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Donald Brown was there. This article references the restaurant owner who confirms as much.
https://www.law.com/international-edition/2022/06/22/restaurant-owner-slams-inces-probe-into-management-teams-obnoxious-behaviour/
I said that the father left on the grounds of this incident. I was mistaken. However, Brown was in attendance.
Or indeed to literally merge with more employees
Good thing he has a newly introduced team of lawyers at hand and divorce lawyer (x2) already familiar with the case notes
Reputation permutates beyond employees, suppliers and customers yes but the broader market too. No doubt the legal minds employed at Ince will be as confident as the buyers of the stock that Donald Brown is the man to turn around the business.
I think you are confusing reputation with pride (Fuller's London). Find any Arden employee, ex or current to suggest otherwise and you've found something quite special.
With the current liabilities to cash balance even post placing, he's going to need more than dutch courage and the female touch to save this company.
Sorry for getting emotional, I think other shareholders should also chill about the 90% drop in value 12M.
Yes and with Ince at 50m and Arden at 4m, then, to the majority ownership of Arden; the insiders (directors), it seemed wise to have the cost base haemorrhage stemmed by Ince. Every other person, myself included on the outside could see what an appalling acquisition this represented to both parties.
With respects to the 'synergies' that Ince suggest are possible:
1. What will Arden represent as a company, profitable or not if there are no staff? There are quite literally a handful of people left.
2. As per my previous analysis, there is no deal making to be done for Arden now they have lost their NOMAD. This is evident on the Arden transactions page. They have done TWO TRANSACTIONS in the first 6 months of this year. Last year they did ELEVEN TRANSACTIONS in the first 6 months.
3. Who in their right mind would take a job at Arden now?
4. They are left with a very expensive market making function (also not profitable given volumes) and expensive regulatory costs associated.
So yes you are right: Arden has massively reduced its cost base, but not as a result of 'synergies'. As a result of all the staff leaving, no revenue and net net massive cost to both Ince company and shareholders.
If Biles did such a brilliant job acquiring Arden why did he go and if Arden was such a brilliant acquisition why has everyone left and why have they raised 11m. Assuming a 4% commission, that's a little over £500k. There is no sticky revenue now, given no NOMAD. Can it be any clearer???
Why does anyone have confidence in Donald Brown to run a legal company?
1. Since his tenure at Arden, he over saw its market cap go from 15m to 4m.
2. He has had two extra marital affairs, one with an Arden employee.
3. The price of Arden was agreed "over a pint" with his friend Biles.
4. He has never been a lawyer, nor run a law firm.
5. Not a single Arden Annual Report mentions a strategy that he came up with.
6. Arden staff turnover was running at 35% around the takeover point and now corporate finance has seen all seniors leave except for 2. All Corporate finance joiners in 1H 2020 have left also.
7. He has a better relationship with Youngs Bitter than he does with profitability, as well known in SMID cap broking.
@erratum, any comment given my previous statements? I think the Arden deal is looking quite good now, a lateral move into chocolate tea pots will mean the management and other shareholders can buy shares back at 1p and then the incredibly smart moves of this company, Biles, Donald Brown will take this company to the moon. Lets just hope that people on message boards aren't too discerning and damage the stock price too much... else the company might just become *too* cheap.
I don't want to re-type what I have already written but the key points around revenue generation (fundraising being a function of NOMAD status not the other way round), reputation, staff retention are all absolutely material to its NOMAD status. A GCSE business student being given a case study which explained what a NOMAD did and was given the last annual report of Arden would know that loss of NOMAD is a total contradiction of the Board's view as laid out in their 11th April RNS. It is disingenuous at best and deceit at worst.
Completion of the Acquisition will therefore mean that following the Change of Control, Arden will no longer be able to provide Nominated Adviser services. Although this is a significant change, the Board of Ince believes that Arden's reputation is primarily built around its ability to raise money for its clients and provide other broking and advisory services, and therefore the loss of its Nominated Adviser licence should not materially impact Arden's brand and ability to engage new clients nor its ability to provide fund raising and corporate broking services. The strategic rationale for the Acquisition as set out in the Scheme Document and announcement of 26 October 2021, which focuses on expanding the Enlarged Group's client base and deal flow, fundamentally remains the same.
