Ryan Mee, CEO of Fulcrum Metals, reviews FY23 and progress on the Gold Tailings Hub in Canada. Watch the video here.
Cont....
It's clear now, from Tremor’s 2Q23 earnings call last May when Sagi Niri predicted in the previous quarter (1Q23) that… “soon in Q2, we will be cash generative again”… things then went totally awry. Just one month later in June, Tremor took a totally unexpected hit. But they weren’t alone.
Extract from 2Q23 Q&A…
Eric Martinuzzi -- Lake Street Capital Markets -… So, you were two-thirds of the way through the second quarter when you gave your outlook or reiterated the outlook for the year. And now, we've got a pretty substantial reset. So, just wondering when you saw the weakness.
Sagi Niri…..for your question, we saw in the second quarter after our Q1 earnings call, like in June itself and through June, decreases in advertisers, appetite and spend. We saw some push-back into H2, and we even saw some cancellation of campaigns. So, we waited until now to forecast exactly how our Q3 is going to look like.
And as Ofer mentioned, we are not counting on amazing Q4. We think it will be strong, but not as strong as we anticipated before. And again, we are seeing our peers as well. So, taking all of that into consideration we decided -- the outcome is the lower guidance.
Fortune hasn’t been kind. Tremor was ready to rock-in -roll when the macro music stopped playing.
Jonhas, The reason I put the cash question out there is that I recall this Q&A response between Laura Martin and Sagi Niri during the 1Q23 Conference Call.
Laura Martin…So, you have round numbers, 90 million of cash. You lost round numbers, around 8 million, and you bought in a bunch of shares. My question is, why buy shares at a time when you're also losing money? Why not save cash until you're sure that you're back to free cash flow positive?
Sagi Niri….Thanks, Laura. First of all, we issued like $95 million of repurchase plan back in 2022. We concluded it through Q1.
So, it's ended now, and we are not investing any money in repurchasing our shares anymore. And as you said, we are considering that going forward, but we will do so when we will be cash generative again very soon…..So, for now, it's ended, and we are keeping our cash -- and soon in Q2, we will be cash generative again.
Jonah’s , thanks, I’ll look forward to that.
Proposed buyback at c. $3.33 million a month is meaningful. Takes us through to end of May and 1Q24 results release. Can Nexxen add cash between now and the end of the year? Any thoughts there?
45 to 60 days for court approval puts them on target to formally announce the buyback along with Novembers numbers.
As for the Amobee purchase, I’m convinced (now) that all they ever really wanted from Amobee was the Amobee DSP and the talented software guys that built it plus Amobee’s data sets and a few other bits and bobs of sophisticated tech like the cross-platform planner. The rest, bar the sales teams, was discarded within weeks and I can’t imagine that they held on to all the Amobee client base throughout the disruption of the changeover. The thing is, with the integrations complete, Tremor/Nexxen now has a very attractive, state of the art, full stack end to end platform which, and crucially, if they can grow the DSP side and attract a meaningful number of broadcasters, enterprises and agencies on-board, as per Druker’s declared aim (SSP Cross-Platform planner tool now available but CPP tool for the DSP side is still in beta at this time, at least that’s as I understand is the current state of play) then, it’s difficult not to conclude that there is some serious business potential here for Nexxen. The timing hasn’t been kind here. Tremor, having gone through a long period of integration upheaval was ready to rock-and-roll at a time when the macro had turned against them.
All in all, and when considered alongside the content of my earlier posts, I’ve decided to err on the side that Nexxen is probably more “futured” than “f***ed” and so as already stated, I figure that a clearer picture of success or failure will unfold during 2024 and short of an unforeseen event and in spite of past disappointments, I’m going to give these guys a final chance and the benefit of my doubt, and remain invested here through fiscal 2024, but, Druker needs for sure to execute and deliver along the way or reluctantly, I’ll be pulling the blinds down on this one.
Once again, my assessment, my decision, and my throw of the dice. No advice intended.
Cont...
Druker... I will mention two elements that I feel that will give us a lot of power in the future -- or even three elements. One of them is the DSP itself. So, the DSP that's from Amobee is very rich in functionalities of enterprise solution.
