This week Jamie talks about the remuneration of investment companies, reveals one of his personal investment trust holdings and explains his rationale. He then reviews the current state of Frontier Developments, which has gone from micro-cap to super-star mid-cap and back again in the past few years. Finally, he provides a brief review of the update from Future.
The FTSE100 briefly touched a numerically interesting, yet otherwise unremarkable milestone last week. During trading on Tuesday morning, the index went through 8,000 for the first time before retracing over 120 points in the following two days. Probably of more importance was the continuing rise in the oil price, which is up nearly 20% over the past three months on supply shock fears. But frankly, oil price schmoil price; have you seen what has happened to the price of cocoa recently?! More than doubled in three months, and tripled in a little over six months. Chocolate price spikes are how revolutions start!
On Fund Management Fees
The way that firms are remunerated for the management of funds is not without controversy. When things are going well for fund management firms, their business models are hugely attractive. This is because of tremendous economies of scale that mean that, once the basic costs associated with running funds are met, additional revenue flows straight to the bottom line. Most fund management firms are paid regardless of how well they do their job – as a slight aside here, assessing the ability of a fund manager is considerably harder than you might think.
The typical arrangement is through an ‘annual management charge’, usually abbreviated to AMC. 25-years-ago a typical annual management fee might be in the range of 1.5% to 2% per year. So, a firm running a £200m fund and an AMC of 2% would generate 2% of £200m, or £4m in revenue. Over the years, the average AMC has come down considerably for a number of reasons:
The regulator has been much keener on ensuring that investors in funds aren’t overpaying. This process started after the global financial crisis (GFC) of 2008 but really stepped up in recent years with the introduction of Assessment of Value (AoV). The AoV is an annual process, like an MOT for financial services, that essentially requires firms to justify their fees. It is assessed against seven areas known as the pillars. It’s not all about pricing, but the upshot is that in an AoV world, you need a very good reason for charging high fees.
Prior to the GFC, interest rates were much higher in nominal terms. This had the perverse effect that investors were less concerned by fees since whatever they were paying, it was a lot less than either the amount they were earning on deposit or the amount they were paying in a mortgage. For a long period after the GFC, investors had been receiving nil on deposits and paying less than two percent on a mortgage. Suddenly, the ‘small’ fee being paid to fund managers didn’t look so small. This coincided with greater use of funds by institutional investors, which have much greater buying power and therefore were able to influence costs more.
I’ve talked about passive investing previously, where I describe it as low-cost mediocrity. The basic logic of it is sound, which is, if you take all investors in totality, their results will average out to the market minus the cost of investing. Therefore, the more it costs to invest, the greater the handicap to the market performance that the average investor receives. Passive investing is much cheaper than active investing, so if you acquiesce to mediocrity, you can get to keep more of the pie if you do so passively. Active fund managers are effectively competing against passive providers and lowering AMCs is one way they are doing so.
Ultimately, the biggest contributing factor to how well a fund manager does financially is how much money they manage. The problem with AMC is that size is the only factor that counts, so that the best businesses end up being those that are able to raise the most capital. Performance sells, regardless of what fund pickers tell you. In that sense, fund managers do well when the investors do well. Nevertheless, it would be nice if more often fund managers also did poorly when investors did.
This can be achieved with performance fees however; it is better if these exist with clauses and in-place-of, rather than supplementary to an AMC. In the early days of the Buffett Partnership, pre-Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett practised this kind of fee structure. It was a bit convoluted and not identical to anything you might see today. In essence, there was a guaranteed absolute return element, which acted as a hurdle where Warren was responsible for any shortfall. The performance fee element was extremely generous to Mr. Buffett insofar that he received 50% of everything over 4%.
You can argue that the downside for Mr Buffett was such that this fee schedule was justified. He was lucky however to have started the partnership at a time when equity valuations were at historic lows. The consequence was that the following years were incredibly remunerative for him. To give a flavour of how much money he made, consider the following; in May 1956, he was managing $105,100, of which $100 was his and the other $105,000 was clients. Over the next twelve years to 1968 when the partnerships were converted into the Berkshire Hathaway structure, the value of the assets under management was just under $12m. Roughly a third of it was his. Therefore his $100 turned to $4m in twelve years without him ever putting more money in. Incidentally, $4m in 1968 is the equivalent of $36m in 2024.
