Smoove Share Discussion Threads

[sidam] 23/5/2023 08:36

Good comments Masurenguy.

They must be talking in the right ballpark, otherwise there would be no reason to extend the negotiation period. So the $64k question is what is the right ballpark.
If you look at the grant of incentive options, these do not all become issuable until a price of 85p is reached. So my hope and best guess is that the executives will want that price. The lower hurdle is 55p which is the target price for the first tranche.

[masurenguy] 23/5/2023 08:08

Well clearly PEXA have not 'looked, evaluated and walked'! Therefore a potential deal is on the cards but obviously it is still subject to two critical factors:
1. PEXA making an acceptable offer to the Smoove Board.
2. PEXA having the liquidity to fund it.
Nothing is certain but it could also become really interesting if another predator suddenly appeared.

[aimsurfer] 22/5/2023 17:04

Next announcement could come any day. Too many potential reasons why extension was needed but continued discussions is positive. I also think PEXA need additional debt / funds for all cash offer.

[earwacks] 22/5/2023 16:51

Think this announcement may have something to do with delay. Pexa appointed a new finance and growth officer on the May 15th. Barely had a chance to get his feet under the table. All looks promising still. Mr Butterworth takes over from outgoing finance officer of 3 years. Looks like internal promotion which is also a positive

[aimsurfer] 22/5/2023 16:38

So we wait. Looking at PEXAs cash position it did look like they needed to raise capital to afford cash offer for smoove. Extension seems positive, probably prepared to pay what is requested however they need to have funds onboard and raise new capital or debt.

[masurenguy] 22/5/2023 16:37

Discussions between the parties remain ongoing so deadline extended to 16th June.

[earwacks] 22/5/2023 16:30

Absolutely no problem getting an offer on my stock at 47.8p, which I declined. Are Pexa trying to call their bluff? Playing hard ball seems a little foolish if Pexa are serious. Looks like the market will close before any deal is on or off the table. Clearly from the initial interest shown by interested parties ‘buyers queueing up’ , SMV are future hot property. A few £20,000+ purchases in final ten minutes. I find this all quite fascinating. I was hoping this would be the cherry on top of my largest holdings in Niox and Eqls. Guess you cant win them all, just yet

[aimsurfer] 22/5/2023 16:16

Maybe no offers on the table and bid window will expire soon. We'll find out soon.

[masurenguy] 22/5/2023 16:03

It now looks like any announcement today will be after the market close.

[aimsurfer] 22/5/2023 13:14

I don't think pexa will buying shares, if you add up all the holders of 1% and above it's 95% of the shares. We haven't seen the volume to indicate they are buying. Few more hours and we'll know. Good luck all I'll take £1.

[masurenguy] 22/5/2023 10:36

Well there are 3 options today.
1. PEXA walk away without making an offer.
2. PEXA make an offer that is rejected by the Smoove Board.
3. PEXA make an offer that is recommended by the Smoove Board.

What might an acceptable offer be bearing in mind that the current market value is circa £27m which includes £10m cash plus the investment already made in Smart, Complete & Home plus e-Conveyancer upgrades. They don't need to sell since they have sufficient net cash to cover short term losses until profitabilty is attained. Therefore, if PEXA really want this business, I guess that an offer would have to be above 100p to make it attractive to Smoove.

However, it is entirely speculative until an announcement is made. If PEXA don't make an acceptable offer today, then there could be an extension deadline while they review their position. If PEXA just walk then there could be drop in the shareprice although I don't think there would be a significant fall.

[earwacks] 22/5/2023 10:27

Seem to be a lot of form 8s. I wonder if Panmure are acting for Pexa and accumulating shares. Perhaps disclose final situation after the market closes. No idea really. They have surely had enough time to make up minds one way or tother. I believe it is possible to extend deadline , aren't they there to be broken? Just been reading up on takeovers. The good news is that if Pexa have been building a stake they must bid for the rest of the company at at least their highest buy price. In this case north of 50p which is something. Cant see ollie accepting much under £1

[aimsurfer] 22/5/2023 09:24

Strange one leaving it to the last moment. Must be a good chance of acceptable offer? Unless there was a board meeting scheduled for today that they will use to vote on any offer they have on the table.

[earwacks] 19/5/2023 15:42

Share price should be interesting on monday. Seem to have been a few quite chunky positions taken since the announcement. Either way the market cap is still ridiculously cheap. Gl all

[red ninja] 19/5/2023 10:39

Well there always the chance that they can extend the offer period, but that in itself would presumably indicate that an acceptable offer might be negociated between both parties.

"This deadline will only be extended with the consent of the Takeover Panel in accordance with Rule 2.6(c) of the Code."

