Chris Heminway, Exec-Chair at Time To ACT, explains why now is the right time for the Group to IPO. Watch the video here.
Sounds like he was pushed after making stock sales of Tencent and Alibaba whilst working from home that he knew would be controversial if done in the office. He fully admits doing it.
Last few days has seen SMT trading on a premium again. Not sure why the sudden change as it had spent most of the year on a discount. I guess investors have finally realised there is only so much money to be made out of "B&M" recovery stocks
Gearing is fine and the rates they secured are very low. There are so many growth opportunities right now and getting into their Series A or B rounds with this money will prove to be excellent decisions within less than 5 years.
Yup. He is right it is largely noise. Tencent et al aren't going anywhere. All that has happened is that China's govt has made clear that they cannot make up their own rules. Which is a bit of a "well duh" really. Private tutoring sector was inevitably going to be hit hard eventually in China because it conflicts with well-known principles of an authoritarian regime that needs to control the hearts and minds of their citizens. Investing in that sector, in China, was always a very risky play which is probably why - I hope - SMT had stayed well away from it.
Yes many China funds fell because of a clamp down on online tutoring/education platforms. As far as I know SMT is not exposed to any such online tutoring investments in China so this pull back seems to be very much a collateral damage from the market shock.
Not necessarily a bad thing to buy ones own shares. It stabilises the share price - can even increase it - and effectively means existing shareholders have increased their holding. This may be a very wise move by SMT because once all the inflation BS has died down in another year or so - market sentiment will cycle back onto tech and growth stocks again and at that point SMT will be trading at a consistent premium again and then it can sell those shares back at market value which will certainly be a profit. That then translates into % gains YoY for shareholders - which then inspires yet more investors to take a punt, or existing shareholders to double down.
Share "buy backs" will be a growing theme this year - and not just in successful investment trusts. Pretty much every cash-rich corporation will be doing it. It is the key to stabilising high a P/E ratio and bringing it back down to a more sustainable figure which the market is happy with.