Tag: Patisserie Valerie

Patisserie Valerie and Shell Legal Cases

Shareholders in café company Patisserie Valerie were wiped out in 2018 after the accounts were shown to be fictitious and the company collapsed. It has now been announced that a trial date of four people alleged to be involved in the fraud has been set for March 2026. See https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/2026-trial-date-for-patisserie-valerie-criminal-case/5117808.article

Is it not astonishing that it has taken so long to bring the case to court? Compare that with the recent case of FTX/Alameda Research in the USA where Sam Bankman-Fried was prosecuted and found guilty in just a few months. This demonstrates what is wrong with the English legal system for dealing with fraud cases. Justice delayed for years is no justice and is no deterrent to criminal action.  

Another recently reported legal case is that oil company Shell is suing Greenpeace for £1.7 million after “activists” boarded an oil platform that was in transit off the Canary Islands. Shell incurred substantial costs as a result.

Comment: as a Shell shareholder I fully support the company actions. I think more such lawsuits should be pursued against organisations such as Greenpeace and Just Stop Oil who clearly have substantial resources which are financed by the ill-informed and take part in criminal activities in pursuit of their goals.

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

You can “follow” this blog by entering your email address in the box below.  You will then receive an email alerting you to new posts as they are added.

Four Charged with Fraud over Patisserie Valerie Case

Four people have been charged over the fraud at café company Patisserie Valerie. Ordinary shareholders in the company were wiped out in 2018 after the accounts were shown to be fictitious.

More details here:  https://www.sfo.gov.uk/2023/09/13/sfo-charges-four-individuals-behind-patisserie-valerie-collapse/

A shame it has taken so long to actually bring charges which is not unusual in fraud cases.

Auditors Grant Thornton were also fined over their involvement in the case. Grant Thornton was fined £2.3m because it had “missed red flags” and failed to question information provided by management. A trivial fine in relation to the losses suffered by investors.

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

You can “follow” this blog by entering your email address in the box below.  You will then receive an email alerting you to new posts as they are added.

Good Articles in Investors’ Chronicle

There were several good articles in this week’s Investors’ Chronicle. I cover them briefly below.

The Editor, Rosie Carr, reported on feedback on readers’ views on taxation. Should the wealthy readers of the IC pay more was one question previously posed and the consensus answer seemed to be Yes. For pensioners it was suggested that they should pay National Insurance on their income and that there should be harmonisation of income and capital gains tax rates. It was also suggested that property taxes should be raised and Inheritance Tax raised.

I would support most of those suggestions but not the last. Inheritance Tax is typically a tax on created wealth which has already been taxed in one way or another. Double taxation on the same assets should be avoided in my view although perhaps some loopholes should be closed.

There was a good article by Chris Dillow on the problems created by the “decades-long attempts to cut inventories”. He points out that the adoption of “just-in-time” production methods had a positive impact as inventory is expensive. That is particularly so when debt is expensive and interest rates high. This of course is the result of MBAs like me being taught at business schools that cutting inventory was always a good thing. Now we find that the smallest hiccup in the supply chain such as transport delays proves to be very expensive.

There is a good analysis of the audit issues at Patisserie Valerie by Steve Clapham. He concludes that the sanctions imposed by the FRC “are woefully inadequate” which I also suggested in a previous blog post. I said Grant Thornton was “fined a trivial amount”.

The article does however suggest that there were some warning signs such as very high margins in comparison with other sector players, and high inventories in relation to the revenue. But there were reasonable explanations for the differences. One would have had to do a lot of research to figure out if there was really a problem or not. Clearly the auditors did not do that and most investors do not have the time nor resources to do such research. That’s why we rely on the audited accounts!

It is unfortunately the case that outright frauds can often be easily concealed but the audit in this case was clearly very defective and the published accounts of the company were grossly misleading.

But I do admit to failing to take my own prescription for avoiding problem companies – namely investing in a company with an Executive Chairman with too many jobs!

There is also a good article on “The flattery industry”, i.e. how management improve their reported profits by using “alternative” or “adjusted” measures. The FRC has published a report on this issue.