Buffett’s unique form of remuneration during the partnership years no longer exists but occasionally you can find funds and trusts that are clearly designed to ensure that they only do well when the investor does so also. One of which recently released its figures and is a personal holding of mine, which is the Aurora Investment Trust managed by Phoenix Asset Management.
I first became aware of the trust a few years ago when a friend, who is a very talented fund picker, mentioned them to me. My own style of investing is that of a quality investor insofar that I aim to hold businesses that become more valuable. Naturally, the aim is to buy these businesses at a discount to their intrinsic worth but, that is not necessarily the primary goal. Phoenix, in contrast, is more akin to traditional value investing.
This label probably does them a disservice since the stock selection is much more sophisticated than that. But you can get a sense for the style of investment style from the name of the asset management company itself. The phoenix is a mythological bird that rises from the ashes of its predecessor and is used as a metaphor for rebirth. In that sense, the types of companies in which Phoenix Asset Management invest, and Aurora as a by-product, are ones that have had a troubled period but the trust managers believe there is considerable possibility for rebirth and share price appreciation.
This type of investing straddles different styles and, whilst overlapping value as a definition, it also takes parts of what is considered special situations. Ultimately, I bought this trust for three reasons. Firstly, its style of investment is different from my own and therefore I believe I can gain real diversification with it as a holding. Secondly, the investment team have proved themselves talented. Thirdly, I was impressed by the way the fund managers are remunerated.
There are aspects that look a little bit like the way the Buffett partnership worked. There are also differences but the important part about the fund manager only doing well when the investor does is the most pertinent similarity. The following is how the fund managers are paid:
There is zero annual management fee. Phoenix instead earns a performance fee, which is one-third of all the performance of the trust over and above the performance of the FTSE All Share plus dividends (i.e., All Share total return). This is capped at 4% of total assets in a rising market and 2% of assets in a falling market. This in practice means that if the trust outperforms by more than 12% or 6% depending on whether markets are rising or falling, the entirety of the excess performance accrues to the shareholder rather than Phoenix.
Moreover, the fees are paid for in Aurora trust shares, not cash. These shares are restricted for three years post-award and if the outperformance turns to underperformance, then the shares are clawed back. In summary, they only make money if the investor makes money consistently and they do not make anything for merely being custodians.
Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with Aurora Investment Trust nor Phoenix Asset Management other than being a personal shareholder in the trust. Although, I have neither met nor interacted with him, Gary Channon, the firm’s co-founder and chief investment officer, is a contact on Linkedin.
This week, I have a look at Frontier Development, which is the kind of company I usually shy away from but might, phoenix-like, rise from the ashes should the management execute well on its strategy over the next few years. I then provide a short review of Future, whose ashes are probably stone cold.
Frontier Developments, trading update
History
David Braben is a video games designer who has been working for at least 40 years. He first made a name for himself as a 20-year-old when he released the game Elite with his co-creator, Ian Bell. They made use of a number of techniques to display graphics and scale that were unique for the time. The game received acclaim and was a commercial success. Nine years later, no longer working with Ian Bell, a sequel was released called Frontier: Elite II. As with the original, the sequel was very highly regarded and was an enormous commercial success.
This success afforded Mr. Braben the opportunity to found a development studio to develop other games and sequels. The company was founded three months after the release of Frontier: Elite II and named after the game as Frontier Developments. Initially, the company was purely involved in the development aspect of video game production and the company used third parties such as Ubisoft (listed in France), Atari (also listed in France) and LucasArts (owned by Disney). Since 2015 however, Frontier has become the publisher of all of its titles and since 2020, the company now also publishes games developed by third parties.
From listing in 2013 to 2017, the company and shares were middling and looked to be treading water. The company was generating fairly consistently rising revenues and profitability (albeit from a low base). From 2017 however, the shares began to rise considerably on expectations that forthcoming titles could generate considerable revenues. During this time, the shares received a further fillip when Tencent bought a 9% stake in the company.
By 2019, the company had three titles generating good sales with the then most recent, Jurassic World Evolution, doing particularly well for the group. The shares at this point were 6 to 7 times the list price and the company was beginning to look like a high-growth stock. During 2020 and 2021, the company was seen as a COVID-winner as a beneficiary of more people staying at home. However, the reality was that the company had seen a spike in revenues in 2019 and then plateaued. The shares perform very well during this time, but only because of a sharply higher valuation rather than any fundamental improvement in the business. Doubtless, the share price at the time was aided by the Frontier: Elite II.