[aimsurfer] 19/5/2023 10:29

Indeed. No news is good news at this stage. We'll know on Monday either way.

[masurenguy] 19/5/2023 08:29

PEXA deadline to make an offer, or to walk away, is 5.00pm on Monday.

[aimsurfer] 16/5/2023 08:49

PEXA acquired Optima Legal last year who process ~20% of UK remortgage market. High volume low fee business. I'm going through a remortgage now with YBS and was given free legals option with Optima, after looking online and their reviews I've decided to source my own solicitor, didn't want the pain dealing with them. They are still chasing me for onboarding despite me telling ybs I've instructed my own solicitors. I've read somewhere pexa saying uk conveyancing market is very different to Australia, you can't just port the technology over that works there. It's now clear to me they need smoove tech stack to sort out the mess with optima and speed up uk market strategy. How much they willing to pay is the key here. Digitalmove.co.uk took years to develop and would be significantly improvement on the on boarding process optima uses. After I've been ignoring their emails they even posted me paper pack on boarding forms ?Digitalmove.co.uk and Smoove Complete would bring direct benefits to pexa. Smoove start is a growth opportunity. 80% of UK brokers have access to econveyancer, that's highly valuable that you can't easily replicate. Legal eye part of smoove comes with a lot of sector knowledge. On the face of it a perfect acquisition target.Free float here is less than 5%, it's a shame but with no exit liquidity I suspected most institutions see disposal as an exit strategy here and pexa is a suitable fit if they agree a suitable price.

[earwacks] 15/5/2023 17:21

Land registry was digitalised years ago. Dont know if it has been completed yet across the whole of uk. France and Spain are even more complicated. Who owns the land the house is built on , or some long lost relative turns up out of the blue claiming ownership etc. There was an awful case of some poor fellow working away from home for a year only to find out an imposter had sold his house while he was away and disappeared with the money. The new owner was given absolute ownership and the old owner is presumably still trying to work out who is accountable. Obviously not the solicitors.

[yump] 15/5/2023 17:06

Perhaps someone, someday will rewrite all the house deeds, so that they can actually be read and understood by someone with a reasonable grasp of English.

I expect there would be a massive lobby against that from solicitors, who earn a lot of money, deciphering deeds.

I get why general law is very complicated, because of precedents and the implications of deciding in one direction, which might affect loads of other cases.

But deeds, surely not. Either I am allowed to extend my garage, subject to the land leasehold, or I'm not. Then that decision should be recorded and nobody else will ever have to pay for the conclusion again.

...and who on earth allowed any deeds to be written with no punctuation, so you can't figure out which "notwithstandings" and "subject-to's" apply to which nouns and actions ??!!

Bah humbug.

[sidam] 15/5/2023 16:41

Only 7 days before we know if there is a bid or not.

[yump] 15/5/2023 14:49

This is a bit o/t but it shows how slow the house buying market has been in adopting new tech.

In the relatively early days of the internet, I was building and owning experimental websites. A couple did well. In the “tried but noone was interested tray” was one idea that I talked to a couple of estate agents and solicitors about. It was the principle of a group of people in a process being able to share information on a set of secure web pages, rather than banging loads of emails backwards and forwards between parties.

I’d just moved house and seen missed emails, documents not shared in a timely manner etc etc.

It was greeted with puzzled looks all round. Its taken 20 years to see it appear in a finished form and be used.

Thats why I’ve got shares here.

[earwacks] 15/5/2023 14:26

Hellosmoove! Interesting time to smooove just up the road from the grammar schoool to Master’s Court. Getting ideas above their station? Anyway if Pexa do make a bid we want well over a quid please sir!

[earwacks] 05/5/2023 09:02

Like many new technology disrupters, Smv has attracted a lot of attention. I remember having a chat with one of the leading estate agency bosses a few years back about ULs as it was then. He said they were building their own software but I dont think he really understood what ULS were about. They have some significant backers. Unfortunately they got caught in a triple whammy just as they were emerging from Covid. There is no doubt that they have built an amazing platform to transform the house transactions market. Unfortunately along came energy crisis, government crisis, and housing market seizure with a trading forecast for a flat year. As the results recently show that has not quite been the case and the business has been flexible enough to withstand some of the faltering market.
Hardly surprising that there has been intense interest from many places and countries that would be interested in a platform that can probably be adapted elsewhere. I dont think management will be concerned or interested in anything but a knock out offer. There is a lot of potential value which is why Oliver has been buying so consistently through thick an thin. It is encouraging to see some serious recognition of the value by those in the industry. Would be nice to see it gently bought back up to some kind of sane valuation even if a realistic offer is not forthcoming. Win win hopefully! Gl all