Firstly a brief report on the Annual General Meeting of FairFX (FFX) which I attended today in the City. Only I and one other shareholder asked any questions, and there may not have been many others there.
This is a payments company which had an initial focus on the provision of foreign exchange but they now do a lot more. They are planning to change the name in the near future and there was a resolution tabled to change the articles to enable them to do this without reverting to shareholders. I abstained on that because I prefer companies to put a change of name to investors. But talking to one of the directors after the meeting it sounds like they are taking a professional approach to the name change.
Revenue of the company was up 69% last year to £26 million with profits of £2.6 million. Adjusted EBITDA was up 687% if you wish to look on the bright side. There was a positive AGM announcement with phrases such as “a strong year to date” both in revenue and margins. Full year trading should be in line with market expectations.
The accounts of payment/credit card companies can be complex as I know from being a director of one of them in the past. So I asked a few questions on that area.
FairFX now exclude customer deposits from their accounts which is a definite improvement. But it does capitalise a lot of software development – £4.7 million last year, which I have no concerns about so long as it is in accordance with accounting standards. In response to a question I was told this level of expenditure might be a bit more in the current year. They are building a new unified front end on their 3 applications (platforms) – some of which were acquired.
I queried the collateral requirements of financial institutions they deal with (see page 6 of the Annual Report) and was told this is taken out of the cash figure on the balance sheet and is now in “Other receivables” – hence the large increase in that figure plus the impact of acquisitions on it and general increase in turnover.
Wirecard was mentioned during these questions. Apparently FairFX has historically used them as a “Card Issuer” but they now have the capability to issue cards themselves which will improve margins – customers will be migrated over. That’s reassuring because Wirecard has been getting some very negative publicity in the FT lately.
The other shareholder attending asked about the economic trends and their impact. Corporates are apparently sitting on their hands re FX and clearly Brexit risk might be impacting the demand for personal FX credit cards as holidays in Europe might be impacted by the uncertainty. However the CEO seemed confident about the future.
I might sign up for one of their “Everywhere” Pre-paid Credit Cards which looks cheaper than the company I am using at present.
This is one of those companies that has stopped issuing paper proxy forms – promoted by their Registrar Link Asset Services. I complained about that. I was also not happy that the resolutions were taken on a poll rather than a show of hands. But I understand the proxy counts were all higher than 99% so that was an academic issue.
Link acting as ACD for Woodford Funds
Link, in the guise of “Link Fund Solutions”, also got their name in the FT today over their activities as the Authorised Corporate Director (ACD) of the Woodford Equity Income Fund. An ACD is supposed to ensure that a fund sticks to the rules. They would have been involved in the decision to close the fund to redemptions.
It also seems very odd to me that they approved the listing of some fund holdings in Guernsey to get around the limitations of unlisted holdings. That was clearly an abuse as the reality was that these were not listing that provided any significant liquidity, with minimal dealing taking place. It’s the substance that counts, not how it might simply appear to meet the technical rules.
This looks to be yet another case of those who are supposed to be keeping financial operators in line not doing their job properly. But ask who is paying them.
FT article on Net Zero Emissions
I commented previously on Mrs May’s commitment to go for net zero carbon emissions by 2050. I called it suicidal.
There is a very good article on this topic in the FT today by Jonathan Ford (entitled “Net Zero Emissions Require a Wartime Level of Mobilisation”). The article explains how easy it is to get to the £1 Trillion cost mentioned by the Chancellor on required housing changes alone to remove all fossil fuel consumption. There may be some payback from the investment required but the payback period might be 37 years!
The whole energy system will need to be rebuilt and some of the required technologies (e.g. carbon capture) do not yet exist on a commercial basis. For more details go to the web site of the Committee on Climate Change and particularly the Technical Report present here: https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/net-zero-technical-report/
If this plan is proceeded with there are enormous costs and enormous risks involved. But it will certainly have a major impact on not just our way of lives but on many UK companies many of which consume large amounts of power. That is definitely something investors must keep an eye on. Companies like FairFX may be one of the few that are not affected in a big way as they only manufacture electronic transactions. That’s assuming the rest of the economy and consumers are not too badly depressed by the changes as a result of course.
Nobel prize winning economist William Nordhaus has shown how a zero-carbon target is unwise. See this note for more information: https://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2018/MurphyNordhaus.html
Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )
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