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MJH Mj Hudson Group Plc

13.125
0.00 (0.00%)
28 Mar 2024 - Closed
Delayed by 15 minutes
Share Name Share Symbol Market Type Share ISIN Share Description
Mj Hudson Group Plc LSE:MJH London Ordinary Share JE00BJTLYP93 ORD NPV
  Price Change % Change Share Price Shares Traded Last Trade
  0.00 0.00% 13.125 0.00 00:00:00
Bid Price Offer Price High Price Low Price Open Price
Industry Sector Turnover Profit EPS - Basic PE Ratio Market Cap
  -
Last Trade Time Trade Type Trade Size Trade Price Currency
- O 0 13.125 GBX

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Date Time Title Posts
08/8/202316:05MJ HUDSON - Asset management consulting391

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Posted at 08/8/2023 13:42 by dodger777
Thanks for that info.
I contacted my broker and informed that for a fee I could receive a share certificate or alternately I could donate it to a share charity for free 🤔
Not sure what if any value there is to get a certificate 🤔
Posted at 19/10/2022 16:39 by davidosh
I am going to invite them to this event to meet the shareholders/investors who will no doubt have lots of serious questions to ask. They presented on a virtual show but the share price has fallen 60% since then so lots to answer to the Mello community.
Posted at 26/8/2022 17:18 by simon gordon
Below is a fascinating letter to oust the Executive Chairman of RQIH.

The three main reasons:

-Struggled with intelligent capital allocation.

-Not aligned with shareholders.

-Integrity.

It's a superb letter which gives a glimpse into what happens when you've got a leader who is not thinking of all shareholders, only himself.

I tried to post the url link but ADVFN is blocking it, so I've posted the whole letter.

Phoenix Asset Management - 25/8/22:

Dear Shareholder,

I want to set out the extraordinary background that has led to the special General Meeting being called and our reasons for calling it.

Background

In April we were contacted by another significant shareholder, Slater Investments, who were very unhappy with the management of R&Q and in particular the deal agreed by management to sell the company to Brickell for 175p a share. We exchanged views and although like Slater we were not happy with the terms of the proposed sale, we said were not prepared to get involved unless there was a management change and Ken Randall came back. Slater asked us to approach Ken Randall and ask him if he would consider coming back which I did. Following a series of meetings with Ken, who cares passionately about R&Q, he agreed to do that for a short period to help stabilise the business. I believe Slater and others also wrote to him and were pleased that he was willing to return. Upon the takeover failing, Brickell also agreed to work with other shareholders to recapitalize the business and work with the board to make the necessary changes to management.

The Brickell Takeover

The deal put forward with Brickell was due to be put to a vote on 20th May 2022. On 27th April 2022, Phoenix tabled an alternative proposal to the R&Q board under which Phoenix would put up the capital needed by the company on the condition that William Spiegel stepped down from the board and Ken Randall replaced him. This proposal was rejected.

The company was confident that the vote on the Brickell offer would succeed whereas Slater informed us that they believed there was enough support to block it. At that point Phoenix’s votes had been cast in favour of the bid. We had a real concern that if the deal went to a vote and it was lost that this could result in the company being in breach of its covenants which could set off a potentially damaging series of events. We were concerned that the board had not made any backup plans and did not seem to be engaging with its existing shareholders who were offering to provide the capital.

We therefore changed our vote and that was enough to ensure that the focus turned to an alternative solution. I asked Brickell and Slater to work together with us to provide the company with the capital it needed in a way that would be open to all shareholders. I was later informed by the company’s advisors that the deal would have passed without our switching, the objecting vote had not been enough to stop the deal going through until we switched.

We were always clear in our view that Ken Randall should return for an interim period, but we appreciated the board's need to separate the issues and deal with the company's financial position first and then address the removal of William. We were clear with all parties who engaged with us throughout this period, which they can confirm, that our intervention and support was always based on a management change from William Spiegel to Ken Randall. That was made clear to the board and all other parties throughout.

