Tag: Blancco Technology

Brexit Bounce, Green Accreditation, Security Issues and Hargreaves Lansdown AGM

The FTSE and my portfolio jumped up this morning on the hope of a Brexit Agreement after all. RBS is up 16% which seems to be a function of euphoria. I think I’ll wait and see the progress of discussions in the next few days before plunging in to buy some more stocks. But if an Agreement is reached then the market is likely to power ahead so keep that cash handy.

The London Stock Exchange (LSE) announced today a new “Green Accreditation” scheme which will recognize companies and funds that derive 50% or more of their revenues from products or services that contribute to the global green economy. One company that has promptly announced accreditation is Blancco Technology (BLTG) in which I hold a very few shares after a disappointing track record. How do they qualify for this award? They do so because they provided data erasure services thereby helping people to recycle and reuse hardware rather than scrap it. No doubt there will be other “virtue signalers” claiming this award but I doubt it will make a lot of difference to my investment choices.

The takeover of Cobham (COB) has run into a lot of criticism about the threat to national security. The founding family have raised concerns and the Government has decided to intervene. On a personal note should I be worried that our new home security system based on Hikvision technology leaves us open to being hacked? Not only that but I also have a Huawei smartwatch. Both companies have been banned by the US due to their links to the Chinese Government. Hikvision have 1.3 million cameras installed in the UK, often in NHS facilities. This is surely an issue where the Government should be providing some advice. Why do we now have cameras all around our house? Not because of worries that my views on Brexit might stimulate some demonstrators but because the home of two Asian families in our street were recently burgled. Apparently such families are particularly at threat of such attacks because they often keep gold at home. Readers can be assured that there are no gold bars in our house. The burglaries that did take place were to houses with non-functioning alarm systems but my wife was somewhat concerned.

There was an interesting report in the Financial Times on the Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) Annual General Meeting (I do not hold the shares). It sounds like it was a lively affair. Apparently some shareholders were not happy with the reaction of HL to the Woodford Equity Income Fund suspension after HL had promoted the fund. One shareholder said the reopening of the fund “has been postponed more often than Brexit” and suggested that HL should push for Woodford to liquidate the fund immediately. Comment: liquidating the fund abruptly would be easier said than done due to the nature of its holdings, but I agree that more vigorous action could have been taken. The fact that Neil Woodford is still running the fund when it will clearly be every unlikely to recover rapidly if at all is far from ideal.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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Blancco AGM and Regulatory Landscape

Today I attended the Annual General Meeting of Blancco Technology Group (BLTG). This technology company is now focused on the data erasure market which is surely a growing one. I have commented on this company before (see links below), particularly as the company, and its shareholders, seemed to be a victim of false accounting – an issue that is way too prevalent of late.

The legal framework under which companies, their directors and the regulatory bodies operate just seems to be too weak to bring errant directors and auditors to account. This is not just obvious from this case but from the discussions at the recent ShareSoc/UKSA sponsored meeting with the Financial Reporting Council (FRC). See my previous comments on the Autonomy case in addition. As you will see below, no action seems to be being taken against the former directors of Blancco by the company, although complaints have been made to the FRC and to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) about past events and the latter may still be investigating – but as usual feedback is non-existent. As regards the complaint to the FRC, they have passed the buck to the ICAEW (the regulatory body for accountants) on the basis that it is too small a company to be bothered with.

There were about a dozen shareholders at the Blancco AGM in the City of London. The Chairman, Rob Woodwood, opened the meeting by introducing the board. That included new CEO Matt Jones who joined in March and new CFO Adam Maloney. Rob said the last year was a period of positive change for the company, which one can hardly dispute. He said after a turbulent year, they are on a positive track.

Shareholder Bruce Noble, first queried comments on the impact of currency movements (see page 9 of the Annual Report). The CFO admitted it could perhaps have been explained better.

Bruce then pointed out that the report made it clear that management controls had been avoided in the past as a result of which the accounts were false. This resulted in the management obtaining £400,000 and shareholders losing £135 million. The board responded that investigations were on-going and as result they were unable to comment about what is being done due to “legal privilege”. Both Bruce and I complained that we did not understand that comment, and I said that they were in breach of their legal obligations to answer questions put by shareholders at a General Meeting (see my past articles on similar issues at Abcam and Patisserie). As usual they refused to respond further due to “legal advice” so I suggested they should get better advice.

