Member Info for Ravenswell

Sorry, its not hatred. No silly name calling, I think we can all read where the vitriol eminates! I confess I enjoy highlighting some of the utter nonsense but I genuinely am mistified by the level of advocacy given (a) the performance and (b) the track record of this management's guidance.

So not mving on any time soon

Why do I comment here .. because you are right I am most definitely not invested!

I believe the AIM market is a critical source of capital for developing UK businesses and a regulated and safe mechanism for retail investors to invest.

WanDisco / Cirata is a case study for the critics of the market who say AIM is the wild west, deterring investors and therefore access to capital to great UK companies.

It has everything - It has destroyed over £250 million of shareholder investment to deliver nothing. Compensation, expenses and enrichment for the founder/ executives was eye watering - Corporate governance was laughable, - and still the subject of an FSA investigation. They shamelessly rode the fraudulent sales episode and then kept the bonuses based on the mythological sales despite being the accountable executives. More importantly the despite the hype and investment, the underlying product has never sold. Despite literally 100s of millions being spent .. it's gone nowhere - most of the actual revenue comes from their "legacy" product pre-dating the float.

Unfortunately the dead horse continues to be flogged as a live contender - SK is above all a front man, so not dissimilar to David Richards - and once again shareholders had to absorb big salary and no-lose incentives like a 2 for 1 share deal.

With no balance sheet strength, no R&D capacity and dwindling cash and many well funded solutions competing .. the results of the last 12 months are only going to continue and I'm guessing he won't stick much longer.

So I read the nonsense peddled here by the rampers, looking to attract investors to this embarrassment and I want to stick a pin in the bubble! There are so many great companies which deliver REVENUE GROWTH & PROFIT on AIM .. but this isnt one and based on the data - never EVER likely to!

So pointing out actual data and facts.. is "Trolling"

whereas "Hopes"... exhortations, and Disney level fantasies, is not Ramping??

The lovely thing is, time, salaries and costs continue .. so we will all see in due course who has the better perspective!

Currently, given Spratt/Up2Date (does anyone else find that need to rebrand weird?) and Pearls were saying the same things a year ago and the share price has since declined by 75% .. I'd say (once again) - buyer beware. This share still has further to fall as reality is biting hard.

Just my opinion of course!

Reality check ..

No growth, arguably insolvent / not a going concern, only consistent competence is over-promising .. and NOT SELLING

I'm sure more lipstick and every possible glossing agent will be applied today - but the ACTUAL data remains and doesn't go away - unlike the well compensated management team in due course..

Ok @jgjam, putting the best possible gloss on it, the PACE at which it is SINKING has SLOWED. Um revenue isn't up - in fact there is nothing in the quarterly statement which describes ACTUAL revenue - which tells you everything you need to know.

They mention bookings but bookings isnt revenue, and certainly is not CASH received. They describe % because last Q1 was almost nothing so anything sold beomes a large % with that baseline. As an investment, this business remains the triumph of hope over experience!

Explanation is easy ... It's not worth more than 20p & anyone paying 18p is being very, very brave - given the track record, data, evidence and form of this business over the long and short term.

250m "invested" to date and still sinking. As usual the puffers exploding with "hope", "expect", "should" statements alongside playground name calling. Outstanding challenge to the usual suspects.. please highlight ANY of your insightful predictions over the past years which have proved accurate?

Or indeed ANY of the predictions from either the management or Up2Spratt & Pearls which have proved true over the last 2 years?

“We can ignore reality, but we cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.” Ayn Rand

Spratt / Up2Date

How about highlighting a single item from your many, many predictions / views on business performance from the last three years which has subsequently proved accurate?

It’s generally only a few (well one in particular) who seems to do the name calling - which is a pretty good clue to their personality and their investment insights.

It’s always a sign when they end their toxic lines with a laugh symbol at their own ‘jokes’. Guessing they don’t make great company in the pub!

As to Wand/Cirata - unfortunately this stock has only ever been hype over substance. The founder took shareholders for a long term ride - sucking 260m of precious funds to date .. and the product has never sold. The only thing keeping it alive was a legacy product which fortunately provided some limited revenue. The share price got to crazy heights on the hype - and failures of corporate governance meant at best the salesman fraud was just a ramping opportunity for the executives.

I post on this board because this is the sort of company that undermines confidence in AIM … there are so many great companies - growing, generating cash, protecting their shareholders.. but Wand and its separation from reality does all investors no favours at all. No comfort if you’re in already - but the data tells the story - The latest annual report has to work very hard to present the business as a going concern.. Note2b simply references ability to raise shareholder funds .. which at the current share price would be eye watering dilution ..

Will they need to .. well there’s still a cash burn significantly above revenues.. and SK assurances now have a history showing they shouldn’t be relied on. So we shall see..

But entirely consistent with previous management - same product, same story, same outcome - so not really any surprise. SK tells a great story, like disco Dave, but look past the corporate Botox and the data is damning but entirely predictable.

There are some deluded posts on this board but the idea that a change in trading name alters the slightest aspects of the company’s liabilities concerning its abject failure to shareholders during the disco Dave era is up there with the best. Hopefully he will carry some accountability personally given his shameless exploiting of governance shortfalls - but sorry, the firm previously called Wandisco is absolutely on the hook to the FSA. Suggesting otherwise is laughable as an outsider but potentially criminal if an insider and encouraging anyone to buy shares.

As usual this analyst provides a creative commentary

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/anthony-the-antidote-miller_saint-jude-is-the-patron-saint-of-lost-causes-activity-7312426801266331648-ua4N?utm_medium=ios_app&rcm=ACoAAABveQ8Be8jeBl62BvXjqpp3Qy3-sQkmBLc&utm_source=social_share_send&utm_campaign=copy_link

BTW not EVER seen any positive analysis of this mob - even by their long suffering brokers.