It is very clear that companies are addicted to alternative performance measures and that applies just as much to large companies as small ones. One company and its “adjustments” mentioned negatively in the article is GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). I sold a holding in GSK back in 2014 for that very reason – way too many adjustments in the accounts. The price of the shares then was about 1480p. It’s now 1407p. Clearly a good decision. Stockopedia currently says it qualifies for the Altman Z-Score Screen (Short Selling). Enough said I think.

But this is surely yet another example of where the FRC is falling down on its job. There should be regulation of what can be published as adjusted figures and there should be rules about how they are published. There should be consistency and not excessive emphasis on adjusted figures. At present we have a quagmire of data with no easy way to compare different companies.

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

You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right in most browsers or by using the Contact page to send us a message requesting. You will then receive an email alerting you to new posts as they are added.

Law Suit Launched Against Grant Thornton over Patisserie Valerie Audits

The Daily Telegraph and some other sources have reported that the liquidators of Patisserie Valerie (CAKE) have filed a claim in the High Court against Grant Thornton over the audits of Patisserie Valerie in the years before it went into administration.

I reported previously that the accounts of Patisserie were a complete fiction – see Reference 1 below – with the assets of the firm overstated by more than £90 million.

The liquidators are FRP Advisory and they have appointed lawyers Mischon de Reya to pursue the case. Will this mean that if the action is successful that ordinary shareholders will see any return? Highly unlikely I would guess as secured creditors will take priority, and those include the former Executive Chairman of the company, Luke Johnson, who lent the company many millions in an attempt to keep if afloat before it failed. In addition there will be very substantial legal costs which cannot always be recovered in full even if the action is won. In addition, administrations and liquidations always consume a very large amount of cash.

Grant Thornton only recently lost another legal action over their audit work at AssetCo where they not only blamed everyone else for the defective accounts but actually claimed that AssetCo was better off not knowing the truth of its own financial position! See Reference 2 below.

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) have proposed to tighten up the responsibility of auditors to identify fraud (see Reference 4) which has been far too lax in the past. But the Patisserie action will depend on the historic rules. However the Courts have clearly made it plain that irresponsible audits will not be totally excused. Without wishing to prejudge the case, Grant Thornton looks like they will have a lot of explaining to do because the fraud looks a simple case of assets such as cash being grossly overstated. Grant Thornton have however said they will “rigourously defend the claim”.

Reference 1: Patisserie Administration: https://roliscon.blog/2019/03/16/patisserie-and-interserve-administrations-plus-brexit-latest/

Reference 2: AssetCo case: https://roliscon.blog/2019/02/06/assetco-case-and-grant-thornton-defense/

Reference 3: Daily Telegraph article: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/11/20/grant-thornton-hit-legal-challenge-collapse-patisserie-valerie/

Reference 4: FRC Tightens Audit Rules: https://roliscon.blog/2020/10/29/preventing-fraud-in-accounts-fca-tightens-audit-rules/

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

You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right in most browsers or by using the Contact page to send us a message requesting. You will then receive an email alerting you to new posts as they are added.

© Copyright. Disclaimer: Read the About page before relying on any information in this post.

Winning The Loser’s Game – It’s Like Tennis

Tennis Player

It’s that time of year when we review our investment performance over the last year and some of us realise that it would have been lot better if it was not for the few disasters in our share holdings. For example, this is what well known investor David Stredder tweeted before Xmas: “End of 2018 and most of this year has been pretty awful investing wise for me…ACSO, CRAW, BUR, SOM, OPM & JLH were all top 15 holdings and lost 50% or more. CRAW actually went bust. First signs of recovery in two of those and thankfully my top three holdings GAW, JDG & INL have all doubled and covered most my losses but shows investing cannot be fab returns every year. Often a roller coaster ride and must prepare yourself…Sell half on first bad news, slice profits, make friends, share bad and good times as happen to all of us. Enjoy the festive break”.

For those like me that cannot remember all the TIDMs of the several thousand listed companies, the failings were in Accesso, Crawshaw, Burford Capital, Somero, 1PM and John Lewis of Hungerford. The positives were Games Workshop, Judges Scientific and Inland Homes. As an aside I do wish investors would put the company name not just the TIDM (EPIC) code when referencing companies in tweets. A lot of the time I have no idea what they are talking about.

