Burford Capital Share Discussion Threads

[djderry] 14/2/2021 19:12

Yes,1aconic,a total charlatan.He has been the cause of what he's complaining about! The reason Burford's share price is so out of kilter with its fundamentals is because of Block and his ilk spooking the market.He put out an error filled 'report' with half truths,untruths and plain incorrect information.Baked in were a couple of facts ,yes the CEO and the CFO happened to be married,yes,if every bond holder were to call in their loans the next day,there would be a liquidity crunch ( the same is true for hundreds of public companies,if you exclude Burford's biggest wins,blah,blah,blah.
Think of your favourite football team and then exclude their biggest wins?
It's beyond any stretch of credibility to call this tripe a 'report' and yet mug punters were taken in and sold.
Remember,he slapped an 'embargo' on the 'report' but announced the embargo so as to further spook the market.
Remember that he was also covering his position within hours.
Hundreds of millions wiped off the share price.
But,of course,all the blame can't be laid at his door.
Investors who sold played into his hands and sold so he could then buy back shares for half nothing to cover the ones he sold earlier.
You see ,most investors aren't very good at sticking to plans.
At the first hint of a dramatic share price fall,they're out the door.
Even if one points out that almost every growth share will show major retracements over time,often horrific price reversals,it makes no difference.
As Ben Graham put it so well,' but we know from experience that eventually the market catches up with reality'.
As I mentioned earlier,investors will begin to see the light as time goes by.The uncorrelated returns,the counter cyclical and defensive characteristics of the portfolio and the emergence of litigation finance as a unique asset class will help to change opinion.
And then,of course,Burford's best in class record will matter more than ever.

[1aconic] 14/2/2021 17:30

CBs comments are riddled with fundamental errors. Another that stood out to me from his IC interview a few months ago was justifying his BUR attack by claiming because his "own personal legal background" showed him that predicting the outcome of litigation is impossible and thereby BUR is a nonsense business. Grabbing at that straw showed either how little basic understanding of the business model he actually had or that he simply had nothing better but didn't want to undermine his "credibility" by admitting so. Clearly BUR don't attempt to predict the outcome of litigation... they take a probability based approach and structure fees so that win proceeds exceed those from the occassional loss over the long run. Exactly the same type of model used by insurance companies and banks in their own dealings since the foundation of those industries! Jumping to a thinly extrapolated conclusion (in a CB-esque way), he clearly believes the whole global financial system is based on false concepts and a fraud. Some of his old work seems to be quite decent but these days he's a total charlatan.

[tradertrev] 13/2/2021 17:28

Fundamental errors from CB in that self-serving nonsense. There was no misallocation of capital because Gamestop didn't raise any new money during the hype. Some traders made some money and some lost - the fact that some who lost were activist short hedge funds for a change is not detrimental to society nor an indicator of structural problems in markets. Furthermore, there is no basis to say passive funds would have had to buy more GME during the rise - their portfolio weighting in GME went up and down with the share price/market cap. There would have been no need to alter their weightings by buying or selling shares.
In relation to Tesla, one can argue that their ability to raise capital with their sky high valuation permits a beneficial allocation of capital towards a business that is (probably) helping to reduce carbon emissions globally.

[riskvsreward] 13/2/2021 16:56

And nothing new either. Any market is driven by demand and supply, where the demand can from time to time be irrational and won't reflect fundamental value. Besides a lot of financial products don't have an easy to define fundamental value anyway, such as bitcoin, rare stamps, antiques etc.

[scubadiverr] 13/2/2021 16:00

Nothing relating to Burford

[podgyted] 12/2/2021 23:56

Yeah Scuba it does make one wonder doesn't it.

CB has only become vocal about several things recently 'cos he's been burned by the Reddit crowd - now he knows how it hurts. Poor thing.

[lazg] 12/2/2021 23:22

@Scuba: could you please share the Carson Block article? Sounds interesting.

[scubadiverr] 12/2/2021 21:36

I completely agree regarding awareness and wish that Bur's PR efforts were more active. I keep meaning to check out WSB but haven't as yet and confess my perception is coloured by the FT and the recent GME/silver shananigans. I shall take a look. Thanks.On the subject of the FT I see that Carson Block was writing for them today. I wonder how far back that relationship goes?

[lazg] 12/2/2021 20:57

@Scuba: I think you may underestimate some of the investors active online. There is legit DD to be found and a willingness to share deep dives (thank you, youth). Looking at some of the posts (not necessarily the most upvoted ones ones) you will find interesting ideas. I have been a lurking in r/investing for 8 years and found WSB about 2 years ago. WSB is (or has been) amazing. Do your own DD, but do not dismiss folks on hearsay. There are ideas worth spreading and we are early birds when it comes to Lit Finance. I welcome people talking about BUR.

[rar100] 12/2/2021 18:45

What do the tea leaves say...

