Member Info for Raleigh

Liberty Global are watching over them, particularly as the exercise is geared at folding the end product into their organisation.

Well done on the acquisition forecast. You will recall 365 is the company sold by Smith for £3m in October following his review of Ide. MXCP provided debt funding to facilitate its purchase by members of Ide management team. There will be something in that arrangement for MXCP I should think. There is no reaction from the market. This may change on published comment, with Investors Chronicle following up the November buy recommendation.

Cloud take up is increasing across the board. Although the company seeks new customers and exhibiting products is helpful, there will be migration to Castleton cloud by existing 'captive customers.' The price seems ( hopefully ) to have settled out, as we wait for full year results in accordance with the trading update, review by Fincap, and dividend announcement to be ratified at AGM.

Patience is starting to prove rewarding, with investors slowly seeing the potential once the company makes its moves and starts spending its cash - presumably on building MXLG by adding suitably to SICL.

There is no doubt it has historically been a poor investment for many. I doubt you are alone in your sentiments.

Dean Dickinson is taking positive action to grow the share price, which will be financially rewarding for him and senior management through share ownership and options, and the broader the investor base the better. It is good that our best interests and theirs are aligned.

Large or smaller transactions, increasing investor interest is evident.

I do not know what the articles of association say, but it may be that a resolution is required at a General Meeting. I am content for that aspect to take its course.

I have no doubt it will come. It has been allowed for by the house broker in last financial year estimates, as well as an increased amount in the estimates for the current financial year. It will be newsworthy. Beneficial though it will be, and perhaps an added attraction to institutional investors, in my opinion continued steady share price appreciation for this quiet growth company is what underpins the investment case. In the event the company becomes net cash at the end of this financial year as forecast, the progressive dividend will become increasingly relevant alongside capital growth.

This is a new year, starting from a much better place. As long as the company continues to perform, any aberration in the share price will be short term, as with any other successful company. Longer contracts, giving rise to repeat cumulative revenue, see the company in good shape, with the additional opportunity to capitalise on developments over the last year, whilst maintaining progress with the bread and butter cross-selling. I do not see this year as being more challenging than last, and probably less so as a result of full referenceability on the full suite of products now having been established.

FinnCap list the growth drivers and proof points. These strengthen the Castleton proposition for the year ahead. I mention once again, that £600k pa will now be available for the bottom line as a result of the Agile mobile licence becoming free to Castleton from the beginning of this month, with no additional final payment due.

I had anticipated likely buying prior to the trading update. There have been a number of developments over the past months, which if all goes according to plan will feed more into current financial year performance rather than last, with more customers adding revenue/profit by migrating to managed services and uptake of new solutions in addition to ongoing cross-selling. This is a good start for them in relation to the LTIP, and I think Finncap will raise their current 125p target price in the not too distant future.

Out of interest I have done a little quick research into that. Basically, Alexa is a chatbot, now used as what is termed a 'headless user interface', programmed to learn with experience and respond to the most common calls from customers ( those who have not yet become digitally engaged ) and pass them on electronically into the housing management system, avoiding the cost of human interaction ( estimated time saving of 25% at call centre ) until for example, in the case of a repairs request, an operative is despatched. Stewart Davison, formerly head of business development at Capita Housing, provided proof of concept in 2017, and has today congratulated Castleton on picking it up and making that concept a reality. Slightly contrary to what I said earlier, it seems a practical cost saving measure which could prove attractive. Housing Solutions Homes, who I presume to be piloting this for Castleton, are the best judges and they seem to like it.

I think that is more likely, as you mentioned, to do with reassuring potential and existing customers, signing expensive long term contracts, that products are future proofed and that they can and will be efficiently upgraded using evolving technology.

Court sanction Scheme of Arrangement.

http://www.lse.co.uk/share-regulatory-news.asp?shareprice=TAX&ArticleCode=yxk283ye&ArticleHeadline=COURT_SANCTION_OF_SCHEME_OF_ARRANGEMENT

Cash to follow shortly.

Further indication of positions being taken in what must be anticipation.

It is in any event a profit taking, at no cost to other investors, with another holder taking the shares on at 95p for the future.

On what I can see, Castleton absorbed an extra £24000 sales today, and the share price still made progress.

1p or so going to 1.5p or so next financial year, if justified by earnings. But it is sensible to take things in stages. It would be disappointing if the company does not achieve 10% growth, particularly as full vesting of the LTIP requires performance sufficient to grow the share price by 40% per year in subsequent years also. But that last is the top end requirement. Within the figures and the extent to which they may be proved correct, Finncap anticipate that quality of earnings will increase as a proportion of revenue, which is what I anticipated was likely, with that trend continuing next financial year, and they refer to 2019 itself as a year to excel. It is all subject to the business proceeding as planned, and benefitting from one or two new larger managed services contracts, alongside the cross-selling. There is much to report in the final results on developments this year, and there will be the usual outlook guidance. But first the trading update in April.

It appears to heavily reinforce Mxcp's direction of travel, particularly as Liberty Global and MXCP already have 2 directors each on the board of MXLG. However, the Ravenscroft partnership will be providing ongoing investment opportunities and fees.