As in most years, I have also had failures. Patisserie was a wipe-out. It went bust after a massive fraud. Thankfully not one of my bigger holdings but I ignored two of the rules I gave in my book “Business Perspective Investing” – namely avoid Executive Chairmen, and directors who have too many roles. I lost money on a number of other newish holdings but not much because I did not hold on to the duds for long.

One of the keys to successful long-term investing is to simply minimise the number of failures while letting the rest of your investments prosper. It is important to realise that investment is a “loser’s game”. It is not the number of sound investments one makes that is important, but the number of mistakes that one avoids that affects the overall performance of your portfolio.

A good book on this subject which I first read some years ago is “Investment Policy – How to Win the Loser’s Game by Charles D. Ellis”. It covers investment strategy in essence but it also contains some simple lessons that are worth learning. He points out that investing is a loser’s game so far as even professional investors are concerned, let alone private investors. Most active fund managers underperform their benchmarks. A lot of the activity of investors in churning their portfolios actually reduces their performance. The more they change horses with the objective of picking a winning steed, the worse their performance gets as their new bets tend to be riskier than the previous holdings, i.e. newer holdings are just more speculative, not intrinsically better. That is why value investing as followed by many experienced investors can outperform.

But Charles Ellis supplied a very good analogy obtained from Dr. Simon Ramo who studied tennis players. He found that professional tennis players seemed to play a different game to amateurs. Professionals seldom make mistakes. Their games have long rallies until one player forces an error by placing a ball just out of reach. But amateurs tend to lose games by hitting the ball into the net or out of play, i.e. they make a lot of unforced errors. The amateur seldom beats his opponent, but more often beats himself. Professional tennis is a winner’s game while amateur tennis is a loser’s game.

In a recent review of my book by Roy Colbran in the UKSA newsletter he says “the book takes a somewhat unusual line in telling you more about things to avoid than things to look for”. Perhaps that is because I have learned from experience that avoiding failures is more important to achieve good overall returns. That means not just avoiding investing in duds to begin with, but cutting losses quickly when the share price goes the wrong way, and getting out at the first significant profit warning.

However, the contrary to many negative qualities in companies are positive qualities. If they are unexceptional in many regards, they can continue to churn out profits without a hiccup if the basic financial structure and business model are good ones. Compounding of returns does the rest. If they avoid risky new business ventures, unwise acquisitions or foreign adventures, that can be to the good.

The companies most to avoid are those where there might be massive returns but where the risks are high. Such companies as oil/gas exploration businesses or mine developers are often of that nature. Or new technology companies with good “stories” about the golden future.

There were a couple of good articles on this year’s investment failures in the Lex column of the FT on Christmas Eve. This is what Lex said about Aston Martin (AML): “Decrying ambitious ventures is relatively safe. Many flop. We gave Aston Martin the benefit of the doubt, instead”. But Lex concedes that the mistake was to be insufficiently cynical.

Lex also commented on Sirius Minerals (SXX) a favourite of many private investors but where Lex says equity holders are likely to be wiped out. Well at least I avoided those two and also avoided investing in any of the Woodford vehicles last year.

To return to the loser’s game theme, many private investors might do better to invest in an index tracker which will give consistent if not brilliant returns than in speculative stocks. At least they will avoid big losses that way. Otherwise the key is to minimise the risks by research and by having a diverse portfolio with holdings sized to match the riskiness of the company. As a result I only lost 0.7% of my portfolio value on Patisserie which has been well offset by the positive movements on my other holdings last year. It of course does emphasise the fact that if you are going to dabble in AIM stocks then you need to hold more than just a few while trying to avoid “diworsification”.

Not churning your portfolio is another way to avoid playing the loser’s game. And as Warren Buffett said “Rule No. 1: Never lose money. Rule No. 2: Never forget rule No. 1.” – in other words, he emphasised the importance of not losing rather than simply making wonderful investment decisions.

Those are enough good New Year resolutions for now.

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

You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right.

© Copyright. Disclaimer: Read the About page before relying on any information in this post.

