I completely agree with you about the whole damned if they do and damned if they don't. Over the weekend I went through a few APT quarterly updates and did a side by side comparison. They have the same format plus or minus a few metrics. For instance, APT breaks down their revenue into different countries. This isn't something IOU can do as they have not expanded yet. Interestingly, most of APT data was actually in table form exactly like IOU.
I really think that most people are judging management and progress by the share price. As in, if management did a good job and the business was making good progress this would be reflected in the share price. That is usually how it works. The problem is that the share price spiked suddenly because of broker movements to capitalize on market euphoria. They did a good job at creating fomo and caught a lot of people out. That's good for the broker but leaves a lot of damage behind in terms of sentiment.
There's no doubt a few opinions about the company now that would be preventing moves higher in the share price. Such as:
- Management played investors into buying up shares so that they could do a CR (pump and dump)
- Management wasted the money and opportunity that was created from the CR
- Management don't hold shares so therefore they don't care
- Management don't communicate so therefore they don't care
Looking at 1 from the above, most of this can be put down to novice investors getting caught up in euphoria or tulip mania. The evidence is clear that CS bought shares to push the price higher to profit from the aforementioned euphoria. They did this across many companies in the sector. It's just easier to blame management I guess.
As for management wasting the money from the CR, this is really just two opposing opinions at the moment and time will prove one of the opinions right.
Management don't hold shares, this is correct. They also don't take large salaries. We've seen from the AGM notice the idea of offering performance options will be on the table. I believe this will depend on the progress of the business. I'd be inclined to believe that options will be issued in the future once the business has proven itself. Again this is just an opinion and could be wrong.
Lastly, management not communicating. Again, there's two views on this. I've been invested in a few companies that offer limited communication and over the long run the business performance spoke very clearly despite few announcements from the company. Would it help if they offered more? Perhaps, but it is just as likely to dilute the value of good announcements if the company continuously pumps out announcements.
I think we'll have a much better idea of what's going on after the next 4C. Will it give the share price a bump? Probably not but it may change the overall sentiment. This could lead to an appreciating share price in the future once funding is squared away. I'm noticing other BNPL companies (aside from APT) appear to be bottoming out. In a bubble, it's usually the companies that run the hardest, fall the hardest. APT certainly went on a big run and has subsequently pulled back a long way.
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