You can look at all the sentiment of clients and the market, to the brands, to the capabilities that it represents. It's very powerful. And I think that the future belongs to the enterprise solution, meaning if you want to create stability, if you want to create prediction, you need to have an enterprise solution in your company, you need to have a strong one, so people will use it. And we can offer them more and more capabilities like you can see with our last deal with H/L that started with the DSP, but moved along to using our ACR data, using our DMP, using our SSP, which is exactly what we are trying to achieve.
So, I think that the DSP was very meaningful. And to build these functionalities by yourself, will take you years. As we know, we don't have years to get better on the enterprise solution. You need to get these capabilities today.
The second two elements is the planning tool, the planning tool of the cross platform that is very unique, like I mentioned to Matt, it will give us value in the mid and long term. And I think that it's very powerful. And we need to plan for the long term, we cannot work for quarter to quarter.
Extract from 2Q23 earnings transcript… In addition to challenges in the broader environment, lower-than-expected contribution ex-TAC in Q2 was also the result of......a more complex sales cycle related to our strategic focus on driving enterprise deals, featuring multiply technology solutions. This, in some cases, pushed larger expected deals out to 2024.
So what are Enterprise deals? Extract….Enterprise deals are the process of procuring high-value deals with large companies. Also called complex sales, enterprise sales is just that – complex. It typically has a big business impact, includes a long sales cycle, involves multiple stakeholders or comes with more technical aspects.
I've no way of confirming a post that has appeared on the other board implying that it's Eric Singer who's accumulating. Or "plugged in" as was stated there.
Oldies here will remember that Singer (some refer to him as a vulture capitalist) was the non exec Chairman of Rhythmone up until it was sold off to Taptica in Feb 2019..... Eric Singer of VIEX Capital Advisors and non exec Chairman of Rhythmone from April 2018 to Feb 2019. https://www.marketscreener.com/business-leaders/Eric-Brandon-Singer-0CGSZF-E/biography/
We will just have to wait and see if there is any substance to this but if true the question arises as to his raison d'etre. Singer would need to accumulate a lot of stock if he’s to position himself to have any real impact here. Not sure where that amount of stock is going to come from in the short/near term?
04 September 2023
Tremor International Ltd
("Tremor" or the "Company")
Response to Press Speculation
The Board of Tremor notes the recent press speculation and confirms that it is not currently in a sale process.
Israel connection...
Altice Europe N.V. (commonly known as Altice) is a French multinational telecommunications and mass media company with official headquarters in the Netherlands, founded and headed by the French-Israeli billionaire businessman Patrick Drahi, and the second largest telecoms company in France, behind Orange.
Also posted up my position on tremor as follows..... Again, whats your outlook for Totally Plc?.
I would encourage everyone invested to read this transcript from tip to toe. Link below.
https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2023/08/17/tremor-international-trmr-q2-2023-earnings-call-tr/
The dilemma….Against a background of 4 quarters (some will say 4 years) of over exuberant forecasting and bloated year end revenue predictions, which then morphed into 4 sequential earnings misses and a substantially reduced full year revenue forecast, this transcript from the same guys, who's credibility with investors is all but shot, paints a bright future and jam tomorrow! Again!
Fine and fair, but, after reading the script the question all are left to grapple with is….
is Nexxen now “f***ed” or “futured”?
Extract from OD’s closing remarks, I think now it's time for execution…..It takes some time sometimes. It's not happening overnight…..And we are going to do that during 2024 and going forward. And I feel very secure about the position, the technology, the infrastructure that we have created.
My view….Whereas the sp has been taken to the floor for the time being, the business has not. Four years in the making, Tremor/Nexxen is now a totally re-sculptured state of the art full stack end to end ad tech platform with enormous potential for organic growth, and upon the first meaningful signs of that growth, the lid will lift here but, it’s now obvious to me that time will be a factor. Possibly two years. Macro is a big factor. Not easy to come to terms with that when you have been here fourteen already but bringing major broadcasters and new demand side business on board and building a meaningful additional customer base on the DSP side, in this environment, won’t, as Druker has said, be achieved overnight. It just can’t be done. That process is a slow and sticky one in the best of times, the legals can take months, never mind the move across and it's going to take a fair wind and solid execution to achieve it as well, macro a worry here but, if successful, Nexxen has serious potential. I figure that a clearer picture of success or failure will unfold during 2024 and short of some unforeseen event and in spite of past exasperation and disappointment, my decision is to give these guys a final crack of the whip and the benefit of my doubt. I'll remain invested here through fiscal 2024. My assessment, my decision and my throw of the dice. No advice intended.