GB Group, Patisserie Holdings, FRC Stewardship Code and Halma

The stock market seems to be in limbo as business waits to see the outcome of Brexit politics. In my portfolio, small cap companies are drifting down and even large funds and trusts have been declining. Is this due to currency effects or the realisation that “star” fund managers such as Neil Woodford cannot be relied upon? Others are just bouncing around. However there was one exception yesterday when GB Group (GBG) jumped 14% after a positive trading statement. That company is one of my more successful longer-term holdings but there may be more growth to come from it because of the sector in which it operates. On-line id verification is becoming essential for many businesses.

The Administrator for Patisserie Holdings has issued their final report before the business moves into liquidation and another firm took over from KPMG to look into any legal recovery from the past auditors (Grant Thornton) and others. The handover was due to a conflict of interest. The Serious Fraud Office is still investigating the affairs of the company and a number of arrests have been made, but ordinary shareholders should not expect any return and it could be years before the legal processes are completed from past experience of similar situations. Even preferential creditors may not receive anything. The administration has so far cost £2.3 million.

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) have announced a new Stewardship Code to improve the activities of institutional investors – see https://tinyurl.com/y5no8ot4 . There is more emphasis on “Purpose, values and culture” and the recognition of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors.

This is all very worthy, but personally I would prefer the FRC concentrated on tightening up the quality of public company accounts for which it is responsible. It also needs to be a lot more forceful on patent audit failures that enable frauds to go undetected for years as at Patisserie – and there have been many other similar cases of not just downright fraud but also over-optimistic presentation of accounts.

This morning (25/10/2019) I attended a presentation by Halma Plc (HLMA) in the Investec offices. It was given by Charles King, Head of Investor Relations and it was a highly professional presentation unlike many we see. I have held shares in the company for four years and it confirmed that my choice of it as an investment was sound. But I did learn a bit more.

I’ll cover some of the key points that were made. This company has strong fundamental growth drivers. It has grown both organically and my acquisition over 45 years and now has 45 companies in the portfolio which primarily operate independently. One might call it a conglomerate. It focuses on life saving technology businesses – in essence “safer, cleaner, healthier”, in global niche markets. These are often regulated markets which helps on defensibility and growth. Demographic trends help as more people who are older and fatter promote growth and higher regulatory standards also move in. There is a lot of diversity in the products.

They aim for 15% growth per annum and have 6,000 staff in total. They bet strongly on “talent” to run the businesses. In essence there are many little companies all run by entrepreneurs who are left to operate as they wish. These people are paid on the basis of profit achieved in excess of the cost of capital but one requirement they look at when recruiting is that they must have “low egos”. There is only a small group of central staff handling some corporate functions.

Their focus is on acquiring companies with low capital intensity and ROTIC of greater than 16% when their cost of capital is about 8%. They are very diversified internationally but see opportunities to grow more in Asia/Pacific and other developing markets.

The high share price was questioned (or as one person put it: “it’s in nose bleed territory”). It’s currently on a forecast p/e of 32 according to Stockopedia which is higher than when I purchased shares in 2015 but the share price has more than doubled in that period. This company is like many high revenue/profit growth companies – they never look cheap but simply grow into their share price.

However the share price has fallen back of late like a lot of highly valued technology stocks that I hold. The speaker attributed this to market trends, not management share selling. Growth companies tend to go out of fashion as economic headwinds appear.

But if they stick to the business model, with the high return on capital and sensible acquisitions, I doubt they can go far wrong. In summary a useful and enlightening meeting for a company that until recently kept a low profile. But it is now in the FTSE-100 (market cap £7 billion).

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

You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right.

© Copyright. Disclaimer: Read the About page before relying on any information in this post.

Burford, ShareSoc Seminar, Woodford Patient Capital and Patisserie

Burford Capital (BUR) have published a report by Professor Joshua Mitts over the alleged manipulation of their share price in early August, i.e. market abuse by “spoofing” and “layering”. It links it to the shorting attack by Muddy Waters and is fairly convincing.

They have also published a “witness statement” for an application in the High Court for disclosure of trading information from the London Stock Exchange so as to identify who was trading. In it they also appear to be suggesting that there may have been some “naked” short selling taking place, i.e. sales not covered by borrowed stock which they indicate is illegal under EU Short Selling Regulation 2012.

