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bakky ,
none of this noise precludes TF from doing his job and re-aligning 28tlds to normalized pricing and operation and get them on a level footing
silver ,
as previously disclosed i wrote to the company in november and spoke to the also , outlining exactly what you suggest in an effort to get this put to bed relatively painlessly . i was shown the back of the hand so here we are . for the sake of clarity my suggestion was for me to put hard cash ON the table and take a substantial stake and help rebuild the business as part of any “ settlement “ but totally rebuffed at first hurdle
yep that’s the one
Ezzza,
you are correct . the company needs to “ right the wrongs “ with the ICM vendors , clean house , strip out all the fakery ( which I am absolutely sure TF is capable of ) and develop a clean , reliable business that can get sold for $120-$150 M .as stated i would be more than happy to help in that resurrection and out hard cash on the table to back it , but the company needs to do the right thing first . the ICM vendors losses caused by the wrongdoing are substantial and cannot be swept under the carpet . i am happy to let the man in the white wig calculate and address those damages . if anyone questions my resolve when wronged in business then they should perhaps study the publicly available documents is the case of ICM Registry V ICANN , that took 6 years and legal fees of several million dollars of to resolve and put right a wrong in 2011 that occurred in 2005 .
i agree , the company is currently and hopefully genuinely profitable with cash in hand so it’s future i wouldn’t think is at risk .
put the boot on the other foot for a moment : If in the june 2018 transaction mmx had paid $30M for icm and relied on warranties about the position of the business that turned out to be fraudulently given and led to a massive $14 M balance sheet write off a few weeks later and the underlying profitability of the business wasn’t as represented and was a mere fraction of what they were paying the $30M for , shareholders would rightly expect the company to seek redress either by unwinding the acquisition or by the return of some of the consideration be that cash or shares .? correct ?
in this instance the roles are reversed , that’s all .
bruised ego ? yes 100 % for sure !
flying a kite ? blowing smoke ... not so sure
if you can give written warranties on June 18 that everything is above board and nothing has changed of a material nature since the latest accounts and then fir the period that ends just 12 days later on june 30th make unexpected and undisclosed provisions , some relating to due diligence questions you have been pressed on , is frankly , taking the p*ss
Again SB, thank you for your reasoned position.
ALL of us here have been taken for a ride, based on misrepresented numbers. The ICM vendors and ALL investors going back to at least 2017. Each persons losses as a result of those misrepresentations are calculable to some degree. Being taken for a ride , with my outsized ego is particularly hard to swallow esp when perpetrated by the likes of TH and MS, who normally I would like to think I would have the measure of. I was taken in and believed the statements, shame on me. Our due diligence did unearth some questions on the very points at the heart of it, but when you are given false answers to those questions by the directors of a public company , we made the fatal mistake on relying on the warranties given. Sadly it appears the same Directors continued to misled the market and investors in the subsequent period , and pulled the wool over even the auditors eyes, until it seems that a sharp eyed member of the audit committee , mr Disher I am assuming, decided to dig deeper in the 2019 numbers.
Scotty, nO TF wasn't an original ICM vendor but was given some shares by me as a thank you as part of the sale. he subsequently disposed of them I believe and even I believe sought legal advice when he was dismissed by MMX. This isn't Tfs fight. He will continue to do a through and professional job I believe.. A good man.
yes Scotty, a dual edged sword for sure. Wrongs can't be left unchallenged tho, in my book, just for short term expediency.
SB,
An insightful and thoughtful post as ever.
I was as surprised and disappointed as anyone with the 9th October RNS and even more so by the 30th October RNS, which opened up a whole can of worms. Despite any claims of an Agenda, I have tried to be as open an honest on this Board for almost 3 years , at every step of the process. Immediately prior to the 30th October RNS, my full intention was to look at purchasing in the region of 50 Million shares and had communicated such to the company and FinnCap and all things being equal would have been a buyer for the Afilias stake plus many more. the 30th October RNS changed everything and caused me to dig deeper into the nature and longevity of the prior managements wrong-doing . I haven't liked at all what I have found out and IMHO neither should other investors. I tried to reach out to the company on a firm but friendly footing to try to clear this up and find an amicable solution but was rebuffed completely. Put yourself in my position. what would you do? Wrong is wrong and should be addressed as such . Is probably best if I stop posting now awhile , while the situation rolls out. I have tried my best, unlike the company IMHO, to keep the PIs apprised pretty much real time of what's going on. All my best
BB,
simple : enough information to try to persuade me that the warranties we were given in 2018 weren’t fraudulently made
bakky ,
yes i probably did say that , but now i have a clear view of more exactly the nature and scale of the wrongdoing and the audacity and intent of that is simply too much to let lie
bakky ,
the SP will do whatever it will do , short , medium and long term .
the icm vendors and the market as a whole were misled and my intention is to seek redress for that.
bakky ,
correct : we were all lied to and misled
SB,
Thanks for that analysis.
