Ecsc Share Discussion Threads

[cerrito] 20/10/2019 16:00

Catching up adI have been delayed.
I did make it to the Sharesoc presentation of the interims and Ian put in a very good presentation and reported that as per the interims H2 was still going very well.
One good thing about Ecsc is that they put the Allenby reports up on their website so you can see what they mean when they refer to market expectations. What is more they also have an archive.
I need to say that given the strong start to H2, I do not understand why they Allrmby have reduced their expectations for this year. As at 19619 the 2019 revenue forecast was £6.5m but by 11919 this had been adjusted down to £6.1m and with an increase in the pretax loss from £159k to £414k. All very strange. Too bad that I was not organized to read these before the presentation so I could find out what was behind all this.
They have also cut back their 2020 forecasts because of the wider UK outlook.
Unless we get a really positive or negative trading statement(which I do not expect) or shareholders selling, I am going on the basis there will be no real change in the share price till the trading update in the New Year.

[sharesoc] 01/10/2019 19:22

We have a growth company seminar on the 9th October in London with ECSC Group lined up to present. This may be of interest to potential investors or current shareholders. More details and registration can be found here:

[sharesoc] 23/9/2019 19:26

We have a growth company seminar on the 9th October in London with ECSC Group lined up to present. This may be of interest to potential investors or current shareholders. More details and registration can be found here:

[cerrito] 13/9/2019 20:15

Had a closer look at the interims.
Good to see continued increase in both revenue and gross profit in
Managed Services but that is the flipside of the coin to fact that gross profit of consultancy for this last half year was the lowest since records began in 2016.
My sense is that there may be a small increase to come in the share price but we will need
concrete proof of a good H2 before any substantial share price increase.

[snape] 13/9/2019 14:12

I believe they operate their ‘over night’ surveylance dept out of Australia. Rather than an a (sales) office.

[bb123] 13/9/2019 14:06

Are they still operating an office in Australia?

[middlesboroughfc] 11/9/2019 08:31

Time to pile in chaps

[cerrito] 11/9/2019 06:59

A quick read of the interim report show that for me an increase in the share price is warranted given what seems to have been a v good last two months.
Increase in managed services v impressive compared to H1 18 less so compared to H2 18 but still good.
I note that cash balance has recovered since June 30 when they also had a decent size tax recoverable. Indeed this cash increase may be solely due to them getting this cash recoverable from the HMRC. I see that for the first time in recent past they had a financial expense but it is de minimus and may reflect commitment fees.
Good to see an increase in R&D costs as a percentage of revenue: I do fret that they do need to spend in R&D given the change of security threats means they have to spend to keep their offering up to date and whether they have the funds to do so.
I do not currently plan to buy or sell.

[maddox] 11/7/2019 13:03

Hi Tim,

It would be useful if you edited your posts to take out the carriage returns ;-)

regards, Maddox

[timbo003] 10/7/2019 08:36

Another big fine handed out by the data commissioner:


Keep 'em coming please



………………………

[timbo003] 08/7/2019 09:32

As foretold at the ECSC AGM last month

The Information Commissioners Office (ICO) has just handed out the first fine for a security breach under the new GDPR regulations and as anticipated (by the ECSC directors) it is huge!



The ECSC BODs view was that the fines imposed by ICO were likely to be very large, mainly for two main reasons:
1) to scare companies into compliance
2) To demonstrate to Brussels that the UK were going to take GDPR very seriously with or without Brexit, so in the event of a hard Brexit, the UK would still participate in data sharing with the EU member states

This should be good for business at ECSC at other cybersecurity firms focused on GDPR compliance such as Crossword Cybersecurity (CCS)

………………………



………………………

[sharesoc] 02/7/2019 11:27

There is a detailed report on ECSC's recent AGM which can be found in our members area here:

To access the report, you'll need to be a full member of ShareSoc, which is a not-for-profit organisation that supports individual shareholders and campaigns for shareholder rights. If you're not already a member you can join here:

Once you've joined, you'll receive an invitation to register for our "members network" private social network, from where you'll be able to access the report (and reports on 100s of other meetings). If you're already a member and have any difficulty accessing the report, please do not hesitate to contact us here:

[cerrito] 22/6/2019 15:14

Had a busy few days and only now can finish my write up of a good AGM. Five shareholders there and a good q&a.
Good for them in the RNS announcing the AGM results to put down the detailed voting information. You will see proxies were low with just 1.767m of the 9m shares voted by proxy. This is a bit misleading as Ian Mann being present voted his 24. 3% of the shares in person. Even so a low voting turnout.