£250m in the hole and still sinking …abandon hope all ye who ….

Just a (fact based) opinion …

But who / why would put any more money into this? If you look back over its innoble history, it was floated on a story of unique data migration IP. It has raised 250m but even at its peak (ignoring the fiasco of the sales fraud) - most of the revenue came from its ‘legacy’ products. The only winner was the founder who enjoyed preposterous titles, personal offices on the west coast big enough for a putting green, and the opportunity to use shareholder funds to sponsor his local ‘squire’ status to go with the mansion. The failure of corporate governance around the fraud was no surprise any more than refusal to refund bonuses paid on the back of the fraudulent results.

Kelly is a top class front man - but another T**D polisher was the last thing this company and its staff deserved or needed. Quietly finding a trade sale with a firm able to give the assets and the staff a good home would have been so much better. Instead and three years on, the hole is deeper, shareholders are poorer and the dead horse hasn’t got up - because it’s dead.

As others have said - the tech has never and isn’t selling. It doesn’t have the resources to create new .. So why o why would anyone put a cent more into this ?

Just an (evidence and data backed) opinion of course !

Umm .. Intrinsic value ...? less than used toilet paper perhaps?

£250M sunk investor cash so far , neligable and decling sales , significantly loss making, cash runway measured in months, and now a discredited executive team. The city is not forgiving about that level of guidance miss.

The share price is being supported by retail who buy on hope or day traders happy to play on margins , I suspect the funds have written off their investment but prefer to defer crystalising the loss / unlikely to find a buyer.

I look forward to the torrent of abuse from our playground friend.

Regular listeners to the BBC Radio 4 comedy panel show, I’m Sorry I haven’t A Clue, will be familiar with the segment, ‘One Song to the Tune of Another’, in which each panellist is invited to sing the words to one song but to the tune of a different song.

The result brings new meaning to the term ‘cognitive dissonance’.

Stephen Kelly, ‘recovery’ CEO of Cirata, the shattered earthly remains of former UK SaaS star WANdisco, raises this to an art form with his every stock exchange announcement.

His words most certainly do not chime with the tune played by the numbers.

Having warned the market a couple of weeks ago that bookings are still moving to the right, and that contracts are getting shorter, today’s year-end trading update gives a glimpse into the extent of the disconnect.

Despite his holding onto the fantasy as late as October that Cirata will double last year’s bookings to a mighty $13-15m in 2024, bookings actually fell a tad to $7.1m.

This is also despite winning what Kelly trumpeted as Cirata’s largest data migration contract since March 2023, a reported $2m one-year deal, signed through its partnership with IBM.

By the way, the contract began on – would you believe – 31st December 2024, just in time to make the 2024 order book. Had it started a day later …

And also by the way, there was no mention of how much Cirata itself earned from this contract.

I’m assuming the $2m represented the total contract value, and I would hazard a guess that IBM gets the lion’s share as they are the ones implementing the deal.

You may also recall that IBM had ‘revised’ its OEM agreement with Cirata back in October, which essentially forgave IBM some $1.7m in earlier prepayments.

So did Cirata actually net anything at all from the new contract?

Yet Kelly remains blissfully confident that his recovery plan is working as Cirata “transition(s) to a more predictable growth phase (sic)”.

I will leave further commentary until Cirata publishes its FY24 results in full, though I would not be in the least bit surprised if there was further bad news even before then.

Meanwhile, if you are still a true believer, I can only suggest that you read Kelly’s commentary with your fingers in your ears.

The irony that Spratt's language provides more feedback on him than anyone else is probably lost on him.

All I can do is admire your tolerance. If you do nothing other than judge the current team on what they promised and what they have delivered .. there’s a huge gap. Sales, revenue, breakeven, cash .. pick your promise and timeline, you’ll struggle. The point surely is this company offers the same (Wandisco) products which have never taken off despite the £250m of investment over its inglorious 12 years on the London market. Clutch at straws, patents or Messiah CEOs all you like .. the data doesn’t lie.

I’d love to say something positive … except all this company has done is destroy £240m of investor capital over its innoble history. The only people benefiting have been the the founder who shamelessly walked away when the tide ran out, and other execs given no-lose cheques to spin this some more. It is a stain on the stock exchange and I post since it undermines the value of the AIM market. I don’t want anyone to lose money but the sooner this embarrassment evaporates the better. All the people on the list have done is continue to point out the FACTS.

So when all the actual data and actual performance only confirming what Hastings and others have been saying .. playground name calling is the only tool in the chest? If there’s any ramping / de-ramping going on I think the chat speaks volumes! Run the numbers, look at the history ..

So cash will be drying up fast. Even should they scrape a booking or so .. the lag from sale to implementation to invoice to cash collection is many many months… So options at this point; Hollywood level fog sculpting to (down) raise a bit more cash runway from the gullible and kick ball down road or (b) recognise inevitable and effect a prepack admin to resurface having cleaned out shareholders but a few on the inside to start over? IMHO of course.

Sorry - typo .. David Richards .. previous CEO and founder was who I was referring to.

No opinion about the investor Griffiths

I've never said anything other than run away about this stock.. It's track record is undeniable and the only people making money have have been the management. I'm interested because it is a case study for investor cognative dissonance. David Griffiths did an amazing job at building the puff, taking the money himself and rinsing and repeating. He's out but still we have the extraordinaty zeal - like yours in this company. I think the AIM market matters and companies like this destroy its reputation. So I stay watching and just asking the question Why do people still think lead can be turned into gold despite the evidence..

Keep the playground jibes coming.. but I'm afraid the data is there ..