Member Info for lootgaloot

Hi Wololol,
Please can you expand a bit on USP of these polymers. Or can you provide a link. Thanks.

Totally agree with JR. I've sold out (small profit). I don't know what this company is about anymore.

Hadn't realised J.R.R. Tolkien was a KWS shareholder.

Difficult to make sense of this stock. There was nothing particularly worrying in the last statement other than some costs were brought forward into H1. In fact the results were upbeat with a good H2 expected. I think a lot of 'growth' stocks are being hammered at the moment but it still seems a brave decision to short KWS unless there's something I'm not understanding. Personally I've added at recent price levels, probably a little too overweight in my portfolio now but it seems a good price going into the Christmas period.

26th December 2019. Kids get bored of Stadia console and start playing with the cardboard box.

Nick Trew always came across as honest and decent. Trying to do the right thing in a difficult situation. I did not realise that he had managed to secured an agreement immediately prior to Jennings involvement. What a shame, but by then I had long since sold out (tired of the soap opera).

Without previously knowing anything about Jennings, he immediately struck me as a fantasist, a self styled shareholder activist with little understanding of what Nick Trew was trying to achieve. Indeed, looking at Jennings involvement in other companies I can see a clear pattern of mindless disruption just to feed his own ego. It does not surprise me that very few established firms in the city will have anything to do with him.

I posted here once, literally once, and straight away Richard challenged me to a bet (I'm not even a shareholder FFS). Think it was £200 but we will never know now as he has clearly asked LSE to delete all posts relating to his bets. It was clear to me at the time this was bullying tactics but I didn't rise to it. I just thought; if I wanted to take a bet on PFP then I'd just buy shares. Anyway, your bet with Richard will never be honoured as you know. But it stands as testimony to his character. I think his intention is to create a lot of useless noise on this forum and then drown out any dissenting voices.

On another issue, I find it strange that some of the share holders on this forum are not using the opportunity to engage with you in a more constructive way. You clearly have seen 'under the hood' of this company and met the key players. If I was a share holder I would be very interested in your view but I suspect most people are happy to live in ignorance rather than hear the distasteful truth.

Down over 5% today on news of the new loan facility. I find it strange but the market (share price) seems very unforgiving of the management strategy to grow by acquisition. I've noticed this several times; the reaction to acquisitions is either luke warm or even adverse. Today's news of the new loan facility is a continuation of managements strategy. I could understand the market reaction if management had a poor record on integrating these acquisitions but the opposite seems to be the case.

You lost the bet Jennings. Pay the man what you owe him.

Franky, thanks for taking the time to offer your first-hand experience. It’s clear you have worked with people well placed to judge the technology and your understanding has evolved accordingly.

You’ve probably gathered from my discussion with Irene that I’ve sold out already. I won’t be tempted to trade in and out; been there, done that and paid the price before.

What I understand from both you and Irene is that PRSM have no magic sauce but rather stitch together third party applications and open source code. In some respects I don’t have a problem with this. You could argue that this description applies to a lot of software today.

Of concern however is the low barrier to entry. I see a lot of new entrants to the RPA space and, as you suggest, I can also anticipate some of the big boys taking an interest. But what you said about companies taking the process in-house is something I have particularly considered.

It seems to me a company could easily employ a team of two or three contractors to do the same job? Sharing the same office space, having coffee, going to lunch with the full-time staff; really getting into the nuts and bolts of the organisation. I wonder how many of Blue Prism’s current employees will become their competitors in the near future.

Where we disagree is that I think it’s possible PRSM could differentiate their service from Microsoft or Google by presenting themselves as experts in the field with years of experience implementing the process with a wide variety of clients. It may also be possible to offer an ‘off the shelf’ application suite with quick implementation and minimal training to non-technical staff. So I think the company has options to carve out a future at some yet determined valuation.

For me however it’s impossible to pick a winner in this space and it requires a certain amount of faith in PRSM ability to navigate a path to success. Finally I come back to where I started by looking at the accounts. The management have gone big on expenditure in a kind of land grab scenario; a high risk strategy if the same job can be done by many smaller contractors with open source software.

Hi Emma, I'm from back in the day too. It seems Nick Trew, the only honest person associated with debacle, has been kicked out by RICHEBOY who seems to be the General's 'useful fool'. Everybody is now dancing to the General's tune but as we know a deal will never be done because the more the General gets the more he wants.

Another way Market Makers communicate with each other is via this thing called a telephone.

FFS some people live in a fantasy world.

no problem buying £7,500 on Halifax SIPP account.