Nevertheless, despite the stock market’s new appraisal of the company via its valuation, the business itself was about to hit a rocky patch because the company’s ambitious revenue growth targets (20% per annum) proved too ambitious. Additionally, the use of capitalisation in the development of new games, rather than expensing, created an unfavourable disconnect between profits and cash flow.
A good rule of thumb for investors, when in doubt, treat profits as opinion and cash flow as fact.
Trading update
Trading for the quarter is described as in line with that of the interims and driven by the two largest titles in the company’s catalogue. Also announced in the update was the sale of the publishing rights of Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 to Atari. Interestingly, Frontier sued Atari in 2017 for lack of receipt of publishing revenues for the same title. One wonders about the relationship between the two companies. The game had been described as generating profits of c. $1.5m per year but publishing rights were sold for $7m, implying a multiple of less than 5x – perhaps those profits were in decline.
The company didn’t disclose profitability at this update however $4m of the aforementioned $7m was received during the last quarter, whilst cash rose by £3.5m implying a very slight organic build in cash given the exchange rate.
Opinion & Valuation
The economics of game development is similar to film and TV production. There is a large amount of upfront costs and an uncertain financial outcome. The most profitable forms of all media are not necessarily the best. Frequently, in film, the most profitable releases are low-budget horror films as they are cheap and easy to make that, with decent distribution, can do very well at the cinemas. Once one of these films becomes a hit, it becomes a simple case of rinse and repeat with sequels. Hence why there are now eleven Saw films, made possible after the first film made >$100m from a c. $1m budget. In video games, the most profitable ones are cheap to make addictive mobile games that prompt the player to endlessly spend tiny amounts on nonsense. Honor of Kings apparently generated $1.5b in 2023 alone.
Once upon a time, it was possible to create something that was highly regarded for a very small amount of money that would become mainstream in both film and video games. This still exists to a degree but Frontier’s productions tend to be higher-end. Profitability is ultimately driven by repeat custom through a mixture of paid subscriptions, paid-for downloadable content and sequels. This has to be executed well. In the case of Disney in its exploitation of intellectual property, the problem is that it has been spread too thin and there simply isn’t the creative talent available to churn out the required content at pace. This has led to a degradation in quality to the point that it is affecting the business to the point of value destruction.
I don’t believe Frontier Development has the same problem. Rather, its intellectual property is insufficient to generate the consistency that is often (incorrectly) valued highly by the stock market. The company is in a phase of reducing costs and headcount (you might argue one and the same in a business such as this). If successful, it allows the company to properly focus on ensuring the continued high quality of its products and hopefully revenue and profits continue to follow.
There are quite a few ‘ifs’ in there but the valuation is reflective of that fact. It is difficult to predict where the company might end up but as it stands, the market capitalisation is a little over £70m and, according to Sharepad, the enterprise value is closer to £60m. This might prove extremely cheap if revenues, margins and growth hit levels management believe it can. Further, were the company to remain at these seemingly depressed levels, it is entirely feasible we might see a bid in time.
I do not own the shares. This kind of investment requires continued monitoring and the acceptance that you might turn out to be wrong but were it to succeed, it could prove a very good investment.
Future, trading statement
History
Future dates back to the mid-80s and started as a publisher of magazines for computers. The business as it stands now really only started in around 2014 when Zillah Byng-Thorne was elevated to the CEO role. During her tenure, the company made several acquisitions of publishing titles. The strategy was to then digitise and monetise the newly acquired titles. She stepped down last year and was replaced by the current CEO, Jon Steinberg.
Trading Statement
Doubtless, it will be of scant comfort to longer-term holders, but the most recent trading statement was well received. Having seen revenues decline for much of the last few quarters, management stated that there has been an unquantified return to revenue growth in Q2, as well as reiteration that the company will hit its 2024 targets. The shares rose 14% on the day after having fallen by four-fifths in the previous couple of years.
