US market, page-12

Hi K,
Her background is certainly encouraging; however, my understanding is that IMF-B made their big bucks on more traditional litigation funding I.e. speculative investment on legal professional fees for long-tail, high-quantum cases. Prime example would be class actions requiring massive ongoing investment and - ideally - a windfall if/when the case is settled or won.
Ms. Jones was probably instrumental in taking JKL/LAW *out* of that space in terms of their activities in the Oz market (referring to their indicated change of focus in recent investor presentations).
Those same presentations say they're moving into predominantly disbursements, which might be a safer bet....maybe.
Consider this though - their investor presentation takes as an example a $1,000 loan, and then calculates a range of possible scenarios depending on how long it takes to recoup that investment. $1,000 loans are ok when you're writing thousands of them. With a receivable book of $27M AUD they must be doing a lot - great news.
On the other hand, IMF-B's website says "Typical minimum claim size is AUD 5 million, but we will consider lower."

So, with the greatest respect to Ms. Jones, her previous investments would have been of a completely different character. LAW is marketing for massive volumes of lower-value transactions. I don't know about her complete background, but looking at their executive line-up it doesn't look like any of them have any hands-on experience with the product they're selling.

Reminds me of a mate of mine who learned the ropes at Fidelity before moving into a boutique hedge fund. He had 60% of his personal wealth in Slater & Gordon before it tanked. I'm not saying LAW is the same as SGH, I'm saying people in finance aren't always abreast of the internal machinations of law firms they finance.

On a more positive note, their diversification of risk is unmatched compared with more "conventional" investment options. The US market is obviously a potential goldmine, and LAW looks like it's making bold moves.

There's plenty to be optimistic about, but at the same time it's a worry when you check out a stock and the biggest bulls are clearly clueless on the core business model.