Burford Capital Share Discussion Threads

[gettingrichslow] 28/4/2021 15:48

Syoun2, do you take the same line on other subjects too? Let’s not talk about WW2 it’s all in the past etc? Weird way of looking at things.

[syoun2] 28/4/2021 15:21

Can we move on & stop bringing up the past.

[ozzmosiz] 28/4/2021 15:17

Arguably insolvent was deceptive talk

[loglorry1] 28/4/2021 14:19

...and for all we know you might be selling while saying this is going to the moon.

I don't actually think MW broke any securities laws. They are a profession SEC registered firm.

As Buffet says sometimes you get to buy good companies at great prices. I think MW was just such a case.

Anyway time to move on.

[lomax99] 28/4/2021 14:08

MW's motto should be: 'Never let the facts get on the way of a good story', especially if the story benefits me financially....He was busy buying back stock in a company he was, at the same time, calling 'arguably insolvent'.

[tnt99] 28/4/2021 13:41

Old news guys look outside the suns shining and the only way is up baby for you and me with a little help friend m my friends 15 pound to clarksville

[donald pond] 28/4/2021 13:24

I think going short is fine. I think publishing long dossiers alleging fraud during market hours and then closing your short before the company has had time to respond is not.

[loglorry1] 28/4/2021 13:03

I'm really ok with what Muddy Waters do. I know that's a controversial statement but it's true. They never say they get it right all the time and I'd rather there was someone doing extensive due diligence than relying on the regulators. In the case of BUR they also provided some great opportunities to top up and forced BUR to be very open about how things are going.

The bottom line is that if BUR can convert cases into cash and get great ROCE the share price will take care of itself. If MW were right (and I don't think they are) then we would be screwed anyway maybe a little quicker but its the same result.

[chucko1] 28/4/2021 12:58

I'm not complaining about MW - things like that are usually an opportunity to do something or other that would otherwise have been unavailable. Only the overexposed would take issue with this.

Moral: don't get overexposed!

[alter ego] 28/4/2021 12:56

well said Maddox.

[lazg] 28/4/2021 09:27

Thanks scuba!

[tnt99] 28/4/2021 09:22

Over on the lse they are going for 20 pounds maybe they are right come on Reddit followers climb aboard you know it makes sense

[saltraider] 28/4/2021 08:49

"arguably insolvent" was the malicious accusation made by Muddy Waters. Deliberately slippery wording. You can 'argue' anything. It doesn't make it any more likely to be true.

[tnt99] 28/4/2021 08:45

She flys like a bird in the sky oh see her fly I can't let burford go! Till she reaches 15 pound true value come Reddit's all aboard the night train

[scubadiverr] 28/4/2021 08:43

Warriors for social justice or profiteering ambulance chasers? The world of private litigation funding will rarely get a better case in their favour than the Post Office one.

The verdict last week quashed the criminal convictions of 39 sub-postmasters. It was the culmination of years of legal wrangling and decades of injustice in which the state-owned Post Office criminalised hundreds of its own staff, ruining lives and livelihoods and causing untold heartache to those accused of false accounting because of flaws in the IT system.

The former Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells this week stepped down from the boards of Wm Morrison and Dunelm, and from her duties as a Church of England minister. She had also sat on a group advising the Church on ethical investing.

Under her leadership from 2012 to 2019 the Post Office took an aggressive legal strategy against a civil case brought by 550 sub-postmasters, dragging out litigation and driving up costs, even as evidence mounted that the Horizon system was at fault. It was the outcome of the civil case that unlocked last week’s result.

On the other side of the scorched earth legal strategy was a team backed by a litigation fund, a type of case financing historically associated with the hedge fund world and sometimes derided as ethically questionable or even a threat to the legal system.

The two are connected. High court battles are astronomically expensive. Defendants try to drive a wedge between claimants and third-party funders by running up costs and delaying tactics, in the hope the latter might walk. Funders, such as Therium in the Post Office case, face total loss if a case goes against them and can be called upon for more money as costs ratchet up (even as expected claims fall).