As I said to the Chairman after the meeting ended, we don’t expect him to disclose their conversations with the FCA or FRC, but there is no reason why they cannot pursue a civil case against the former management if there are justifiable grounds. They need to give reasons if they choose not to do so and simply saying they wish to concentrate on rebuilding the business is not good enough. I suggested I would be voting against his re-election in future (not on the agenda at this meeting) if he failed to take action on this matter.

The above is an abbreviated summary of what was a rather long discussion on this issue.

Bruce Noble also criticised the proposed re-election of Frank Blin, who was Chairman of the Audit Committee when the past events occurred. He asked him to do the “honourable” thing and step down, which Mr Blin refused to do. Bruce also criticised the appointment of PWC to take over from the former auditors (KPMG) when Mr Blin had a previous relationship with PWC and PWC had received criticism about other audits. Mr Blin responded that the relationship mentioned was more than 6 years ago and PWC had been appointed after an open tender process. Another shareholder suggested they might get better attention from a smaller audit firm but Blin responded that they did need a firm that could cover a complex international business particularly their operations in Finland and India. Comment: I don’t think having a smaller audit firm would help – Grant Thornton has had similar problems to larger firms. There is a more general problem with the overall quality of audits which has been recognised in the national media and by many investors.

I questioned the presentation of the income statement in the Annual Report, where “adjustments” are mixed in with normal “reported” figures and confuse the reader. They will look at this issue.

We then had a brief presentation from the new CEO Matt Jones. He is clearly an experienced manager of IT businesses. He said they have good customers and good staff but were spread too thinly. They need to focus more. He will be focusing on those with good growth opportunities, namely ITAD, mobile and enterprise solutions (note: they each represent about one third of current revenue).

There was a question about cash flow and operating margins. The response was that they are making investment this year to increase growth and hence margins will come down this year, but will grow thereafter. It was noted later that the investment will be mainly in R&D and to a lesser extent in sales and marketing. The CFO said the key was to avoid major exceptionals and improve cash flow.

One shareholder raised the issue about reliance on one customer at 11% of turnover but the board expressed no concerns and it might fall slightly this year.

I asked about the competitive landscape. Answer given was the main area for that was in mobile and they are working to improve their offering to meet that.

Another shareholder questioned their presence in 26 countries – are they spreading themselves too thinly? The answer was they are not planning any cut back in the geographic perspective. It transpired later than some of their locations are only very small sales operations, even though the CEO clearly spends a lot of time on planes (incidentally he mentioned he is based in California and works from home with an office above his garage). Modern communications methods assist a great deal.

The CEO said they have adequate sales/marketing staff and productivity is improving.

Lastly a question was raised as to the apparent votes from large shareholder M&G who abstained on some of the resolutions. Does the board know why? The answer was no, and it was not clear whether they had even been asked why although the Chairman did say he had been in communication with them and other large shareholders. Could it be I wonder that they were also unhappy with the openness of the board and their apparent failure to pursue past wrongdoing?

In conclusion, it does seem that the Chairman and the rest of the board are at least taking sensible steps to rebuild the company. The new executives seem to be good appointments but we will have to wait and see whether they can actually produce the goods. In the meantime, investor confidence in the company may take time to rebuild but even so it’s still quite highly rated on the normal financial ratios. My concern is that revenue growth does not seem particularly high for this kind of business and the current valuation. But there is certainly business opportunities to pursue given the growing populations of IT and phone equipment that need erasure or disposal at some point.

https://roliscon.blog/2018/01/15/sharesoc-takes-up-blancco-complaints/ https://roliscon.blog/2017/12/20/lse-general-meeting-and-blancco-agm/

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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Johnston Press, Blancco Technology and Intercede

Companies in difficulties always make for interesting reading, and here’s a brace of them.

Firstly Johnston Press (JPR), a publisher of newspapers. That includes many local ones but also the Yorkshire Post and the Scotsman who cover national business news – the latter is particularly good on the travails of those big banks registered in Scotland such as RBS and Lloyds. The company had more operating losses than revenue last year, debt is way too high and dividends have been non-existant for years. Local newspapers have been shrinking as advertising revenue has moved elsewhere and traditional national newspapers have also been battered by the availability of free news on the internet. It is clearly operating in a sector in sharp decline.