Cont...
Based on Tremors lowered full year 2023 estimate of $320-$330 million and postulation that 4Q would likely be 20% up on 3Q, that extrapolates into a rather flattish 3Q verses 2Q at around $78.6 to $83 million with 4Q 20% up on those figures and nothing much to show on a YoY basis for Tremor for the $239 million it spent on the Amobee purchase.
It’s exasperating. There’s more I could say about Ofer Druker and Sagi Niri but it won’t help my investment here. As I see it, it’s unlikely that Tremor can execute any better than it currently is unless and until the adtech sector reverses out of the prevailing macro malaise that it’s in. My guess, sometime in 2024, maybe sooner, maybe later. Unfortunately there is a pile of unknowns out there that could continue to impact market sentiment.
On a brighter note, if Tremor win damages from the LG litigation it could lead to a special dividend for the long suffering here. Should be done and dusted before the year ends.
Justdeezerts, sure, I called it incorrectly I'll admit and I've held my hands up to that. Understandable, because at the time it was based on, what has since turned out to be, over exuberant revenue projections for 2Q23 and FY23 given by senior management to investors at Tremors 1Q23 conference Call, which will not now be met. That's why Tremors sp is where it is. Hardly comparable with stt's behavior over the past decade, is it? I haven't tried to defend the impossible when Tremor investors asked.....How can Tremors projections go so badly wrong within a month?
When you have read my response, posted to the lse and advfm boards on27 Aug, feel free to post up your investment case for Totally Plc. I'm interested.
I said....
I’d guess that most have found the above question difficult to reconcile but it seems that orders were either pushed out or completely pulled unexpectedly in June, right across the sector, and that was particularly evident in the managed side of the business. It doesn’t look like its recovered since, hence the lower 2H revenue and full year uncertainty. It’s worth reading the Q&A part of Magnite’s Conference Call., Although Magnite is purely an SSP there are a few answers that read-across into Tremor’s market sentiment.
https://investor.magnite.com/static-files/335bcc89-4d19-4f40-83ef-bd279c797634
Extract…Magnite…right now, in a pretty scarce spend environment, there's just kind of flight to quality, flight to security for the buyers and flight to like dealing with the folks they know best. And so that's -- hopefully, that helps you understand, Jason, what we saw.
This chimes with Drukers remarks that prospective new clients, especially on the DSP side, are in no mood for moving to another platform in this environment. That process is a slow and sticky one in the best of times. The legals can take months, never mind the move across.
extract…Daniel Paul Day - B. Riley Securities, Maybe just talk about what's giving you the confidence here to give sort of a soft guide for the fourth quarter CTV revenue. We haven't seen people sort of willing to opine out beyond the current quarter. Is that -- I think you said close to flat year-over-year for the fourth quarter for CTV. Just definitely conversations with advertisers, publishers, just actual visibility at all? Just what is it that's informing that 4Q commentary?
Magnite…yes. I would say, first of all, it's a very cautious approach, but we have spent a lot of time with our sales team, getting feedback from the managed service team. Michael mentioned that some of those campaigns appeared to be paused rather than completely taken off the table. We think that it's sort of, as our sales team described earlier, an air pocket for a few months here. And so we are comfortable with some recovery on the managed service front.
Pubmatic’s 2Q23 earnings were weak also and forecast to be even lower in 3Q.
cont...
Cont…
Whereas I commiserate with the ordinary Joe invested here, this guy (stt) dedicated a career to damaging the hopes of so many other people invested elsewhere. He deserves all of the pain he’s getting (and more) from his losses here. What goes around comes around. Currently burning his keyboard in panic, this guy had it coming.