Opinion
For me, Future represents the benefit of a healthy amount of scepticism when assessing potential investments. The strategy employed by the previous CEO was to buy up legacy media assets and somehow turn them into vaguely techy growth assets. In reality, the company wasn’t really doing anything interesting. The shares did extremely well for a time because the City was taken in by the story with the shares peaking at almost £40. However, the strategy essentially amounted to bootstrapping. That is to say that the company was able to buy assets for a low multiple and then the newly acquired asset was instantaneously worth more by virtue of the fact that it was now part of a much more expensively rated organisation. It is far too early to tell whether the new CEO and chairman are able to create a value-accretive business from what remains but currently, this does not seem to be rising from the ashes phoenix-like and there seems little point investing here.
~
Jamie Ward
Jamie owns shares in the Aurora Investment Trust.
Got some thoughts on this week’s commentary from Jamie? Share these in the SharePad “Weekly Market Commentary” chat. Login to SharePad – click on the chat icon in the top right – select or search for “Weekly Market Commentary” chat.
Weekly Market Commentary | 09/04/2024 | ARR, FDEV, FUTR | Rising from the Ashes
This week Jamie talks about the remuneration of investment companies, reveals one of his personal investment trust holdings and explains his rationale. He then reviews the current state of Frontier Developments, which has gone from micro-cap to super-star mid-cap and back again in the past few years. Finally, he provides a brief review of the update from Future.
The FTSE100 briefly touched a numerically interesting, yet otherwise unremarkable milestone last week. During trading on Tuesday morning, the index went through 8,000 for the first time before retracing over 120 points in the following two days. Probably of more importance was the continuing rise in the oil price, which is up nearly 20% over the past three months on supply shock fears. But frankly, oil price schmoil price; have you seen what has happened to the price of cocoa recently?! More than doubled in three months, and tripled in a little over six months. Chocolate price spikes are how revolutions start!
On Fund Management Fees
The way that firms are remunerated for the management of funds is not without controversy. When things are going well for fund management firms, their business models are hugely attractive. This is because of tremendous economies of scale that mean that, once the basic costs associated with running funds are met, additional revenue flows straight to the bottom line. Most fund management firms are paid regardless of how well they do their job – as a slight aside here, assessing the ability of a fund manager is considerably harder than you might think.
The typical arrangement is through an ‘annual management charge’, usually abbreviated to AMC. 25-years-ago a typical annual management fee might be in the range of 1.5% to 2% per year. So, a firm running a £200m fund and an AMC of 2% would generate 2% of £200m, or £4m in revenue. Over the years, the average AMC has come down considerably for a number of reasons:
Ultimately, the biggest contributing factor to how well a fund manager does financially is how much money they manage. The problem with AMC is that size is the only factor that counts, so that the best businesses end up being those that are able to raise the most capital. Performance sells, regardless of what fund pickers tell you. In that sense, fund managers do well when the investors do well. Nevertheless, it would be nice if more often fund managers also did poorly when investors did.
This can be achieved with performance fees however; it is better if these exist with clauses and in-place-of, rather than supplementary to an AMC. In the early days of the Buffett Partnership, pre-Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett practised this kind of fee structure. It was a bit convoluted and not identical to anything you might see today. In essence, there was a guaranteed absolute return element, which acted as a hurdle where Warren was responsible for any shortfall. The performance fee element was extremely generous to Mr. Buffett insofar that he received 50% of everything over 4%.
You can argue that the downside for Mr Buffett was such that this fee schedule was justified. He was lucky however to have started the partnership at a time when equity valuations were at historic lows. The consequence was that the following years were incredibly remunerative for him. To give a flavour of how much money he made, consider the following; in May 1956, he was managing $105,100, of which $100 was his and the other $105,000 was clients. Over the next twelve years to 1968 when the partnerships were converted into the Berkshire Hathaway structure, the value of the assets under management was just under $12m. Roughly a third of it was his. Therefore his $100 turned to $4m in twelve years without him ever putting more money in. Incidentally, $4m in 1968 is the equivalent of $36m in 2024.
Buffett’s unique form of remuneration during the partnership years no longer exists but occasionally you can find funds and trusts that are clearly designed to ensure that they only do well when the investor does so also. One of which recently released its figures and is a personal holding of mine, which is the Aurora Investment Trust managed by Phoenix Asset Management.
I first became aware of the trust a few years ago when a friend, who is a very talented fund picker, mentioned them to me. My own style of investing is that of a quality investor insofar that I aim to hold businesses that become more valuable. Naturally, the aim is to buy these businesses at a discount to their intrinsic worth but, that is not necessarily the primary goal. Phoenix, in contrast, is more akin to traditional value investing.