Interesting Irene. I got in at a good price back in 2017 and made a 4 fold profit by the time I sold late last year. Very lucky because I bought the hype on AI without really understanding. While holding the shares however I tried to understand RPA and what you say about stitching smaller tasks together makes sense. Certainly it didn't appear to me to be true AI. It's probably a bad analogy but I see it as like a macro in MS Excel spreadsheet but applied to a larger and more diverse number of applications.

Most macros I build take more time to implement than I eventually save via automation. The problem is not with the tool but with my cost/benefit assessment beforehand. I wonder if the same is true but on a bigger scale with RPA? My worry is that with so many new entrants to the sector there is a danger of acquiring a wild west reputation. Perhaps this is a sector which needs time to mature following an initial period of hype.

My holding now is a lot smaller in the past so although I'm almost 50% down on the deal its not too much of a concern. However cash is king atm so it may be an idea to sell my PRSM and have the cash ready for when market sentiment changes.

Watch PRSM fly now that I've decided to sell.

In at 1.6p. I'll buy more if it goes lower.

@Franky, As a recruiter into the RPA sector you are in a much better position to judge than I. On paper the figures would seem to disagree with you (I refer to PRSM growing customer base and very low attrition rate). I'm genuinely trying to square your experience with the financial figures. I have a few questions and I hope you can help but understand that you may not want to reveal too much.

Where have you heard most frustration; from the recruiters or from the employees you have placed in these roles?
I'd expect RPA vacancies to be a growth area for you as a recruiter regardless of your view on the technology; is this not the case?
There are bound to be teething problems and frustrations but it seems, for now at least, businesses are sticking with the process. Do you believe this is because business see the value down the line or is it a case of management reluctance to admit a mistake? Do you expect higher attrition rates in future or are you saying new customer growth will continue but at a slower rate?
PRSM are not the only entrant to this market so there is clearly a bit of a buzz around RPA. Of course there will be consultancy firms that will jump on any bandwagon to line their pockets but do you see any value in RPA long term?

As I said in a previous post, I've made my profit on PRSM so I'm not here to defend a losing position. Like everyone else I'm looking for a good home for my money so I welcome any opportunity to hear from the coal face as it were.

I think we both agree that the current price has got ahead of itself so I'm not surprised that people have taken profit. I have and I'm travelling on this for free now having sold at a very good profit earlier in the year. I still believe in the longer term however. Revenues are growing very strongly. I was expecting a little more from the half yearly and I'd also like to see expenditure reigned in. I'm not sure where fair value is for share price. Clearly we are expensive at the moment but so much is dependant on market sentiment.

Well revenue for last year was £55m but by April half year revenue was £40m but I agree we need to grow revenue to justify current price. The problem seems to be that although revenues are more or less doubling year on year so too is expenditure. PRSM also had a 174% growth in Sales & Marketing headcount since H1 2018.
Clearly the management have a lot of belief in the business and the high cash burn could be seen as something of a land grab in the nascent RPA sector (the Toughtonomy acquisition and move to cloud capability is an important step).
I support management’s strategy; the customer base grew to 1,337 direct customers with 349 additions in the first half of this year. Revenue increased 82% but clearly the market is concerned that expenditure is also still increasing. I believe if this was a US company the market would be more forgiving.
What we are seeing now is that markets have turned more negative and perhaps defensive stocks are more in favour. Investors have understandably become nervous of high growth companies with ongoing operating losses. But overall the business opportunity is still the same and while nobody wants to see ever increasing expenditure, we have to be realistic. There are other players coming in to this market so building scale is important.
My takeaway from the recent half yearly was the low customer attrition rate, contracts are being renewed all the time. This suggests customers are not experiencing difficulty in implementation as was suggested by a poster earlier. The business plan remains fundamentally sound although with current market sentiment I’d hold off from adding to my position for now.

Hi Chilting, Revenue at 660K last year. Rising every year but it would have to rise pretty sharpish to avoid another cash call. It feels like one for the watch list. I don't need to make a decision right away as Woodford selling may keep a cap on the price in the short/medium term. Revenue growth may become clearer over H2 but I can't really see current cash lasting so I'm betting on further dilution and a better entry price early next year.

The risk is that they announce another big deal and I miss the bus but I'm not aware of anything in the pipeline. Are you? Akzo Croda already baked in? The balance of probability says hold off for now.

I still like the company, its in my industry so the story looks nice. Not easy to even get your foot in the door at Akzo Noble so kudos to them; shows a lot of faith in the technology. Still need to do a lot more research but still interesting.

Just looking at this share and trying to decide.

The tech seems good; lots of JV with big names (Akzo, Croda etc.). Also price is historically low (Woodford effect?).

My concern are the figures; Only £2m cash in hand but net loss £7m p.a. Any comments? I see they ran out of cash last year resulting in big drop.