William Spiegel

From what we have heard, if there is a difference of opinion with other shareholders it is not about whether William Spiegel should go, it’s about how his exit should be achieved. Either cleanly in one vote at this meeting or by appointing new non-executives to the board and allowing the board to remove him. We think the latter approach will be more disruptive internally and externally and may do more harm to the company, risking the loss of valuable employees.

I have a unique perspective in discussing R&Q because for nearly 10 years my wife and I have counted as controllers of R&Q by virtue of our stake in the business and our ultimate ownership of Phoenix. That has meant that we have had to review and sign scores of documents related to specific R&Q transactions. This has meant that I would have to understand these transactions well enough to explain them to my wife. This necessity required that I have had more than a superficial understanding of the business and its’ mechanics for years. During this period, I built an appreciation for Ken Randall’s capability and a trust and admiration for the painstaking detail he would provide as a means of explaining the very complex transactions my wife and I would have to sign our names to.

Seeing the company from this angle led me to form a view on what I consider to be William Spiegel’s shortcomings. As a result of that we decided to sell our entire holding in R&Q, a process which we started in June 2021 and at the time of the Brickell bid we were down to 10.14%. We got involved in current events because we were asked and we do care, and we believe that there is great value in R&Q under the right leadership.

If shareholders should choose to keep William Spiegel, then we will respect that and go back to where we were, disengaging from the company. We didn’t seek the role of activist here, it found us. We were quietly on our way, exiting stage left, before this came along and that is why our initial reaction was to just accept the Brickell bid.

I should explain what I mean by shortcomings. At Phoenix we think of these assessments in three categories: competence, alignment and integrity in ascending order. We find William wanting in all three.

From our first dealings with him we realised that he struggled with intelligent capital allocation at a company level. He couldn’t work out the impact of the dilutive capital raise he had just foisted on us. He couldn’t grasp that he needed to understand the value of what he was giving up, not just the return on the capital he was raising. We have other examples and have picked up as part of our research monitoring process other anecdotal evidence of a person who does not have a good grasp of the details. We won’t name sources but if any of them come forward as part of this process then we will share them. The underlying point though is that R&Q is not competently led, this is known internally and by key stakeholders and this is damaging the business which will ultimately have detrimental consequences.

The next factor is alignment, we don’t find William aligned with the interests of R&Q’s shareholders. An example of a misalignment is the management’s action during this latest saga. We had become aware that Brickell’s initial bid for the company was £2.20. The bid was accepted and the very next day, William disclosed to the bidder that the company would be posting a 160m pre-tax loss and needed over 100m of emergency funding in order to prevent breaches of financial covenants and rating downgrades. We can only assume that Brickell did not take this lightly and from what we have observed began to take a far more defensive posture to help the company prevent further damage. Shockingly, the moment the Brickell deal was signed, we believe the executives awarded themselves over $6m of bonuses which were not explicitly disclosed to Brickell.

Furthermore, in the middle of the process of putting the deal to shareholders, a special board meeting was convened to award a new executive pay deal for the coming year despite their already being a heavily pre-negotiated Management Incentive Plan as part of the takeover. We believe Brickell, the acquiring company, asked that this not happen ahead of the deal and yet it was still pushed through and resulted in Brickell suing the company for breach of the agreement and the company making a payment in settlement.

Once the deal failed, the company and its advisors knew that existing shareholders were prepared to put up the entire amount of capital needed. Instead of reaching to engage shareholders and mend fences, William Spiegel set about trying to raise money from third parties at a deeply discounted price that would have diluted existing shareholders as he perceived they did not support him. Meetings were held and it was only with the intervention of Phoenix and other shareholders, and the NOMAD that this process was stopped. He seemed unable to see how these actions were so counter to the interests of existing shareholders.

The final factor is integrity, the quality of being honest. Essential in any business we invest in, but incredibly important in a business-like R&Q which is very opaque and where we must rely upon the communication from directors to make our judgements. The weakest form of integrity in our assessment is someone who will not lie to you but will be willing to let you form the wrong view without correcting you. We don’t find that William achieves even that level.