This label probably does them a disservice since the stock selection is much more sophisticated than that. But you can get a sense for the style of investment style from the name of the asset management company itself. The phoenix is a mythological bird that rises from the ashes of its predecessor and is used as a metaphor for rebirth. In that sense, the types of companies in which Phoenix Asset Management invest, and Aurora as a by-product, are ones that have had a troubled period but the trust managers believe there is considerable possibility for rebirth and share price appreciation.
This type of investing straddles different styles and, whilst overlapping value as a definition, it also takes parts of what is considered special situations. Ultimately, I bought this trust for three reasons. Firstly, its style of investment is different from my own and therefore I believe I can gain real diversification with it as a holding. Secondly, the investment team have proved themselves talented. Thirdly, I was impressed by the way the fund managers are remunerated.
There are aspects that look a little bit like the way the Buffett partnership worked. There are also differences but the important part about the fund manager only doing well when the investor does is the most pertinent similarity. The following is how the fund managers are paid:
There is zero annual management fee. Phoenix instead earns a performance fee, which is one-third of all the performance of the trust over and above the performance of the FTSE All Share plus dividends (i.e., All Share total return). This is capped at 4% of total assets in a rising market and 2% of assets in a falling market. This in practice means that if the trust outperforms by more than 12% or 6% depending on whether markets are rising or falling, the entirety of the excess performance accrues to the shareholder rather than Phoenix.
Moreover, the fees are paid for in Aurora trust shares, not cash. These shares are restricted for three years post-award and if the outperformance turns to underperformance, then the shares are clawed back. In summary, they only make money if the investor makes money consistently and they do not make anything for merely being custodians.
Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with Aurora Investment Trust nor Phoenix Asset Management other than being a personal shareholder in the trust. Although, I have neither met nor interacted with him, Gary Channon, the firm’s co-founder and chief investment officer, is a contact on Linkedin.
This week, I have a look at Frontier Development, which is the kind of company I usually shy away from but might, phoenix-like, rise from the ashes should the management execute well on its strategy over the next few years. I then provide a short review of Future, whose ashes are probably stone cold.
Frontier Developments, trading update
History
David Braben is a video games designer who has been working for at least 40 years. He first made a name for himself as a 20-year-old when he released the game Elite with his co-creator, Ian Bell. They made use of a number of techniques to display graphics and scale that were unique for the time. The game received acclaim and was a commercial success. Nine years later, no longer working with Ian Bell, a sequel was released called Frontier: Elite II. As with the original, the sequel was very highly regarded and was an enormous commercial success.
This success afforded Mr. Braben the opportunity to found a development studio to develop other games and sequels. The company was founded three months after the release of Frontier: Elite II and named after the game as Frontier Developments. Initially, the company was purely involved in the development aspect of video game production and the company used third parties such as Ubisoft (listed in France), Atari (also listed in France) and LucasArts (owned by Disney). Since 2015 however, Frontier has become the publisher of all of its titles and since 2020, the company now also publishes games developed by third parties.
From listing in 2013 to 2017, the company and shares were middling and looked to be treading water. The company was generating fairly consistently rising revenues and profitability (albeit from a low base). From 2017 however, the shares began to rise considerably on expectations that forthcoming titles could generate considerable revenues. During this time, the shares received a further fillip when Tencent bought a 9% stake in the company.
By 2019, the company had three titles generating good sales with the then most recent, Jurassic World Evolution, doing particularly well for the group. The shares at this point were 6 to 7 times the list price and the company was beginning to look like a high-growth stock. During 2020 and 2021, the company was seen as a COVID-winner as a beneficiary of more people staying at home. However, the reality was that the company had seen a spike in revenues in 2019 and then plateaued. The shares perform very well during this time, but only because of a sharply higher valuation rather than any fundamental improvement in the business. Doubtless, the share price at the time was aided by the Frontier: Elite II.
Nevertheless, despite the stock market’s new appraisal of the company via its valuation, the business itself was about to hit a rocky patch because the company’s ambitious revenue growth targets (20% per annum) proved too ambitious. Additionally, the use of capitalisation in the development of new games, rather than expensing, created an unfavourable disconnect between profits and cash flow.