Watch now for a return post from him. His standard response for self-preservation is always the same, one of character assassination of the other person, typically Trumpish in style. It will contain content to ridicule, deride, undermine, and mock and most definitely contain his standard get out from under ridicule of Tremor Plc. The schadenfreude however, is a pleasure for those of us who have earned the right to dislike this guy with a passion. I’m just one of many.
Many investors are really enjoying the irony of knowing that stt, so heavily invested in Totally PLC at prices dating back to the 95p+ days, is today licking the wounds of huge investment losses. And yes, I mean huge, he’s seriously invested in Totally Plc. Having made his first investment over a decade ago, Totally’s sp graph began its ski slope journey from the date of his very first purchase and it never recovered. Throughout the decade the downward trend has been relentless and thus, he has never had a single opportunity to sell at a higher price than he bought. And I mean, never.
It’s ten years+ since he started his investment in Totally. Over the intervening years he continued buying while using the lse and advfm bulletin boards to pump and defend Totally’s virtues and future outstanding growth prospects. And, he’s still at it, so no change there. At one stage en-route, he used his full year ISA allowance to buy Totally shares at around 60p/65p and while promoting that purchase he actually posted the details of it on the advfm board at the time. Ten years on and Totally’s sp graph for that entire period looks like a ski slope on steroids. Recent company ‘news flow’ has pushed the share so low it’s beyond recovery in my view, and with stt so financially strapped into Totally and unable to escape, he is, quite literally, drowning in serious losses right now. His relentless pumping of this stock during this entire period on these boards has been for one purpose and one purpose only, the saving of his own skin in the face of what was so obvious to so many, the inevitable demise of Totally Plc. Forever mocking others for not listen to his investment advice and ‘news flow’, you can all see him now for the ordinary chump that he has always been. An investment guru, unable to look after his own investment and a big looser of his own money and sadly, the money of those naive punters who listen to him.
I’ve said in previous posts here, I can’t for the life of me understand how anyone ever made an investment case for Totally Plc and as things stand currently, I can see nothing to hold Totally’s sp from falling further. Accounting anomalies, CEO and CFO creditability gone, a staffing crisis that’s endemic and cannot be reconciled anytime soon in the healthcare sector, serious question marks hanging over the business model, downsizing and a cash call at a rock bottom sp a serious probability now (massive dilution). Future dividends in question, cut or possibly abandoned. Certainly, ought to be, can’t risk giving away the pennies when you aren’t earning any.
Right now, there isn’t a single visible catalyst to support the sp and so, the question is, how much further to fall? Is there any way back for Totally? What is the investment case for this POS? Cont....
For anyone interested in the Tremor Vs LGE/Alphonso court case the latest filings can be found here…. https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/DocumentList?
Docs of interest…at least for me.
Doc 668…. dismantles Defendants opposition to The Hall Damages Report...
https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/ViewDocument?docIndex=ZhxspInO0A6RINLQ63g6Ww==
Doc 683… IT IS HEREBY ORDERED THAT Defendant’s Motion in Limine To Exclude Expert Witness David Hall is DENIED
https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/ViewDocument?docIndex=BVMx9D94/xlajvC/w8zGgw==
Doc 676… AFFIDAVIT OF JASON (JAY) BAUM
https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/ViewDocument?docIndex=ByHNUGsjlP_PLUS_tBSYq02etSg==
Docs 685 and 694…Plaintiffs response to LGE Undisputed Facts
https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/ViewDocument?docIndex=oP/H000JIkZ3FA/QsVQUyA==
https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/ViewDocument?docIndex=jb3agRfvoeatn0dyiay6pQ==
docketId=j/MKa5jKQOiZ2rhRcKfwfw==&PageNum=9&narrow=
https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/ViewDocument?docIndex=oP/H000JIkZ3FA/QsVQUyA==
https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/ViewDocument?docIndex=jb3agRfvoeatn0dyiay6pQ==
Often referred to as a scattergun headline posted by an ambulance chasing law firm trolling for business. Just take a look at the amount of Class Action business this Pomerantz law firm alone is trying to drum up, and there are plenty of others out there, link below….