Now it has become the subject of an attempted revolution by its largest shareholder, Norwegian Christen Ager-Hanssen who holds 20% of the equity. He wishes to replace some, if not all, the directors and called an EGM to do so. Removal of the Chairman of Johnston is proposed and the appointment of Alex Salmond, former First Minister in Scotland, and experienced newspaper executive Steve Auckland.

Apparently they feel confident of winning a vote, and would have been even more aggressive in removing directors if the company did not have a “poison pill”. One of their issued bonds includes a provision that if new directors form a majority of the board but were not appointed by the existing directors the debt could become immediately repayable. The company would have little hope of doing that. Mr Ager-Hansen says this mechanism is a “breach of fiduciary duties” and is consulting lawyers as to whether action could be taken against the directors. This writer certainly agrees that this arrangement was and is morally dubious and the sooner the Chairman of Johnston Press Camillia Rhodes, goes then the better. Shareholders should vote accordingly.

Whether a new management team can revive such an ailing business, even if editorial policy and management improves (which is one of the issues apparently) is surely doubtful.

Blancco Technology Group (BLTG) has been in turmoil for a couple of years. Results for the year to June were published today. They changed the nature of the business to focus on software for “erasure” and “mobile phone diagnostics” and new management was put in place a couple of years ago. But today’s announcement makes grim reading. The Chairman, Rob Woodward, spells it out to begin with by saying: “2017 has been a year of substantial challenges for the Group, with the business performing far below our expectations”, But he does say: “However, the underlying strengths of Blancco remain in place and I am confident that these, together with the significant number of remedial actions we are taking, will restore a sustainable growth trajectory and build long-term shareholder value”.

But the detail makes for horrific reading. For example: “During April the Group undertook a review of cash flow forecasts and identified anticipated pressure on the cash position of the Group.  This pressure was caused by the non-collection of £3.5 million of outstanding receivables relating to a sale booked in June 2016 and a sale booked in December 2016, and costs associated with past acquisition activity, including earn-outs and M&A advisory fees”; and “On 4 September 2017 the Group announced the reversal of two contracts totalling £2.9 million booked as revenue during June 2017, following a number of matters being brought to the Board’s attention”. As a result the 2016 accounts have been restated. In addition, the new interim CFO, Simon Herrick, was appointed interim CEO and the former CEO departed.

Last year’s accounts were full of adjustments and the complexity compounded by the number of disposals and acquisitions. This year is not much different, and they even report “adjusted cash flows”. I always thought cash was cash, but apparently not. But the share price perked up somewhat – up 30% at 72p at the time of writing after a long decline. The company does seem to have some interesting technology but whether all the problems have now been revealed we do not know. The Chairman is sticking around after previously announcing his departure but they are still looking for a new CEO.

I would not care to predict the future for this business. But one question worth asking is “what were the auditors doing last year?”. Revenue recognition is often a problem in this kind of company and it looks like a case of sales proving to be fictitious when some questions were asked about them. This is yet another example of the audit profession falling down on the job which we have seen so many times before. Shareholders in Blannco should consider asking for the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to undertake an investigation into the audits of this company. The auditors last year were KPMG.

Intercede (IGP) issued a profit warning yesterday in a Trading Update. A large order for its identity software solution that was expected will not now be received until the next financial year. Other orders are also apparently being delayed. As a result, revenue growth this year will be below market expectations. The share price fell yesterday and today and is 34p at the time of writing.

I first commented on Intercede back in 2011 when ShareSoc ran a campaign against the remuneration scheme in the company. The share price then was about 60p. It briefly went over 200p in 2014, on hopes of real growth in revenue and profits but then steadily declined before this latest announcement. In reality this company is a consistent under-performer. It operates in what should be a hot sector (personal id security) but never seems able to capitalise on its interesting technology in a growing market. Change is made difficult as Richard Parris runs it as “Executive Chairman”, assisted by his wife who is also employed in the business. An example of a “lifestyle” business, not uncommon on AIM, where the directors extract signficant sums while the business goes nowhere in particular.

This company would probably be worth a lot more than the current market cap to a trade buyer who could exploit the technology and improve the sales and marketing. What’s the chance of that happening? Not much I would guess.

Note: the writer has trivial holdings in Blancco and Intercede.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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