I said that on the information we have we do not know who the letter was addressed to. The prefix Mr is universal for male identifying humans. I have said Adrian and John were present. You subsequently said that it is addressed to Biles and by extension he was present. I am saying, on the basis of that, I am delighted you concur that he was present.
I believe that the pontification around crude behaviour at a dinner in Cardiff is an inferior priority for discussion than shareholder destruction born out of poor quality judgement (crude behaviour in a restaurant is of course consistent with that). I believe that there is a case to be answered for in the disingenuous language in the RNS as I laid out this morning.
You are in agreement, that the letter addressed to 'Mr Biles' relates to the dinner that he 'chose' for 'his' dinner. It could not be clearer, that whomever it was addressed to was a participant that evening (as would be a natural function of the addressed being the subject matter of the email). The letter though does not absolve him of any responsibility of the behaviour as you have twice suggested. It merely says 'your group'.
Mr does not relate to anyone more specifically than a man. Every man at that table would warrant such a prefix.
ettarum, the letter was not addressed to Adrian nor John? The first letter after the word Dear shows an M. It didn't absolve anyone.
Whatever qualities one might draw from Michael Fabricant and his headpiece, the point is simply that you don't resign / not show up when there's a question as to who the guilty party is.
https://www.rollonfriday.com/feature-content/exclusive-ince-boss-john-biles-resigns-after-restaurant-allegations#:~:text=John%20Biles%2C%20Ince's%20head%20of,the%20misbehaving%20party%20as%20Biles.
Adrian Biles and Father were at the table. The father stepped down not long after daily mail article. See here. There is no doubt that Adrian + Father were at the dinner. This is not hearsay. This has been confirmed by insiders. You do not step down from a company immediately after an incident if you are innocent because else you will be misidentified as being guilty. You do not stay in a company immediately after an incident if you are advised by the board that your position is untenable. The 'optics' of a stepdown, such as his, is an effort by the board to 'put to bed' the story. Even if the individual and incident are not named together, it implicitly does the PR work for you, all things being equal.
Michael Fabricant attempted to articulate this dynamic in a, now retracted, tweet last week.
You will read from the RNS today that a "significant change has occurred" re Arden takeover. There is something more sinister than just the disingenuous suggestion around revenue. The messaging of the RNS suggests that the loss of NOMAD status was not considered by the board before April. The FT wrote on this in October, two days after the announcement.
Whereas on the 11th of April, Ince took an altogether different view, despite being in knowledge of the same facts. My very basic analysis, which has secured consensus acceptance on this message board with regards to significant loss of sticky revenue, staff retention and reputation is at total odds with the disingenuous statement from the 11th of April. How can it be remotely compatible with their statutory obligations to publish honest, truthful and comprehensive messaging around the material impact of the acquisition? The idea the board only 'considered' the impact, five months later after the FT article is indicative of either a disingenuous RNS or a board more fit to run a communal bath than a PLC.
One more point: Arden Partners are so proud of their staff turnover vis a vis the findings that I have published, they have removed the team page altogether from their website.
**** TODAYS RNS
Although this is a significant change, the Board of Ince believes that Arden's reputation is primarily built around its ability to raise money for its clients and provide other broking and advisory services, and therefore the loss of its Nominated Adviser licence should not materially impact Arden's brand and ability to engage new clients nor its ability to provide fund raising and corporate broking services. The strategic rationale for the Acquisition as set out in the Scheme Document and announcement of 26 October 2021, which focuses on expanding the Enlarged Group's client base and deal flow, fundamentally remains the same.
If you presented a gain on investment to a client and they turned round to you and said, "you've only made me 30%", you might question their faculties. A 30% gain on any investment, in an 'event' such as this one is significant. However a 30% loss, which you seem to implicitly discount requires "only" a gain of 42.5% to recover.....
Which given the value destruction at play, seems rather unlikely.