No presentation as such. It emerged fairly early in the Q&A that Allenby had put out fresh forecasts that morning and those referenced by the Chairman in his statement Basically they now see this year revenue at £6,140k down from £6,461k: adjusted ebitda down from £242K to £216K and year end 2019 cash down from £1,016 to £522K. This new report is on the Allenby website. The original year end cash balances were-for me-optimistic; given that H1 2019 sales are £2.6m approx., it is going to be great to get H2 revenue £3.5m needed to make the revised forecast. Indeed as I write rather kicking myself that I did not query this figure at the meeting.
The first question was about the announcement of the cash balance. They insisted they were comfortable with this level of cash despite the cash burn year to date. Note they have yet to receive the £155k Tax Credit shown in the accounts - will come in next month. They were also insistent that they had the necessary cash resources to do all the R&D investment they need to make to stay competitive in this fast evolving business. They are not using the invoice discounting facility and my clear understanding is that they have never used it.
The decline in finance income between 2017 and 2018 is explained by the fact that post IPO cash balances in 2017 were much higher.
The fact is that with their cash balance and current share price which precludes a fund raising they have limited room for manoeuvre. They certainly cannot think of expansion - either organic or inorganic: the blessing in disguise is that they have to stick to their knitting and focus on building up the current business.
Note that the Chairman 's statement referred to ebitda pre SBP, which were around £30k last year and currently anticipated to be the same this year. Also note that the director' s remuneration was £639k compared to the total of £4743k the other 78 employees received. I am struggling to work out if this ratio makes sense. There was a change last year in the way the compensation of staff with as I understood it more emphasis on bonus but that is not anticipated to change the ratio of total Director :non director pay.
Questions asked about the reseller programme. This was soft launched at the end of last year. A lot of training involved ie the day after the AGM the CEO Ian was going to be giving a session at Reading. Resellers range from one man bands upwards. I did not establish what they regard as the optimum number of resellers. They are also doing direct marketing - ie they send out a monthly email and follow up with anyone who opens it. They also as in years past had a stand at the recent Infosecurity Industry conference in London a couple of weeks back, Reaffirmed what hasd been said in earlier meetings-that the route to Managed Services clients is through consultancy.

In conclusion
I think both the NED's are good value and inspire confidence. My impression(and of course I may be wrong) is that the Chairman is good at managing the dynamics of having a CEO Ian Mann who is comfortably the largest shareholder and who founded the company. I thought Ian Mann came across very well but would prefer if the other Executive Director COO Lucy Sharp was given more visibility. Let us hope that he does not fall under a bus. I got the impression that all the hiatus of last year had been well put to bed.
I see that Allenby has a fair value of 170p and I would be pleasantly surprised to see it there in the next twelve months even if next year they can reach the current 2020 forecast of adjusted Ebitda of £1020 k. I am not excpecting any news to come out till the Interims-in the last two years these have come out in September.
Of course with a current marcap of £7m.approx they may get an offer that cannot be refused.
As I have noted before one downer on the share price is the unanswerable question mark of what Ravinder Bahra will do with her 11.7pc.
After the AGM, as Timbo03 said there was a desperate presentation given by Ian on the cyber security market. Apart from the huge increase in incidents over the years and how The Cloud has increased the security issues and indeed now they scan for new vulnerabilities every eight hours, I was interested in how he answered a question on consolidation on this fragmented industry. The issue was of how the acquiring company integrated the new staff: this was tricky and indeed in their own recruiting they focused on consultants of companies that had been acquired.
PS
With hindsight one question I should have asked was the relative profit margins of consultancy and managed services, which as per the AGM staterment, they are pushing.H2 2018 was the only half year when the ptofit magin on Managed Services exceeded that of consultancy.
PPS
A bit surprised that the share price has fallen so much.
PPPS
If anyone there has a different take, be good to hear it

[ariel yhwh] 19/6/2019 22:01

“The relationship between IdenTrust and Device Authority links our trusted certificate authority with a seamless and scalable means to efficiently manage the lifecycle of issued digital certificates in the rapidly expanding IoT device market,”

said Brad Jarvis, Vice President and Managing Director of Identity & Access Management Solutions (IAMS) with HID Global.

“The combination simplifies the process of enhancing device security and its administration for our customers.”

[timbo003] 19/6/2019 21:54

I will endeavour to write up some notes on the meeting in the next few days (unless Cerrito beats me to it), meanwhile it is worth mentioning a few of of the personal cyber-security hints and tips that came out towards the end of the second meeting:



* Have two separate computers, one for bank accounts and financial transactions and one for emails, web browsing and personal stuff.

* Consider using telephone banking rather than internet banking (Ian Mann, CEO, only uses telephone banking)

* Make sure you keep up to date with security updates

* Most personal computers are fairly vulnerable to Hackers, consumer software such as Norton or Avast, do not offer protection for the majority of malware. They perhaps cover 5 – 10%

* Using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) will not increase protection against malware, VPNs are there to conceal the whereabouts and identities of individuals, many of whom will use the VPNs to conduct illegitimate activities, such as downloading pirated copies of newly released films. Do you really want your data being handled by providers who help facilitate such activities?

