Interesting announcements this morning were issued by RedstoneConnect (REDS). Along with their annual results they are proposing to sell two major divisions that provide systems integration and managed services for £21.6 million in cash. That was actually more than the market cap of the company before the announcement.
That will leave them with a division that provides software for managing office occupancy (for example, hot-desking, car parking, access control, meeting room management, way-finding and other systems). The division had sales of £5.3 million last year. The company has some debt which may be repaid out of the proceeds of the sales but it is likely to have cash of at least £15 million.
The share price jumped on this news and is now about 114p at the time of writing, which values the business at nearly £24 million. It seems investors like the deal but don’t place a great value on the remaining software business.
My view is that strategically this move makes a lot of sense because the businesses being disposed of were low margin ones operating in competitive sectors. The software business is like all such businesses capable of being built around proprietary IP with barriers to entry and high recurring revenues streams. As a holder of RedstoneConnect shares I am therefore likely to vote in favour of this deal.
It is of course possible that the management of the company will blow the cash on poor acquisitions or other diversions but they do seem to have managed to turn around this company which has had a disappointing history, and head it in a positive direction. Adjusted profits almost doubled last year for example. It is claimed this reflects “the successful implementation of the strategy to focus on higher quality, higher margin business”.
The wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle was certainly a well-managed affair, but I was astonished to learn that it might have cost over £32 million even if Mum and Dad did pay a large share of it. Some estimates were even higher. I trust the heart attack of Meghan’s father was not caused by his being asked to contribute. But it’s the “opportunity cost” that really concerns me. For £32 million the parents could have purchased a sound business such as RedstoneConnect for £20 million and still had £10 million to spare for partying.
A number of commentators in the popular press vied with stories of how their weddings were so cheap in comparison. But can you beat mine of 1971 for “cheap”? I and my wife got married at Marylebone Registry Office (if it’s good enough for Paul McCartney it’s good enough for anyone). We then went back to our flat in Maida Vale where we had cohabited for some time for a reception with a few friends and relatives. I don’t recall our parents having to contribute and the cost in total must have been a few hundred pounds at best.
As regards the latest royal wedding, one omission was perhaps the lack of a writer of the skill of Victorian war correspondent William Russell to commemorate the event. This is a sentence from his report of the wedding of the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) to Princess Alexandra: “With trumpet-flourish and roll of drum, in cadence measured and timed, tossing plume and lustrous train, gold and jewel, cloth of gold, satin and ermine, ribands and stars condense and form a pyramid of colours which tapers in at the door of the chapel and lights up that space which can be seen through the archway, as peer and peeress, Knights of the Garter, and ministers gather in their places”.
That is from a compendium of his reports for the Times recently purchased in a second-hand bookshop. They cover the Crimean war, the coronation of the Czar in Russia, the Indian Mutiny, the laying of the first Atlantic telegraph cable, the start of the American Civil War and much more that I have yet to read. But oh to be able to write like William Russell is one of my few remaining desires.
Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )
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