My opinion on the merits of Burford as an investment or who is going come out smelling of roses in this battle are unchanged – it could be neither. Incidentally I will be discussing the merits of Burford as an investment at some length in my presentation on my book “Business Perspective Investing” at the ShareSoc Birmingham Seminar tomorrow evening (Tuesday) – see https://tinyurl.com/yxryk2h2 . It’s not too late to register and it should be an interesting discussion.

Woodford Patient Capital (WPCT) issued their interim results this morning. Net asset value per share was down 26% on the previous year end. The share price removed unmoved but it was already at a discount of nearly 40% to the Net Asset Value and more write-downs in their portfolio have been made since the half year end. The discount is quite extreme for any investment trust. There have been more board changes and there is a lengthy article in the Financial Times this morning on the pressure faced by Neil Woodford to quit managing the trust. The article suggests the board has lost confidence in Mr Woodford and is courting other asset managers – but who would want to take it on?

I happened to visit a Patisserie Valerie café in York during my Northern vacation last week. Now under new management of course. But the service was absolutely dire, prices were high and there were few customers there when other cafes in the town were busy. One customer walked out because of the slow service. Looks like the new management have taken on a problem.

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

You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right.

© Copyright. Disclaimer: Read the About page before relying on any information in this post.

 

Patisserie and Interserve Administrations, plus Brexit latest

Yesterday the administrators (KPMG) of Patisserie (CAKE) issued their initial report. It makes for grim reading. The hole in the accounts was much worse than previously thought with an overstatement of net assets of at least £94 million. That includes:

  • Intangible assets overstated by £18m;
  • Tangible assets overstated by £5m;
  • Cash position overstated by £54m;
  • Prepayments and debtors overstated by £7m;
  • Creditors understated by £10m.

The accounts were clearly a total fiction. It is uncertain whether there will even be sufficient assets to make a distribution to preferential and unsecured creditors. As expected ordinary shareholders (who are not creditors) will get nothing. You can obtain the KPMG report from here: http://www.insolvency-kpmg.co.uk/case+KPMG+PJ12394136.html

KPMG suggest there may be grounds for legal action against various parties including Patisserie auditors Grant Thornton by the administrator, but as Grant Thornton are the auditors of KPMG they are suggesting the appointment of another joint administrator to consider that matter.

Otherwise it looks a fairly straightforward administration with assets sold off to the highest bidders and reasonable costs incurred.

Another recent administration was that of Interserve (IRV). This was forced into a pre-pack administration after shareholders voted against a financial restructuring (effectively a debt for equity swap) which would have massively diluted their interest. But now they are likely to get nothing. Mark Bentley of ShareSoc has written an extensive report on events at the company, and the shareholder meeting here: https://tinyurl.com/yy7heunl . He’s not impressed. I suspect there is more to this story than meets the eye, as there usually is with pre-pack administrations. They are usually exceedingly dubious in my experience. As I have said many times before, pre-pack administrations should be banned and other ways of preserving businesses as going concerns employed.

Brexit. You may have noticed that the stock market perked up on Friday. Was this because of some prospect of Mrs May getting her Withdrawal Agreement through Parliament after all? Perhaps it was. The reasons are given below.

There were two major road blocks to getting enough MPs to support the deal. Firstly the Irish DUP who had voted against it. But they are apparently still considering whether they can. On Thursday Arlene Foster said “When you come to the end of the negotiation, that’s when you really start to see the whites of people’s eyes and you get down to the point where you can make a deal”. Perhaps more concessions or more money for Northern Ireland will lubricate their decision.

Secondly the European Research Group (ERG – Jacob Rees-Mogg et al) need to be swung over. Their major issue is whether the Agreement potentially locks in the UK to the Irish “Backstop” protocol for ever. Attorney-General Geoffrey Cox’s advice was that it might, if the EU acts in bad faith. I have said before this legal advice was most peculiar because nobody would enter into any agreement with anyone else if they thought the other would show bad faith. Other top lawyers disagree with Cox’s opinion. See this page of the Guido Fawkes web site for the full details: https://tinyurl.com/y4ak6q3c

Mr Cox just needs to have a slight change of heart when his first opinion must have been rushed. He has already said that the Vienna Convention on international treaties might provide an escape route so he is creeping in the right direction.

Mrs May will have another attempt at getting her Withdrawal Agreement through Parliament, assuming speaker Bercow does not block it as repeat votes on the same resolutions are not supposed to be allowed in Parliament.

It was very amusing watching a debate at the European Parliament over Brexit issues including whether an extension of Article 50 should be permitted – the EU can block it even if the UK asks for it.  The EU MEPs seemed to have as many opinions as UK MPs on the issues. The hardliners such as Nigel Farage wish that it not be extended so that the UK exits on March 29th. Others are concerned that keeping the UK in will mean they have to participate in the EU elections in May with possibly even more EU sceptics elected.

It’s all good fun but it’s surely time to draw this matter to a close because the uncertainty over what might happen is damaging UK businesses. A short extension of Article 50 might be acceptable to allow final legislation to be put in place but a longer one makes no sense unless it’s back to the drawing board. But at least the proposal for another referendum (or “losers vote” as some call it) was voted down in Parliament. Extending the public debate is not what most of the public want and would surely just have wasted more time instead of forcing MPs to reach a consensus.

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

You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right.

© Copyright. Disclaimer: Read the About page before relying on any information in this post.

Metro Bank, Improving Accounts, Patisserie, Telford Homes and GoCompare

The latest example of a public company publishing misleading accounts is Metro Bank (MTRO). Both the FCA and PRA (the bank regulator) are looking into the “misclassification” of some loans which resulted in the bank overstating its regulatory capital. The result was that it has had to do an equity share issuance to bolster its capital.

There was a very good letter to the FT today on the subject of improving accounting and audits from Tim Sutton. He suggested the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act had improved the standards in the USA enormously so that revision of financial statements has been declining. To quote: “Section 404 requires management to assess and report annually on the effectiveness of the company’s internal control structure and procedures. In addition, the company’s external auditors must attest to the effectiveness of those controls”. As he points out that might have prevented the fraud at Patisserie (CAKE), and no doubt avoided the issues at Metro and other companies. It sounds an eminently good idea. I realise Sarbanes-Oxley did receive some criticism in the USA after it was first introduced due to the extra costs it imposed, but if that is the only way to ensure reliable accounts, I suggest it is worth paying. It was perhaps over-complicated in implementation in the USA but some of the key features are worth copying.

This morning Telford Homes (TEF) published a trading statement which was mostly bad news and the shares fell over 15%. This is a London focused housing developer which I used to hold but I got nervous some months ago about the housing market in the capital. You can read my acerbic comments made in last October here: https://roliscon.blog/2018/10/10/black-hole-in-patisserie-holdings-audit-review-telford-homes-and-brexit/

The latest announcement says that “the London sales market remains subdued”. Sales are being achieved but at a slower rate and margins are under pressure due to increased incentives and discounts. So they are putting an increased focus on “build-to-rent”. Other bad news is that contracts are being delayed on larger projects, partly due to planning delays. The result will be profit before tax for FY2020 will be significantly below FY2019.

Another announcement this morning was the preliminary results from GoCompare (GOCO). This is a price comparison web service, particularly focused on car insurance, but also covering utilities and other products. It is of course fronted by Italian opera singer Gio Compario in TV advertisements which I certainly prefer to the Moneysupermarket ones.

It was particularly interesting watching the results presentation – probably available as a recording on their web site. Results were much as forecast, with only a slight increase in revenue but a 20% increase in adjusted earnings. This is due to optimisation of marketing. You can see that these kinds of companies have to spend an enormous amount on marketing to catch customers when they are thinking of switching suppliers. GOCO spent £80 million on marketing last year, down from £89 million) to achieve revenue of £152 million.

They have made acquisitions to diversify revenue and this has led to an increase in debt, but the interesting news was about a new subscription service called WEFLIP. This automatically switches your energy supplier, among a panel of agreed suppliers, if you can potentially save £50. This will enable them to retain customers, with the suppliers paying the subscription fee. They plan to spend £10 million on marketing this in the coming year and have already done a “soft” launch to ensure the product and market are OK. Clearly though, this might be perceived as a bit of a gamble.

The market was unimpressed and the shares have fallen by another 5% today after a long decline in recent months. It’s now on a prospective p/e of less than 9 and yield of about 3%. I remain a holder at those levels.

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

You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right.

© Copyright. Disclaimer: Read the About page before relying on any information in this post.

Accesso and Executive Chairmen

Yesterday the share price of Accesso Technology Group (ASCO) dropped over 35% after the company issued a trading update and also announced that Executive Chairman Tom Burnet was moving to become a non-executive director. This company has been one of the great growth stories on AIM after Tom took charge as CEO in 2010. Revenue has grown more than 6 times since then but profits and cash flow have been more variable. But Tom is a very persuasive speaker and the share price multiplied by more than 25 times to reach a peak of 2800p in September 2018 – it’s now 930p.

I first purchased the shares in 2012 when the business was selling a solution for theme park queuing and most of their revenue came from one customer. They have now developed the technology to have wider applications and have a wider customers base of “visitor attractions”. Acquisitions have also been made to broaden the product offering and the strategic plan of the business was to become a “consolidator” in the ticketing and other IT solutions to this sector.

Tom Burnet was made Executive Chairman in May 2016. That concerned me somewhat because he is clearly a very forceful person and I generally do not like Executive Chairmen unless there is a very good reason to have that kind of sole dictatorship such as the company being in dire difficulties – there did not seem to be such a justification here, and it is of course contrary to Corporate Governance guidelines for good reasons.

I sold most of my shares over 2016, 2017 and 2018 after the share price continued to ramp up driven by momentum and some investors apparently feeling that Tom could do no wrong. He seemed to think likewise when I prefer more humble personalities as CEOs. Institutional investors also piled in. But the financial numbers were not all that impressive – indeed I queried the poor return on capital and large increase in administrative expenses at last year’s AGM. Other commentators queried the revenue recognition, poor cash flow and high levels of software development capitalisation. Director share sales by Tom and others in 2018 were also a negative.

That’s the history, so what about the current valuation? The last published financial results were the interims for the 6 months to end June 2018 when I made a note that the prospective normalised p/e was 47! But Accesso’s interim results are usually very untypical of the full year figures as it’s a very seasonal business – not many people visit theme parks in the winter. But they did mention the impact of IFRS15 on revenue recognition where they had previously been recognizing the full value of tickets, not just their commission income. This is probably why current analysts’ forecasts show a fall in revenue for the 2018 year versus 2017, with a resumption of growth thereafter.

The latest announcement suggested the full year results will be “broadly” in line with market expectations – which is a bit tendentious bearing in mind we are now well past the financial year end already. It also mentions a one-off cost exceptional cost of $1.7 million on an acquisition which was aborted in October 2018. Why was there no announcement of this at the time as surely it was price-sensitive information?

Actually figuring out what the likely earnings will be for 2018, particularly as the new board might wish to take a bath and clean out any questionable capitalisations is almost impossible without more information.

My fall-back valuation method in such circumstances is to look at the market cap revenue multiple. Revenue forecast for 2019 is $138m which equates to £106m when the current market capitalisation is £254m. So the multiple is 2.4 which is relatively low for a high growth business, with good IP (protected by patents), high recurring revenue figures from existing customers and some profits rather than losses. The business might look very attractive to trade buyers who could strip out a lot of the overhead costs (which is why revenue multiples are important in valuing such companies).

There may be more bad news to come of course, but at least they now have a conventional board structure with a new non-executive Chairman (Bill Russell) who seems to have a very relevant background.

The dangers or having a dominant and forceful Executive Chairman have of course been reinforced by events at Patisserie (CAKE) where Luke Johnson had that role. Having a more conventional board structure might not have prevented the fraud there altogether, but it might have enabled the non-executive directors to more easily question the way the company operated, the internal controls and the information being provided to them. Indeed it might have ensured more questioning non-executive directors were appointed to the board in the first place. A separate Chairman might also have questioned whether Luke Johnson was spreading himself too thinly across his numerous business interests.

The corporate governance principle of having a non-executive Chairman is not something investors should ignore.

Postscript: I corrected the revenue growth figure and the market cap sales multiple figure a few hours after the above was first published after I identified some sloppy research, but the conclusions were unchanged.

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

You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right.

© Copyright. Disclaimer: Read the About page before relying on any information in this post.