* Connecting through an unsecured internet connection such as The Cloud will increase risk to a small degree, but the increased risk will be small compared to using a poorly protected computer vs a secure computer with all the updated security patches.

* If you lose money in an online bank transaction, you may have been hacked many weeks before the incident. Hackers will frequently lie in wait until they see a big balance.

[timbo003] 19/6/2019 19:18

That was a very informative AGM today and an equally informative post AGM shareholder workshop "Understanding Cyber Security" which lasted for about one hour.

After I had read this morning's RNS, I was slightly concerned that they may want to raise a bit more cash, as the current cash levels (£350K) seemed somewhat lower than one might expect at this stage in the year, assuming the last Allenby broker note (March 2019) was to be believed (see link below)



When I put this point to the BOD, we were told that there were no current plans to raise further funds from shareholders and furthermore there was a new Allenby forecast published today (we were given a copy).

Allenby are now forecasting cash for the end of the year to be around £552K (without having to resort to another fund raise). The Allenby analyst was at the meeting and he confirmed that he was happy with the new forecast. We were also told that the new Barclays facility was set up as a contingency and they did not anticipate using it. The interest rate payable under the facility was described as de minimis and it cost around £9K to set up.

[cerrito] 14/5/2019 16:00

I see they are due to present at Mello this week; I am not going and would appreciate an update of anyone who is there

[newtothisgame3] 16/4/2019 07:48

ECSC surges as three contract wins underpin revenue expectations for 2019

[cerrito] 16/4/2019 07:02

Good news yes; but to put it in perspective these three wins equal as I read it £140k approx pa for the next three years in a division that had revenues last year of £1.7m.
Let's hope these big companies are good at paying their suppliers.

[sweepie2] 15/4/2019 13:59

Monday, April 15, 2019
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Device certificates have traditionally been used to secure routers, firewalls, servers, and other devices capable of securely handling private keys and implementing PKI technologies. However, in the new IoT world, device certificates can be used to secure a wide range of networked assets, such as ATM machines, medical devices, surveillance cameras, industrial machines, refrigerators, vehicles and much more.

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Combining Device Authority’s KeyScaler platform capabilities with IdenTrust’s trusted digital certificate solutions provides customers with a complete IoT security solution that automates compliance, minimizes costly manual intervention and manages risks in a diverse industrial regulatory marketplace.

“The relationship between IdenTrust and Device Authority links our trusted certificate authority with a seamless and scalable means to efficiently manage the lifecycle of issued digital certificates in the rapidly expanding IoT device market,” said Brad Jarvis, Vice President and Managing Director of Identity & Access Management Solutions (IAMS) with HID Global. “The combination simplifies the process of enhancing device security and its administration for our customers.”

“We’re delighted to be working with the IdenTrust team to provide device and data trust for their customers embarking on their IoT journey. With a mixed environment of devices emerging in healthcare, industrial, and government sectors, the combined value delivered from both companies has a strong positioning for physical, enterprise and IoT IAM customer solutions,” said Darron Antill, CEO of Device Authority.

To sign up for Device Authority and IdenTrust’s joint webinar -- “Five Tips for Securing and Managing your IoT environment with Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)” – and to find out more about how their collaboration, visit



About IdenTrust

IdenTrust, part of HID Global, is a leader in trusted identity solutions recognized by financial institutions, government agencies and businesses around the world. IdenTrust offers the only bank-developed identity authentication system and provides a legally and technologically interoperable environment for authenticating and using identities in more than 175 countries. IdenTrust also offers certificates issued three different U.S. FBCA cross-certified PKI programs providing interoperability and trusted reliance between commercial entities, state and local government and the U.S. Federal Government. IdenTrust is part of HID Global, an ASSA ABLOY Group brand. For more information, visit www.IdenTrust.com.

About Device Authority

Device Authority is a global leader in Identity and Access Management (IAM) for the Internet of Things (IoT) and Blockchain. Our KeyScaler™ platform provides trust for IoT devices and the IoT ecosystem, to address the challenges of securing the Internet of Things. KeyScaler uses breakthrough technology including Dynamic Device Key Generation (DDKG) and PKI Signature+ that delivers unrivalled simplicity and trust to IoT devices. This solution delivers automated device provisioning, authentication, credential management and policy based end-to-end data security/encryption.

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[onjohn] 06/4/2019 00:19

lossmaking dirt

[thaiger] 05/4/2019 21:54

Bid 75p Ask 90p!!

[thaiger] 05/4/2019 21:53

Why is the spread so wide on ECSC?

[sharesoc] 28/3/2019 12:41

The presentation from ECSC Group delivered at the London Seminar on 13th March is available in our members area here: