Member Info for Mickey2099

I notice that Computercentre reiterated the strong performance seen in their 2nd half across all geographies. This includes for IT services. I suspect this has given the MF share price some momentum today. Promising sign.

I agree. We seem to be breaking out of a tight range. Changed direction when Gladstone reduced their short. They may have reduced down to zero. Certainly seems good support now at 4.20. MF are involved in a few conferences between now and Nov so possible to hear of more partnerships.

MF seem to be making a stronger marketing drive in the cyber area. If you perform a search on Twitter on MF you’re seeing numerous daily updates on their CyberRes capability, collaboration eg. snowflake, use cases and conference sponsorships. That’s a marked change for a few months ago.

That’s a good question. I recall Goldman’s valued the Cyber business at $4bln and that was earlier this year. Such businesses (cloudstrike, sentinel, Darktrace) have got up sharply since.

I still think an opportunistic bid could be made in the meantime. The sum of the parts add up to more than the whole here.

If there at what price would it be entertained? Would need to be more than what the CEO paid for his shares. Wasn’t that £7.80’ish?

Think it’s worth far more but there’s increasing M&A activity and this is somewhat of a sitting duck.

Does seem to have been a change in sentiment in the past couple of days when it reversed a negative decline late yesterday. Nice finish today also. Let’s see what the coming days and weeks bring. I continue to think there’s a lot of potential in this business.

Any views on short term price targets? We do seem to have some resilience and a couple of bounces at the 4.08 level. I’m not a chartist but could we be on a break out to the 4.45 level.

On another note. This has turned into a very quiet board. Is Opulentia on holiday? I’m weirdly missing his/her daily inspirations….

Anyone care to take a view on the downward movement in the share price in recent weeks? 30% movement is quite a drop. Was it overvalued at its high? Accepting it’s moved up significantly over the past 12 months.

Still feel this companies focus on sustainability leaves it differentiated. It also manufactures much of its own goods so not subject to bottlenecks to the same extent as others.

Worth a buy at £2?

I read it as a positive. After serving PwC for 30+ years you’d be very careful about compromising your reputation. Pauline would/should have done her homework and with her audit/consulting background will ensure good governance, proficient in holding others to account and sound interrogation of the financials. I think it’s a good appointment and speaks to the integrity of the Board and thus the company .

We do seem to have formed a bottom here. Albeit a different environment vs. 2020, we do seem to be following a similar share price movement. I do believe we could see upside business momentum, throw in a further strategic partnership or two and we’re on our way again. I see MF are doing a lot of marketing of their cyber res offering as well as their analytics tools that work alongside the CrowdStrike cyber applications.

I agree. This company is destined, in my opinion, to receive a bid. Taking it private now, pay down the debt and bring it back to market in a couple of years time once a recovery is proved. Market is awash with cash looking to be put to use and this strikes me as a perfect use case. There’s also the argument that the sum of the parts is greater that the total value of the company at the moment making it attractive again for PE. I’m particular thinking about the cyber business, which I think Goldman’s valued at circa $4bln and that was a while ago. Cyber businesses have exploded since, think Dark, Sentinel, CloudStrike etc. All IMO.

Looks like you can see into the future! So what price next Fri???!!

Seeking Alpha article (rates Darktrace a Buy)

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/seekingalpha.com/amp/article/4439749-darktrace-cybersecurity-stock-in-wake-of-recent-cyberattacks

This is a strange share!

Yes fundamentals count in the end but we’re looking at a momentum play here. Both are valid investment strategies and not mutually exclusive. Good to have a discussion on fundamentals.

Assuming Dark are not entering the FT250 then it may well be the lack of free float. I’ll need to check buyer think there’s some rules around minimum available float on the market .

While never saying no to more, I’d be happy with a period of consolidation at the current level.

For me it’s a hold. I’d suggest institutional monies are finding there way into this. It’ doesn’t strike me as owned by flighty (read volatile) retail investors ….just yet anyway.

I’d guess 3 factors.

1. The IPO price was discounted following the Deliveroo debacle. So for what would’ve been issued at circa 3.50 was issued at 2.50. So the starting point was lower and we’re now reaching a reasonable premium over what should’ve been the IPO price. I think one of the brokers suggested that we were trading at a discount to peers so perhaps that discount is being filled.

2. Over the past months and weeks cyber security continues to be in the news and Darktrace gets a good call out for its differentiated technology (that’s also a risk of the competition catch up on that).

3. Tech/growth stocks have suddenly come back in fashion at the (possibly temporary) expense of value. I’m in the camp of transitionary inflation so for me growth stocks are where to be for the reminder of 2021.

Just my thoughts.

The trend is your friend. I agree on the momentum in this space and the collaboration with MS is very interesting indeed. We’ll get to know more in the results. The prospectus called out the risks but if the strategy is executed then according to one broker, I think it was Jeffries, worth multiples.