Trading update
Trading for the quarter is described as in line with that of the interims and driven by the two largest titles in the company’s catalogue. Also announced in the update was the sale of the publishing rights of Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 to Atari. Interestingly, Frontier sued Atari in 2017 for lack of receipt of publishing revenues for the same title. One wonders about the relationship between the two companies. The game had been described as generating profits of c. $1.5m per year but publishing rights were sold for $7m, implying a multiple of less than 5x – perhaps those profits were in decline.
The company didn’t disclose profitability at this update however $4m of the aforementioned $7m was received during the last quarter, whilst cash rose by £3.5m implying a very slight organic build in cash given the exchange rate.
Opinion & Valuation
The economics of game development is similar to film and TV production. There is a large amount of upfront costs and an uncertain financial outcome. The most profitable forms of all media are not necessarily the best. Frequently, in film, the most profitable releases are low-budget horror films as they are cheap and easy to make that, with decent distribution, can do very well at the cinemas. Once one of these films becomes a hit, it becomes a simple case of rinse and repeat with sequels. Hence why there are now eleven Saw films, made possible after the first film made >$100m from a c. $1m budget. In video games, the most profitable ones are cheap to make addictive mobile games that prompt the player to endlessly spend tiny amounts on nonsense. Honor of Kings apparently generated $1.5b in 2023 alone.
Once upon a time, it was possible to create something that was highly regarded for a very small amount of money that would become mainstream in both film and video games. This still exists to a degree but Frontier’s productions tend to be higher-end. Profitability is ultimately driven by repeat custom through a mixture of paid subscriptions, paid-for downloadable content and sequels. This has to be executed well. In the case of Disney in its exploitation of intellectual property, the problem is that it has been spread too thin and there simply isn’t the creative talent available to churn out the required content at pace. This has led to a degradation in quality to the point that it is affecting the business to the point of value destruction.
I don’t believe Frontier Development has the same problem. Rather, its intellectual property is insufficient to generate the consistency that is often (incorrectly) valued highly by the stock market. The company is in a phase of reducing costs and headcount (you might argue one and the same in a business such as this). If successful, it allows the company to properly focus on ensuring the continued high quality of its products and hopefully revenue and profits continue to follow.
There are quite a few ‘ifs’ in there but the valuation is reflective of that fact. It is difficult to predict where the company might end up but as it stands, the market capitalisation is a little over £70m and, according to Sharepad, the enterprise value is closer to £60m. This might prove extremely cheap if revenues, margins and growth hit levels management believe it can. Further, were the company to remain at these seemingly depressed levels, it is entirely feasible we might see a bid in time.
I do not own the shares. This kind of investment requires continued monitoring and the acceptance that you might turn out to be wrong but were it to succeed, it could prove a very good investment.
Future, trading statement
History
Future dates back to the mid-80s and started as a publisher of magazines for computers. The business as it stands now really only started in around 2014 when Zillah Byng-Thorne was elevated to the CEO role. During her tenure, the company made several acquisitions of publishing titles. The strategy was to then digitise and monetise the newly acquired titles. She stepped down last year and was replaced by the current CEO, Jon Steinberg.
Trading Statement
Doubtless, it will be of scant comfort to longer-term holders, but the most recent trading statement was well received. Having seen revenues decline for much of the last few quarters, management stated that there has been an unquantified return to revenue growth in Q2, as well as reiteration that the company will hit its 2024 targets. The shares rose 14% on the day after having fallen by four-fifths in the previous couple of years.
Opinion
For me, Future represents the benefit of a healthy amount of scepticism when assessing potential investments. The strategy employed by the previous CEO was to buy up legacy media assets and somehow turn them into vaguely techy growth assets. In reality, the company wasn’t really doing anything interesting. The shares did extremely well for a time because the City was taken in by the story with the shares peaking at almost £40. However, the strategy essentially amounted to bootstrapping. That is to say that the company was able to buy assets for a low multiple and then the newly acquired asset was instantaneously worth more by virtue of the fact that it was now part of a much more expensively rated organisation. It is far too early to tell whether the new CEO and chairman are able to create a value-accretive business from what remains but currently, this does not seem to be rising from the ashes phoenix-like and there seems little point investing here.
~
Jamie Ward
Jamie owns shares in the Aurora Investment Trust.
Got some thoughts on this week’s commentary from Jamie? Share these in the SharePad “Weekly Market Commentary” chat. Login to SharePad – click on the chat icon in the top right – select or search for “Weekly Market Commentary” chat.