We feel that important and especially negative information is not disclosed when it should be, this makes interpreting the company’s communications extremely difficult for shareholders who need the opposite with a company like R&Q. To illustrate the problem, take the recent statement from the company on 8th August 2022 titled Q2 Programme Management Update. It ended with this paragraph:

"Additionally, despite rising interest rates and volatile financial markets, we note that our investment portfolio is well positioned with our assets significantly shorter in duration than our liabilities and over 95% comprising liquid, investment grade fixed income securities and cash. Our portfolio has not experienced any credit impairments."

How should we interpret this? No prior Programme Management Updates have contained information about the investment portfolio. It seems reassuring, but why draw attention to something like the duration mismatch which is a given as R&Q always expects to commute liabilities before they fall due so the assets need to be shorter than liabilities. Our experience of William Spiegel is to suspect that this statement flags something negative although it doesn’t say so explicitly. We assume it means that the duration of the investment portfolio was extended which would mean given how longer dated bonds have performed that losses have resulted. We don’t know that but we do know that there isn’t really enough information in this communication to make an informed judgement on the matter which it speaks of.

It is management’s prerogative to make investment mistakes, we do it all the time, but what shareholders deserve is open and honest communication.

Governance

We have been clear to the company all along that we think the board should be chaired by a non-executive and needs strengthening. We support the appointment of Robert Leggert as a NED who we know and respect, and we are also supportive of a candidate for Non-Exec Chairman introduced to us by Slater Investments who we can see has the right skill sets and experience to run a proper board that holds the executive to account. That executive should be Ken Randall working with current CEO Alan Quilter.

Phoenix’s Position on Strategy

I would like to correct misinformation being given about Phoenix’s intentions especially with regard to strategy. At no point in any of our discussions with the board, their advisors or other shareholders have we expressed any opinion or preference about strategy. We are not seeking a change of strategy, just a change of leadership. This has never been about the strategy which I hope the above makes clear and we have not engaged the company on it. We think strategy is a matter for the executive and the board and not for shareholders. We were not consulted in the past on strategy changes, and we are not seeking any change to that. The company is seeking to characterise this vote as being about strategy whilst fully knowing from their dealings with us that this isn’t the case. We don’t want you to be misled when you make your voting decision.

Phoenix, Brickell and Randall

There is no formal or informal agreement between Phoenix and Brickell or Ken Randall with regards to any of these matters regarding R&Q.

William and the board have attempted to portray this as William Spiegel vs Ken Randall saga. That could not be further from the truth. The exigency is in removing an executive that is impairing the business and not acting faithfully and in shareholders’ best interests. Ken Randall was simply engaged as he is a trusted and highly knowledgeable former custodian of the business and in our view the perfect interim steward.

Ken never discussed any financial matters with us about his return and we don’t seek to involve ourselves, it would be a matter between him and the board. His motivation is helping R&Q, the business he and Alan founded, it's not financial. We have been careful in our conduct throughout this process to ensure we didn’t act in concert with those we engaged with.

Brickell was gracious enough to continue talking to us when the deal looked as though it wouldn’t succeed after our intervention, and then worked constructively to help the company recapitalise. They more than any other shareholder understand the business of R&Q and through their due diligence process have the ability to assess the conduct and capability of William Spiegel and so their opinion carries a lot of weight in this matter. There are no commercial agreements between Phoenix and Brickell.

Conclusion

My 15 years of involvement in R&Q made me believe it was worth trying to help. I have attempted to share with you the background to what has been going on so that you can understand our motivations. It's a failure of governance that has led us to this point but now at least all shareholders have an opportunity to do something to save the company they own. Anyone who has had dealings with Phoenix in our history knows that we put our reputation for honesty and acting with integrity ahead of all else, even the discomfort of occasionally operating in the public domain.

It is my strong personal, and Phoenix’s professional view that William Spiegel is not the right person to be running R&Q and that he is doing damage to the intrinsic value. I also believe that there is not a better person in the world that we know of to step into the complexity of the R&Q business now and work with Alan to bring stability and confidence so that it can achieve its true potential, than Ken Randall.

Therefore, I ask that you support our motions at the special General Meeting.

