Raspberry Pi who sell very cheap single board computers are proposing to list on the main UK stock market. They have issued a “Pathfinder Prospectus” which is available from several brokers, although a lot of the detailed information needed to evaluate the business is not there.
However I thought I would give it a quick read although I hardly ever invest in new issues. I did buy one of their computers for my oldest grandson some years back and had a play with it. At the time it was clearly aimed at the educational/hobbyist market but has also been used to embed in other commercial IOT systems. You can use a Raspberry Pi product to learn programming although as a past programmer in my early career I am always sceptical about teaching kids to learn programming – it may put them off software development for life. Learning BASIC just seems very tedious and prone to simple grammatic errors but it teaches you that complex programs are built up from simple constructs.
The last time I wrote anything in BASIC was for my MBA course over 40 years ago but unlike most people on the course who had no IT background I managed to impress the course tutor with my perfectly crafted mortgage calculation program.
Raspberry Pi have come a long way in the last few years. They appear to be profitable with revenue of $265 million last year. The market value is likely to be over $500 million. The company which owns the IP was founded as an educational charity back in 2008 and it has partnerships with ARM and Sony so the legal structure is complex and it’s worth reading the “Risk Factors” carefully. The charity is still the ultimate parent company. It does not manufacture the hardware it sells. I suspect it could be a popular listing as there are few high-tech companies that have built a market niche in the world like Raspberry. But the company has many competitors and no obvious barriers to entry in the markets it serves.
Investing in new IPOs is a recipe for underperformance as the listing price is based on optimism and opportunistic timing. But it’s certainly worth reading the Prospectus.
Political news. The big political news in the UK is that Nigel Farage is taking over leadership of the Reform Party and is standing for Parliament on the 4th of July. In a recent public opinion poll the Reform Party was only 2% behind the Conservatives so do stand a chance of winning some seats. And of course damaging the Tory vote.
I have met Nigel Farage a few times and he does make good speeches so I wish him the best of luck. Whether he can get elected is difficult to judge as he is divisive personality in some ways. Some people don’t like charismatic persons.
The policies of the Reform Party are sound and Richard Tice has been doing a good job leading the Party so I hope he will stick around.
Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )
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