[scubadiverr] 12/2/2021 17:51

Interesting post on LSE relating to Sebastian Maril's postings today..dfreijeiroPosted in: BURPosts: 1Price: 640.00No OpinionRE: Spanish translation12 Feb 2021 17:14"Burford le cantó vale cuatro a Argentina." It is relate to a Argentinian cards game "Truco Argentino", meaning more or less Burford went all-in against Argentina. Implying they are playing with good cards, good news I would say.

[jeff h] 12/2/2021 13:19

"A growing market niche where investors profit from others’ legal troubles is getting a boost from Covid.

Distressed-investing funds and litigation-finance boutiques are likely to be spoiled for choice after a landmark U.K. court ruling last month rejected pleas from insurers looking to dodge pandemic payouts. They’re looking to finance or buy denied Covid-19 insurance claims for policyholders without the means or stomach for taking their insurers to court.

“This is going to be huge,” said Steve Cooklin, chief executive officer of London-based litigation funder Manolete Partners Plc, whose biggest shareholder is veteran distressed investor Jon Moulton. “It’s hard to say at this stage how big exactly this issue is, but it’s probably going to be in the hundreds of millions of pounds.”

Insurers have warned that Covid-19 coverage claims could top as much as $100 billion –- potentially the industry’s largest loss in history. Business-interruption coverage, which protects against losses when companies have to shut for a period of time, has been one of the most costly and contentious policy lines in the pandemic. U.K. virus-related claims, including on business-interruption policies, could exceed $2 billion........."

[muckedboy] 12/2/2021 12:32

Something big happened in the case I guess, dont know if its good or bad for us.

[dagoberia] 12/2/2021 12:06

His tweet is cryptic.. meaning more or less "Imagine whats just happened with the YPF expropriation " ... but judging from comments he cannot say

[scubadiverr] 12/2/2021 11:58

Smart money? The WSB crowd pumped and dumped a dud.

[ptolemy] 12/2/2021 11:56

Burford Capital - Canaccord Genuity raises target price to 637p from 570p. Raises to hold from sell.

[muckedboy] 12/2/2021 11:06

Sebastian Maril on Twitter: "La que se acaba de armar en el caso por la expropiación de YPF."

[lazg] 11/2/2021 22:04

This field has a lot of potential. And we may need to spread the word if we want the share price to reflect our sentiment. DD write-ups on WSB or r/investing and stockwits are the play if we want smart money to notice us.

[devalpha] 11/2/2021 20:44

This comment caught my eye more than anything else from the half year report. I'll be looking at full year cash receipts with interest.The combination of robust cash receipts in 1H 2020 and the significant level of receivables generated during 1H 2020 puts Burford on track to generate cash receipts from its first half activity at a level consistent with most full years, without taking into account additional realisations and cash proceeds in the second half.

[djderry] 11/2/2021 19:58

I look forward to the business update.
I'm interested to see any update regarding new deployments.
There was a collapse in new deployments in H2 as companies rightly went into survival mode,focusing on the health and safety of their employees and customers.
The pandemic is still raging.
Leaving the health/life/death issues aside,I am sceptical about the belief that it will automatically lead to more litigation.My sense is that companies are cautious and still coming to terms with the effects of the pandemic.
If management could give some colour as to any nascent pick up in new deployments,that would be helpful.
However,it's important that their rigorous due diligence is not in anyway relaxed.I do not want them to scale up at the expense of the portfolio quality.
There are reasons to be optimistic however.
In the last results,there was circa 50 million of unrealised/fair value gains.
Most uninitiated investors ( and MW and their ilk)view this as a negative.
On the contrary,I see it as cash coming in and I'll be interested to see what progress has been made.
While the pandemic will naturally act as a brake and disruptor of business ( and lives),there remains several drivers of growth.
The overall growth in the litigation finance industry is continuing,with many of the smaller players following the Burford playbook,such as in portfolio financing and fund management.
As more companies become familiar and comfortable with litigation finance,I suspect growth will come not just from pandemic inspired litigation but from the many historical issues which heretofore have not been litigated.Burford's research has shown many companies 'sitting' on cases worth many millions,unsure as to outcome,duration risk,etc.
As companies realise the value of these 'truffles' as it were,and the risk free nature of Burford's non- recourse finance,I believe the golden age of litigation finance will become clear.

[rar100] 11/2/2021 18:02

Remembering the share price at £9 and over a period of 2 years or so steadily getting to just over £20, the level now twixt £5 to £8 seems insignificant so I'm not really interested, the volumes are very low and I guess that gives a lot of the volatility.
I don't think many in the US know of Burford or maybe it's that MW's assertions of dodgy accounting by BUR is still remembered and people don't trust it. The financial press here FT etc. still slang BUR off at every opportunity. It's just not recovered to anywhere near to what it was a couple of years ago. Shame!