Burford Capital Share Discussion Threads

[jonwig] 29/6/2019 06:24

mad - yes, broadly correct. It's an auction process which tries to maximise the matching of buy and sell orders left on the order book at the close. The price achieved is the official closing price and is reported (always at 16:35) as 'UT'.

Every one of those 382,000 shares was sold, and also bought. If you sell a share, someone must buy it: there isn't an orphanage for unwanted shares! Market-makers may have a temporary long or short position, but they try to balance their books at close.
Non-market makers even more so.

So a statement such as "everyone is selling" is logically impossible. With an 'AT' trade, the other side of the trade is just another investor. With an 'O' trade, through a market maker, the MM will change his quote to clear the market.

[mad foetus] 28/6/2019 19:59

But the UT does represent a transaction (or a number of transactions) going through at that level. So £6m of trades were executed at the high of the day, though they probably involved a number of market participants and half the volume was probably sells. Is that broadly correct?

[redartbmud] 28/6/2019 18:03

Is it a bona fide business, or a ponzi scheme?
All we need to know.

[jonwig] 28/6/2019 16:41

mad - that's the witching hour trade (always at 16:35): uncrossing at closing auction. The order book is cleared out and it matches buys and sells. Does funny things to the price, sometimes.

Sorry, no big buyer there.

[mad foetus] 28/6/2019 16:37

Looks like a £6m buy at the high of the day

[jonwig] 28/6/2019 15:01

What seems to have happened is that a hopeful short seller contacted Share Prophets hoping to elicit a decent bear case ("another Quindell"), which share price could have used to make hay. The senior accountant who wrote the article basically gave them a clean bill of health. Very mild indeed!

I wrote a comment at the foot of the article thanking him for his views as a "new pair of eyes".

[redartbmud] 28/6/2019 12:22

According to Short tracker, the only declarable short is
Gladstone Capita; Mgt 0.5% 04 June 2019

[al101uk] 28/6/2019 12:19

Some comments to give a feel for what's there:

The key asset, income stream and area of judgement is the investments in legal cases which are recorded at fair value through profit and loss. This represents 68% of gross assets and is the number one key audit matter.

Juiridica audited by PWC also fair valued its legal cases through income so two of the big four both supported the key accounting treatment adopted for investments.

The monetisation of historic asset is key evidence of accuracy of historic valuation and the fact that it is such a large proportion of opening valuation is helpful.

Intangible asset is small $18.2 million and will be fully amortised by 2020.

Goodwill is $134.0 and is stated as having significant headroom.

You get 5 free articles, so a quick sign up lets you read the full thing for free. I don't think it's fair just to post the thing wholesale.

[al101uk] 28/6/2019 12:17

Ermm... I don't usually say this about Shareprophets, but that was a very fair and balanced article.

[bestace] 28/6/2019 12:07

Some more short interest, self-declared and presumably below the reporting threshold:

[bestace] 28/6/2019 12:02

I see Shareprophets have published another article on Burford today:



No idea what it says as I'm not registered.

[sogoesit] 28/6/2019 11:49

No worries jonwig... its an interesting insight and I don't think any of his holdings will avoid the "vultures" so BUR is definitely affected by this sentiment imv.

[jonwig] 28/6/2019 11:44

Sogoesit - thanks, I've copied that to the WPCT thread ... assume you don't mind!

[sogoesit] 28/6/2019 11:37

An insight into what may be going on behind the scenes on the Woodford funds:
(excerpt from SharesMagazine 27/06/2019)