Gary Channon
Posted at 11/8/2022 16:50 by simon gordon
Sorry, my brain is spaced out today and my musings below are off base. £10m of the £13m is dependent on share price targets. Pardon me!!

"There are so many options that it's hard to keep track of them.

£7m worth in December 2022.
£13m worth in December 2023

Then there are the employee options which are all under water with a crystallisation price of 45p. Not sure how many millions of them there are, can't be bothered to look.

Could be heading to a share count in 2024 of c.280m, depending on the share price. c.280m is based off 30p LTIP conversion price."
Posted at 11/8/2022 15:37 by simon gordon
Dr B,

Will do!

------

There are so many options that it's hard to keep track of them.

£7m worth in December 2022.
£13m worth in December 2023

Then there are the employee options which are all under water with a crystallisation price of 45p. Not sure how many millions of them there are, can't be bothered to look.

Could be heading to a share count in 2024 of c.280m, depending on the share price. c.280m is based off 30p LTIP conversion price.

Why are they forking a dividend when the biggest chunk is going to the Hudson family and debt is going up not down. Is this company run as a personal fiefdom?

What's a fair price for a company with £17m net debt and c.280m shares that is still not cash flow positive in 2024. Cause at 30p you are potentially paying c.£101m for MJH today.

There's just not tremendous upside unless they hyper-perform relative to the downside potential if they hit problems with their leveraged balance sheet.

They deserve to get ripped in the media!!
Posted at 10/8/2022 18:08 by simon gordon
Too much underlying growth and undercapitalised. They've only recently hired a product manager, a venture lead and a customer success manager for ESG Advantage. The opposition look to have 40+ plus teams, MJH has maybe 4+. Though they do have the ESG consultants and other teams who can help sell through the product.

Bridge has gone better than expected and so has ESG Advantage. They both have large market opportunities.

Share price is likely going to mark time until more topline growth is shown. Could be a dull 12 months for the share. The business is growing, the one-stop shop platform has been built, just a matter of selling through it, scaling up the staff and investing in product. At some point it will be cashflow positive with a 30%+ margin but until then traders will give it a pass. Maybe, 2024 will be the decisive year. 2022 was the year it all bonded together, 2023 looks to be the year of investing hard into staff and product, will 2024 be the year for a re-rating?
Posted at 08/8/2022 09:36 by simon gordon
Interesting Fintech company that MJH have a share in:

Undervalued Shares - May 2021:

DO YOU WANT TO BECOME A FUND MANAGER? VAUBAN MIGHT BE FOR YOU

...Vauban had 24 employees when I visited their office in the City of London, and are planning to double this number by the end of the year. It doesn't take much to figure out that this is one of the more serious finance-related start-ups to come out of London. Not only is MJ Hudson a shareholder, they have also been given office space in the same building as the law firm...




Another company MJH have shares in is Making Science Group which is listed in Spain and is currently 14.30 euros a share, it's on the MJH books as 5.7 euros a share.
Posted at 12/7/2022 06:17 by se81
Yet another upgrade- still doesn't seem to be attracting much interest though

Cenkos this morning...

MJ Hudson (MJH) delivered a strong finish to FY22E, confirming that Adj EBITDA would be ‘modestly ahead’ of our £8.3m forecast, driven by ESG and Fund Performance Analytics performing better than previously expected. After reporting organic revenue growth of 7% in H1, this accelerated rapidly in H2, to give a full year figure that is expected to be in the mid-teens. On the back of this outperformance, we nudge up our FY22E Adj EBITDA forecast by £0.2m to £8.5m (our fourth such upgrade this year), with Adj EPS rising c5% to 2.6p. Following the recent sell-off in the shares, MJH now trade on a FY23E Adj P/E of just 10.7x, representing its cheapest valuation since IPO. Given the positive momentum underway at the business, in an industry where the highly favourable tailwinds remain unchanged (eg increasing investment into alternatives, heightened focus on regulation and governance etc), we believe MJH is looking materially undervalued, and as such, reaffirm our Buy rating.