That is one reason this type of funding doesn’t come cheap. Funders receive their investment back, plus a multiple of their costs or a share of the eventual award. Given that the “loser pays” UK model rarely covers all legal costs, this also diminishes the pot left for the claimants.

In the Post Office civil case, the sub-postmasters were left with £12m to share from a £58m settlement. Further civil cases are likely to follow.

The reality is that without the grubby sounding involvement of profit-seeking money, this case and many others would never make it to court. Contingent fee deals — where lawyers effectively finance cases upfront through no win-no fee structures — are less common in the UK than in the US.

Therium financed the unsuccessful lawsuit by 6,000 shareholders against Lloyds Banking Group over its 2008 acquisition of HBOS. More recently another fund, Harbour, backed the case to force insurers to pay out on business interruption policies during the pandemic.

The sector’s image hasn’t been helped by questions around Burford Capital’s accounting practices, probed by shortseller Muddy Waters in 2019; nor arguably by its involvement in some high-profile divorce cases.

Indeed, as more institutional money comes into the sector looking for uncorrelated returns, there is a danger of too much cash hunting for good cases. Only a tiny proportion of overall cases are third-party funded. But new figures from law firm RPC put the pipeline of cases and cash to be invested at £2bn, nearly four times the amount four years ago.

Funders will need to be creative in seeking out new opportunities, argues RPC. The sector could usefully develop its pricing models to take on cases with claims of less than £10m-£20m, says Tets Ishikawa of Lionfish Litigation Finance, with most funding dollars now chasing the biggest cases.

The further the sector moves beyond its commercial roots, the more calls there will be for regulation. The government in 2017 said the market was at an “early stage in its development” and the industry argues that these are agreements between parties all represented by lawyers. But the effectiveness of a five-page code of conduct, a voluntary one at that, should be questioned as the sector grows in influence.

Calls for greater scrutiny, though, have sometimes stemmed simply from a distaste for what is seen as an American concept infiltrating UK justice. For a start, the loser pays rule deters the type of ambulance-chasing claims seen in the US. And if the Post Office shows anything, it is that when it comes to challenging appalling behaviour by a deep-pocketed establishment entity, some private firepower is essential.

[extrader] 28/4/2021 08:41

I wonder whether the FT has found itself facing litigation from a Burford-supported opponent ?

Its consistently negative approach (what's with the 'arguable' bit about divorce cases ?) is not something I expect from the pink 'un....

Curious ....

[lazg] 28/4/2021 08:38

Galatea: Could you post the ft article here?

[lomax99] 28/4/2021 08:35

They just can't help themselves:'The sector's image hasn't been helped by questions around Burford Capital's accounting practices, probed by shortseller Muddy Waters in 2019; nor arguably by its involvement in some high-profile divorce cases.'

[galatea99] 28/4/2021 08:18

"Post Office scandal shows value of litigation funds"

[lazg] 28/4/2021 00:18

Onup: I counted at least 5 trades of 200k shares or more between 10am and 1130am in London.

You can download the trades from the aim website for free.

[onup] 27/4/2021 22:32

Lev2 .? Was that a approx 1.5M share buy after 4pm Lse yesterday?

[this tea tastes of chicken] 27/4/2021 16:15

Just realised scuba already posted what I was going to post. Ignore and GLA!

[williamcooper104] 27/4/2021 15:12

No probs - I've held them for 18 years - alas haven't increased my position along the way Will check out Helma too

[gettingrichslow] 27/4/2021 14:46

William, I’m not familiar with Intertek but having just read a bit about them just now I think you’re spot on - looks very similar to Halma as you say - I’ll certainly be having a closer look at them over the next few days because I think it’s companies with that sort of history where I’m happiest to invest for the long term. Thanks for pointing it out.