https://www.bing.com/news/search?q=Pomerantz+Law+Firm+Investigates+Claims+On+Behalf+Of+Investors+Of+Tremor+International+Ltd+-+TRMR&qpvt=Pomerantz+Law+Firm+Investigates+Claims+On+Behalf+of+Investors+of+Tremor+International+Ltd+-+TRMR&FORM=EWRE
These guys put the headlines in the appropriate shareholder domain in an attempt to attract the required quorum of interested participants for a class action, usually about 40 aggrieve participants (but can be as low as 20 minimum). All in the class must have exactly the same type of tort. Then a lead person, i.e. a Lead Plaintiff, from the group has to be found willing to put himself out there to act on behalf of the class as a whole. That in itself requires a lot of competence and free time. Another drawback is, any reward/compensation is allocated to the group, not individually. The lawyers take their percentage first from that award. The remainder is divided among the rest meaning those in the class carrying the greatest loss may only recover some of it. There’s nothing extra for the Lead Plaintiff who may have given up months of his life for everyone else’s benefit.
The majority of these Class Action attempts go absolutely nowhere. Like grapes, they just die on the vine.
Some more reading if you are interested …..but if you ask me, best to just turn the light out and go to sleep.
https://www.gacovinolake.com/faqs/does-joining-a-class-action-lawsuit-cost-me-anything/#:~:text=The%20class%20representative%20stands%20for%20the%20other%20class,reimbursement%20for%20these%20fees%20once%20the%20case%20settles.
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/personal-injury/how-start-class-action-lawsuit/
https://www.forthepeople.com/faq/class-action-faqs/what-lead-plaintiffclass-representative-class-action/
Dog, re What was your former handle on this board? (I trust we got along?)
We got along just fine. Shared mutual respect I guess, much the same as it is now. With due regard, I'm gonna leave the old handle buried.
Not many from the school of blinkx around here anymore.
Gdog, I know you from way back. Right from the start in fact. Can't recall the year exactly but I remember you eventually bailed out of blinkx with some angst (to put it mildly). I used a different handle back then and although I stopped posting here and closed my account on this board some years ago, I remained invested. Rejoined here in January 2021.
I would encourage everyone invested to read this transcript from tip to toe. Link below.
https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2023/08/17/tremor-international-trmr-q2-2023-earnings-call-tr/
The dilemma….Against a background of 4 quarters (some will say 4 years) of over exuberant forecasting and bloated year end revenue predictions, which then morphed into 4 sequential earnings misses and a substantially reduced full year revenue forecast, this transcript from the same guys, who's credibility with investors is all but shot, paints a bright future and jam tomorrow! Again!
Fine and fair, but, after reading the script the question all are left to grapple with is….
is Nexxen now “f***ed” or “futured”?
Extract from OD’s closing remarks, I think now it's time for execution…..It takes some time sometimes. It's not happening overnight…..And we are going to do that during 2024 and going forward. And I feel very secure about the position, the technology, the infrastructure that we have created.
My view….Whereas the sp has been taken to the floor for the time being, the business has not. Four years in the making, Tremor/Nexxen is now a totally re-sculptured state of the art full stack end to end ad tech platform with enormous potential for organic growth, and upon the first meaningful signs of that growth, the lid will lift here but, it’s now obvious to me that time will be a factor. Possibly two years. Macro is a big factor. Not easy to come to terms with that when you have been here fourteen already but bringing major broadcasters and new demand side business on board and building a meaningful additional customer base on the DSP side, in this environment, won’t, as Druker has said, be achieved overnight. It just can’t be done. That process is a slow and sticky one in the best of times, the legals can take months, never mind the move across and it's going to take a fair wind and solid execution to achieve it as well, macro a worry here but, if successful, Nexxen has serious potential. I figure that a clearer picture of success or failure will unfold during 2024 and short of some unforeseen event and in spite of past exasperation and disappointment, my decision is to give these guys a final crack of the whip and the benefit of my doubt. I'll remain invested here through fiscal 2024. My assessment, my decision and my throw of the dice. No advice intended.