The valuation model for an established mature TLD registry with "normal" margins (i.e. 95% Gross Profit) is , as I have mentioned before and as I believe, demonstrated by the recent Afilias sale to Donuts, in the region of 12X "nett revenue" or 15X profits , which is inline with normal public company valuations.
Having being doing my own analysis recently the problem is that MMX's "real" nett revenue translates into an abysmal Revenue per Domain so normal metrics can't be applied.
if you look at 2017,2018 and restated 2019s for example:
2017...headline revenue 14.3 M less partner payments , less one time auction revenue, less "fake" premium sales ($3.4m)(that were all subsequently written off as bad debt) leaves "real nett revenue of $6.4 M , spread over supposedly 1.32 million DUMS equals $4.84 ARPDUM.... that needs to be $10 or so to mean normal metric apply for valuation purposes. 2018 and restated 2019 get worse (stripping out the revenues for the ICM names) , $8.1 "real nettt revenue in 2018 from a claimed 1.71 million names = $4.73 ARPDUM, and restated 2019s, well that translates to "real" net revenue , circa $6.3 Million over a claimed 2.36 million names equating to a measly $2.66 ARPDUM.....
so excluding ICM revenue, auction revenue and partner payments from 2017-2019 the dubs went from 1.32 million to supposedly 2.36 million, a million extra domains to generate the same approx $.6.4M of net revenue before Cogs.... It doesn't take the Brain of Britain to figure out what has been going on here.
FYI- the company refused to provide me with the recent information I had requested to be able to gain more clarity on the totality and depth of the wrongdoing and the make up of the numbers.
My own research and investigations have given me further insight into the nature of the 3 restated "contract" issues for 2019 and im sorry to say, they were outright deception, designed purely to inflate the figures in the most crass way.
The companies failure to participate in goodwill disclosures on those matters does not bode well, im afraid.
I think is a lot mote pain to come here.
for the record i countenanced against swapping the icm back end from afilias to UNR , the savings were dominimus and the hassle sizeable , but moreso i told TH that Afilias were one of the other bidders for icm at the time and had been a shareholder of icm and were now a shareholder of MMX , circa 3% and in the fullness of time if was more likely that afilias would be sold in a blockbuster deal to one of the leviathans of the industry and by acquiring Afilias with a settler reputation the buyer would then already be “ half pregnant “ with the icm adult TLDs, would be able to see their cash generative performance and therefore would be less of an obstacle to them making a bid for MMX , adult TLds et al ...
if they had left as was , Donuts would now be running the icm backend so one less hurdle to have to navigate .
i’m glad the sense of the Board seems to be singing from the same hymn sheet now : a good clean out and onwards and upwards . “ trunks up and box on “ as my old man used to say ...
huckster ,
i think you have given a decent summary . the cost cutting is actually perhaps the least important side as in truth doesn’t affect the eventual sales exit price much , but will show how easy the “ clean “ revamped business is to run and will throw of a few million in extra cash per year to sooth investors via dividends while they wait for the inevitable exit or used to reduce share count to increase the SP .
Bilko !
nooooooo!
i am dinosaur and love my v12s ! have four of them in the garage right now . i grew up in the black country and studied mech Eng at Imperial College .
i love the hum of a well balanced v12 and they will need to prize them from my by then arthritic fingers !
i know electric if they future but i will remain a hood out as long as possible .
have enough trouble remembering to keep my iphone charged !
Range anxiety is something i can do without .
even detest the mandatory auto stop starts we have these days ( not on Rollers tho :-) , i keep thinking back to how troublesome the starter motors of the 1970s were . the solenoid on my dads Hillman Minx was always sticking :-)
Silver ,
agreed .
as it happens, i did in fact write to the company yesterday in detail covering several matters and i’m sure TF and BD are elbows deep in exactly that kind of forensic manner looking back through Toby’s reign and what makes sense and what doesn’t .
if all the ducks line up in a row , prior misdeeds cleared and a clear and true picture is revealed then , again , as i mentioned before i would be quite willing to look at being a participant going forwards , if only as a major shareholder but perhaps in a non executive capacity , subject to agreement by the company , of course . TF had expressed he would welcome a renewed engagement from me . let’s see what the next few weeks bring.. ( for the record my actual “ working “ days are well behind me , low attention span and way too expensive :-)
SB ,
spot on and that’s the mantra i have been laying out these last few days . if we want a premium exit to one of the biggest 3 then make the business easily swallowable and low risk for them , which is exactly what afilias represented .
if that can’t be done then carry on as is and try an opportunistic flip into cnic and hold your breath .