"INVESTORS LINE UP TO BUY CUT PRICE STOCK FROM SUSPENDED WOODFORD FUND

The number of deals involving stocks being bought by third party investors from the troubled Woodford Equity Income Fund (BLRZQ73) is picking up pace.
Dealing in the fund is currently suspended while fund manager Neil Woodford restructures the por olio, selling the most illiquid holdings and reducing exposure to many other stocks in an e ort to raise cash to meet redemp ons and be able to increase the weigh ng towards large cap companies.
Regulatory lings show that Woodford has already cut its posi ons in some of the fund’s biggest holdings, including private equity specialist Oakley Capital Investments (OCI:AIM) where its stake has been reduced from 19.39% to below 5%.
The fund’s posi on in housebuilder Crest Nicholson (CRST) has been trimmed from 15.08% to 9.83%; and its stake in payments group PayPoint (PAY) has gone from 15.73% to 10.98%. Other names being sold down from the Woodford fund include intellectual property incubator IP Group (IPO) and media group Time Out (TMO:AIM).
Oliver Brown, fund manager at MFM UK Primary Opportuni es Fund (B8HGN52), says brokers are having a feeding frenzy as they know what Woodford holds and they are trying to put together blocks of investors to buy stock from the suspended fund.
Brown is among the ins tu onal investors taking advantage of the situa on, saying there is an opportunity to buy at a double discount.
The market knows what Woodford has to sell and so these stocks are being marked down in price because of the share overhang. Some of the stocks are also trading on low valua ons because of discounts applied to UK stocks amid fears over the impact of Brexit.
‘We’re in the market for some Eddie Stobart
Logis cs (ESL:AIM) stock,’ says Brown. ‘Its shares have gone from 80p to 70p o the back of Woodford being the largest shareholder – the market knows he needs to sell.
‘One broker has been trying to get stock for 50p and I’m sure Woodford has said no at that price. However, we’re watching closely as we know he is a distressed seller.’
Brown says his goal is to buy Woodford-related shares below the current market price. He has already done a deal with Woodford for MFM UK Primary Opportuni es Fund to buy some of its holding in leisure group Ten Entertainment (TEG).
‘The shares had dri ed from 225p to 210p which we can only assume to be the Woodford e ect. We bought at 212p from Woodford and the stock last week went back up to 230p.’
The suspension on the Woodford fund will be reviewed every 28 days but investors shouldn’t expect dealing to resume at the next review, scheduled for 1 July. It could take many months to restructure the portfolio."

[riverman77] 28/6/2019 11:15

Winsome - he is not selling his large liquid holdings (ie ftse 100 companies) such as Taylor Wimpey or Barrats, or certainly not in any significant volume to warrant an RNS. I would put BUR into that category as well.

[winsome] 28/6/2019 10:44

riverman, Breedon is a listed company. He has been selling down his holding and presumably those in other listed companies too. Possibly has sold some BUR already but not crossed any thresholds that require reporting.

[riverman77] 28/6/2019 10:25

Agree, he seems to be only selling his illiquid small companies. No effort to sell his larger holdings so clearly thinks he can carry on. He is deluded - the moment the fund reopens, pretty much all investors will want to redeem. The trouble is he may keep the fund gated for months - he really is a menace and should be prosecuted.

[winsome] 28/6/2019 10:20

mf, you are right - he will probably remain in denial as he is at the present moment. But his fate is not in his own hands. He'll be waiting for the interims to boost the share price before he sells. I hold a small amount of Breedon, which has been hit badly by his dumping of shares in the company. But I don't trade, I buy for the very long term, so no worry to me.

[mad foetus] 28/6/2019 09:58

BUR issued 10m shares last year at 18.50. I think Woodford holds around 20m shares, but I would be astonished is he couldn't sell them via a placing at a small discount to the current share price I assume the real problem is that he is in denial and won't accept it is game over

[winsome] 28/6/2019 09:36

I'd say Woodford has everything to do with it. He's potentially got to offload his 10% stake soon unless he can stem the tide of outflows from his fund. BUR is a great company caught up in this fiasco. There is a huge cloud hovering over the share price for this reason. Best scenario is Woodford hands the fund over to another management firm.

So we may see great interims next month but investors scared of buying until the fiasco is over. Good news is it will be temporary. I seriously doubt that in 3 month's time that Woodford will have sold out of BUR or a new management team will be in control of his fund.

(Re claims against BUR. Latest one seems dubious. I know of one other involving a claim for up to $200m for a failed Arizona property scheme. News of that spurious claim didn't affect the share price That claim has since been put on hold because the claimant is trying to raise litigation funds to take BUR on. Good luck with that!)

[ali47fish] 28/6/2019 08:13

bestace- are you able to link your comments above to the share price retracing- has woodford got something to do with it -

[mad foetus] 28/6/2019 07:40

That Ruperti claim takes some getting your head around but I would be astonished if it has legs. He appears to be a serial crook if that report is correct.

[bestace] 27/6/2019 19:24

More litigation has been brought against Burford by a former client, this time in the Commercial Court in London.

Paragraph 20 onwards of the court filing sets out the particulars of the claim against Burford and Daniel Hall personally, who heads up Burford's asset tracing and enforcement team:


Cover story here:


That's now 3 separate cases that are being litigated against Burford that I'm aware of.

[bestace] 27/6/2019 19:12

"claims are assured a hearing in US courts" - that's not yet guaranteed if the latest YPF arguments gain any traction with Judge Preska.

There's also the Spanish litigation which if that gains any traction could lead to the case being stayed in the US courts.

Argentina still have a few irons in the fire and there seems to be little indication they are considering settlement.