business with low-single digit churn growing at 20-30%. In the states that would be a totally believable price to pay. Look at Darktrace getting taken out at 6.6x forward revenue. Same multiple on PCI-Pal would be pretty much £150m. I personally consider PCI-Pal to be a superior business to Darktrace. Just to cherry pick one example from today, but I think it's decently representative.
It's the most logical thing, but I'm not sure Livingbridge/Sycurio are driven by logic at this point. I'm also not sure they could afford the £150m it would potentially cost to acquire PCI-Pal at the price that would be acceptable to the big owners.
You really think that's the reason? There are three companies in this space, all of which will win business here and there. Fact of the matter is PCIP is growing much faster than Eckoh, even if Eckoh does win the odd deal.
Very pleasing results. Happy to see ARR continue to tick along. Setting aside legal costs, to have generated £0.5m in cash is a fantastic achievement.
Is the stock really down because the US case is scheduled for Feb '25? We already knew that. Sometimes AIM really does blow me away.
That's funny, because even fewer appeals to the IPO are successful...
https://www.aathornton.com/appeals-to-the-appointed-person-in-the-uk/
Thanks Victor. Also thought this was interesting. Bit dated but states that 80% of appeals end up sticking to the initial judgement, at least partially.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/60863/1/Patent%2520Litigation%2520in%2520the%2520UK.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjT18OysIuEAxXS8gIHHdCKBwQ4FBAWegQIBhAB&usg=AOvVaw0FgC15Ht7jRQdysV4nljzt
Seems people are getting a bit spooked by the appeal request being approved. Specifically, perhaps, this line:
However, Sycurio noted comments by Lord Justice Arnold who, in granting the permission to appeal, said: "Notwithstanding the force of the points made by the respondents, I consider that the grounds of appeal have a real prospect of success."
Sycurio clearly trying to beat down the stock some more so they can come in with another bid:
Paul Greensmith, Sycurio's chief financial officer, commented: "If the Appeal Court continues the stay [of costs] and Sycurio prevails on its appeal, it is expected that Sycurio will not have to pay these amounts to PCI Pal and that PCI Pal will have to pay a substantial portion of Sycurio's trial costs and appellate costs."
No chance!
Nice work, both. I wish I could contribute an opinion, but it really is all French to me. Kudos to you two for the effort.
Interesting to see the volume here of late. Someone seems to be building a position. Four 100k+ share days in the last six over the Xmas period is certainly noteworthy (even though in absolute terms that is clearly still not a ton of money, but it's a lot for this stock).
Thanks Lucretuis. I get that their tactic is to make this whole thing go on as long as possible, but at what point do they stop appealing all this and wasting money on lawyers. Are they really going to apply to appeal again? On what grounds given the overwhelming defeat? Surely they now realise that PCIP isn't going to roll over and agree to a low ball offer. The whole thing is becoming more insane by the week.
This is stunning although I have to say not surprising. I speculated all along that this was what they wanted, as no other motive made sense. Thank you for sharing, Lucretuis.
I wonder if it would serve PCI-Pal to make this public...
I personally own over 1% of the company and would certainly reject any offer under 150p.
Interesting point in Eckoh's results. Wonder if we'll see it drive out more of the in-house solutions that some merchants use.
"New updated PCI DSS v4.0 standard effective from April 2024 will increase complexity and cost of compliance for merchants, which is likely to drive higher levels of sales engagement for Eckoh's solutions"