Shearwater Share Discussion Threads

[earwacks] 14/10/2022 10:37

We do want them to make an acquisition just to get it out of the way. Every presentation for the lsat 2/3 years has been about acquisition. That was the original reason given for the placing. The lack of one has more than likely been one reason for the drag on the share price Hence you question ‘ do we really want them to make an acquisition.’obviously the right company at the right price! The actual performances of the companies they currently held has been pretty decent over the last couple of years. They have growth , record revenues, paid of loan notes, paid off tax arrears and make a profit. Two things that haunt swg are acquisition and reputation of previous management. Absolutely nothing to do with business. Takes a while for market sentiment to move on.
.as for Steven Watts departure I don’t think he was on the board of directors of Shearwater. His departure would not therefor be notifiable. Can’t say the same about his shareholdings if the were over 3 percent although it might be over 5 percent on Aim.

[chrisdgb] 11/10/2022 10:06

Do we want them to make an acquisition....?

[igoe104] 07/10/2022 09:39

I've just been intouch with the company. He has departed the company. And still remains a shareholder, as he's just gone below 3%.

I must of missed his departure, notice..🤷

[nightswatch] 07/10/2022 09:29

I thought Steve Watts had left. So perfectly reasonable for him to sell up.

[igoe104] 07/10/2022 09:20

I'd rather live on bread and jam, than sell any of my shares at this level.

He earns a good salary, no excuses for giving his shares away for peanuts

[northwards] 07/10/2022 09:08

We don't know the personal circumstances ... buying a house, divorce, helping the kids get on the housing ladder.

[igoe104] 07/10/2022 09:04

He must be desperate for money selling at this level. Its embarrassing for the company. That a well paid employee is selling up, when the shares are at rock bottom prices...

[northwards] 07/10/2022 08:57

We don't know if he has sold his entire 3.7 percent, or still holds just under 3 percent.

[igoe104] 07/10/2022 08:54

Hes sold nearly 900k in shares. Very disappointing to see the ceo of one of SWG business selling at this low level. Higgins is forced to add to save face, even though he holds a substantial amount..

[northwards] 07/10/2022 08:45

Looks like Steve Watts has been a drag on the share price Let's hope he's close to done.

[bdbd11] 05/10/2022 12:03

Yes Peter, ridiculously undervalued. Higgins, already owning over 9% had no need to buy more, yet did. Unfortunately with low volumes, it only takes a few people who need to sell, to pay their mortgage or whatever else, to hold or drive the price down. I'd be surprised if the share price hasn't doubled within a couple of years. It would only take one serious buyer who wants to pick this up to get a 10 to 20% rise in short order.

[rivaldo] 05/10/2022 10:14

August's issue of SCSW had highlighted SWG as one of it's new ideas (this was when the share price was 129p...):



"Shearwater
129p Epic code: SWG

The cluster of cyber security specialists listed on AIM that once had high flying share prices are now all dead in the water, with the exception of Shearwater (SWG; 129p), which after three upgrades has just produced a very decent set of results: sales up 13% to £35.9m (all organic), pretax profit up 24% to £3m and eps up 10% at 11p. Net cash is £5.6m.

The company is a product of the shell revitalisation skills of chairman David Williams who has launched several shells over the years: this one was a gold miner until 2017 before he made it a buy and build in the cyber space. Williams’ problem early on was too high a central cost base as he put a team in place and a rag bag of four businesses then followed but the fifth one, Brookcourt, has allowed it to prosper. Brookcourt’s founder, Phil Higgins, now heads up the group.

In FY22, the Software side accounted for 9% of group sales. The mainstay is Secure Envoy, a “Privileged Access Management” product, which was bought for £20m. As Higgins explains, a PAM helps secure, control, manage and monitor access. Within a company, for instance, most individuals only need to have access to their own online information whereas the “privileged account” holders – i.e. those working in an organisation’s IT infrastructure - need access to other areas also. A PAM solution takes passwords of privileged accounts and puts them inside a secure vault to reduce the risk of those passwords being stolen. Once they log on to the vault (say, using facial recognition) they are authenticated. The software sells for a modest US$40 per user per year, although there is a pay-away to third party distributors.

Higgins’ plan is to offer customers “the whole enchilada” and last year was all about re-engineering the suite, which will enable its existing identity access management and data loss products to sit on a single platform and be sold with other software, which may be bought. This development activity saw software sales fall by 23% to £3.3m.

Meanwhile, Shearwater’s Services arm, with sales of £32.6m, is lower margin and not massively scalable. It relies on 20 consultants (gross margin 10-15%) who provide high level consulting for architecture design of a system and engage in penetration testing (£5.6m sales). Architecture design uses bought-in third party software (this bit grew sales 70% to £10.6m) with Managed services, where consultants manage the various systems, flat at £16.4m.

One keynote is that Brookcourt has a high customer concentration - when it was acquired, one financial services business and one telco were c.88% of the then £21m sales - and although they have diluted, you can see the effect continuing with the telco recently garlanding Brookcourt with a contract worth £21m over five years. Broker Cenkos forecasts eps rising to 13.6p this year and 14.3p next. The broker sets a 200p target, which on FY24 forecasts is 8x adjusted EV/EBITDA versus the 10x at which Brookcourt was acquired. One to watch."

[chrisdgb] 05/10/2022 08:36

Agreed.........

[northwards] 05/10/2022 07:34

A good sign.

[rivaldo] 05/10/2022 07:25

Hardly surprising to see the CEO buying another 25,000 shares at these bonkers prices (he now has 2.24m):

[peter oconnor] 28/9/2022 14:21

"Ridiculously under priced" "now 12% cheaper!
All the talking up hasn't add up to a toot on a radians trumpet

[bdbd11] 13/9/2022 12:25

I'm not surprised of the move today, it's ridiculously undervalued at these levels. Topped up yesterday and today. Overweight now, but see little downside risk.

[weatherman] 13/9/2022 10:08

Kape are raising up to $200m for acquisitions, on the basis there is lots of cheap companies around at present.

[northwards] 13/9/2022 08:54

Feels like this is going higher from here.

[lammylover] 12/9/2022 09:05

A bargain at this price - so well done!
I note that someone bought 10k at 103p late on Friday after the market closed.
Market makers love dropping the price hard here, to shake out cheap shares...
Got to turn round soon, AGM Tuesday 20th Sept.

[northwards] 12/9/2022 08:30

Added a few at this price.

[boadicea] 09/9/2022 16:58

In the absence of any specific negative news, I assume the seller must be desperate for cash!

[irish boy] 02/9/2022 16:54

No real surprise. There have been multiple sellers (in size) for months now. A very unloved company with poor prospects.It should not be that way but it is the case. I know not why.

[chrisdgb] 02/9/2022 15:50

Irritating share price action.....