 Transformational growth areas. MJH has identified three areas which present significant growth opportunities over the coming years: (i) ESG (acquired July 2019); (ii) Irish Super ManCo (acquired February 2021), and; (iii) Luxembourg fund services (incubated by MJH); each of which is discussed in more detail below. Together, these businesses recorded underlying revenue growth 50%+ in FY22E, and now represent 34% of group revenue (vs 22% in FY21A). Growth in these areas is helping MJH to shift its business mix away from Advisory, and increasingly towards the higher margin, higher repeat revenue Data & Analytics and Outsourcing divisions.

 Data & Analytics. ESG and Fund Performance Analytics were the standout performers within this division, each securing important new client wins during the year. MJH’s ESGAdvantage platform, which allows investors, fund managers and portfolio companies to conduct efficient ESG assessments, is proving very popular with clients, and offers a useful tool for MJH to upsell consulting and other ESG services. Good progress is also being made elsewhere within this division, including MJH’s Quantitative Solutions (risk and regulatory reporting) business that was acquired last year, and MJH’s IR & Marketing business.
Posted at 18/5/2022 06:59 by simon gordon
Morning se81,

Cheers!

I came onboard after Thursday's stunning update.

Like this bit from the Prog note:

We regard this update as more than just encouraging trading news; we regard it as a
significant ‘proof point’ on the stock’s journey, which we hope will be followed by
opportunities for further forecast upgrades and increasing valuation multiples.

Statement answers the questions the market is asking

With a strategy based on addressing a range of existing and evolving needs across the private equity space, MJ Hudson is dependent on a number of capabilities. We are particularly impressed by this trading update as we believe it answers the questions about those capabilities that may have been hampering the share price.

Q: Can MJH spot the right businesses to be in within the space?

A: ESG, Ireland and Luxembourg clearly answer this, in our view. The company’s ‘three transformative growth areas’ are driving the outperformance, with the ESG offering in particular gaining traction.

Q: Can MJH act quickly and buy opportunities at the right price?

A: Ireland demonstrates this. With its purchase of Bridge Consulting in Dublin, MJH took a business faced with a challenging change in regulations and provided it with capital support, enabling rapid growth. It was acquired in early FY21 with €6bn AUM. By the end of H1 FY22 the AUM were €50bn, and it would appear to have maintained the strong growth trajectory since then. An initial fixed consideration of €2m was paid in cash, with deferred and additional earn-out consideration of up to €10m, payable over a two-year period, with previous year’s revenues and EBIDTA having been approximately €4m and €0.5m, respectively. It is evidently generating revenues, and almost certainly profits, at several times that level.

Q: Can MJH scale businesses?

A: Yes, yes and yes across these ‘three transformative growth areas’. And we suspect across other areas too. The ESG operations were acquired in 2019 with only 12 staff, but now there are over 60. Also, as noted above, Ireland is now several times its scale upon acquisition, and Luxembourg has grown to be a material business contributor having only been started from scratch soon after the Brexit result.

Q: Where there is nothing to buy or prices being demanded are too high, does MJH still have the skills and culture to start a business and build it?

A: Luxembourg was an incubated business within MJH’s ‘Organic Investments’ business
segment until not too long ago, so yes again.

Q: Can MJH really step beyond its senior management’s origins, answer its customers’ needs and build a valuable data business?

A: We believe so. The progress being made by ESG Advantage is very encouraging, albeit as yet unquantified. We believe that MJH’s ability to use technology to leverage its accumulated data and experience to generate high-margin recurring software and services income should prove highly valuable.

Q: Progress with fair winds is fine, but can MJH stabilize and revitalise businesses that hit holes in the road?

A: We would suggest that the encouraging news on Advisory shows that it can, as
demonstrated by the reported sustained recovery in legal services following a difficult first half of the year and the reported progress of the newly hired partners.
Posted at 15/9/2021 09:51 by bottomfisher
Lahav is not the only MJH executive to sell down his stake. Eamon Devlin, one of the group's top lawyers, trimmed his stake from 4.58% to 3.68% last week. Would not be worrying if the MJH share price was trading at a handsome premium to its December 2019 IPO price of 57p.
Mj Hudson share price data is direct from the London Stock Exchange

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