“Are you frustrated with the performance of your stock? Has the...

“Are you frustrated with the performance of your stock? Has the price been dropping for months for no reason at all? It might be intentional. Wall Street might be trying to steal your company for cheap.”

“Buyout theft is when a company is bought out or taken private for less than its fair value. Usually with no real merger premium. Buyout theft is when Wall Street destroys a stock price and then buys out the company for peanuts.”

Below is a link to a website detailing the 12 signs a stock is being manipulated for take over theft. (Remove the spaces and add https://)

<www. griproom. com/ fun / 12- signs- your- stock- is- targeted- for- buyout- theft>

First let me mention the link may have been posted previously on these forums and that any commentary is my own opinion.

1. Stock Price has Been Declining for Months. True sign.

In the case of HUM it has been declining for years. October 2015 the price hit highs of $4.60 and declined to approximately $2.00 prior to the onset of COVID in February 2020. That’s a 56.5% decrease over 4 years.

The $2.00 SP just prior to COVID has since sunk to $0.74 which is a 63% decrease. From the highs of 2015 the share price has declined 83.9%.

Short sellers are working overtime with a stock that is making profits has undergone transformation and in an expansion phase. There are numerous 1 stock trades being made. This is all suspect behaviour.

2. Down 50% or more from recent highs. True sign.

Considering the SP was $2.44 in September 2019 and has dropped to lows of 0.69 last month, that is 71% lost over 3.6 years. Post COVID high of $1.4 has dropped 50.7% to the low of 0.69 last month. This is during a period when our competitors were going gangbusters.

3. High institutional ownership. False sign.

Share registry ownership breakdown shows that the public owns 51.1%, individual investors own 26%, institutions own 18.3% and private companies 4.6%. Is this why the board is releasing material to influence holders to vote “Yes” because they don’t have enough votes to allow complete domination?

4. Paid bashers claiming bankruptcy. Hard to quantify.

There can be no claims of bankruptcy when Humm is making a killing. I feel the efforts are more subtle and may even be helped along by our management.

-Some examples to back up my thinking are: Management have been very slow to release updates on our OS expansion and numerous delays in the release of seemingly important information.
-Releasing important information over the Christmas period when the market is paying less attention.
-Humm winning Choice magazine’s shonky awards due to no reply from management (this one screams set up considering the criteria was largely refutable).
-Management raising capitol at $1.14 for expansion of BNPL only to sell it off for peanuts.
-Management informing the market we are the only profitable BNPL then claiming BNPL is making a loss the past 4 months when it suits them.

5. Company needs cash but isn’t doing any capital raises. False sign.

We are flush with cash, are making profits and expanding. There is no need to sell. What is the reason management decided to take us down this path?

6. Management stops defending the stock price. True sign.

Why hasn’t management said anything interesting in the past few months while the stock price is plummeting? It might be because management just doesn’t care anymore after a buyout price has been reached and their golden parachute has been secured?

7. Current CEO didn’t start the company. True sign.

Despite what they say in the media, a new CEO probably cares about their job just as much as you do about yours. If you were offered two times your current salary to sell the company to someone else, would you do it? Most people would. A job is job. You can always find a new one. And now your resume shows you negotiated the successful buyout.

8. Phantom premium reaches 100%. Hard to quantify.

Only the BNPL component is being sold and there is a lot of difficulty calculating the premium percentage. Trading activity indicates the commercial arm is worthless so who knows what the premium is? The offer from Latitude coincided with 12 monthly lows in the Humm SP so any premium can be assumed as fake.

9. Unusual options activity. Hard to quantify.

Looking for feedback from others able to check this. Definitely unusual trading activity of shares. Lots of sup $10 (bot) trades going through. A large percentage being directly responsible for a price drop. This should be investigated, unfortunately this activity is rife on the ASX so nothing will be done.

10. Pinned for Months. True sign.

It has been said that the Humm SP has been pegged. Release of great results has no lasting effect. The long term trend is always down.

11. The company would complement someone else’s business. True sign.

We have all heard how the sale of our BNPL arm will greatly complement the Latitude business.

12. Big jump after weeks or months of red. Hard to quantify.

The sale announcement was made on the 6/01/2022 and hit $0.92. Two weeks before the announcement the price was $0.72. That’s a 24% gain however the rise was most likely caused by the 20/12/2021 announcement indicating AA was stepping down and parties were interested.

The previous month saw a low of $0.79 on the 22/11/2021 that was followed by a 23% rise to $0.93 on the 26/11/2021 on no news.

Score Card to 12 signs that our stock is targeted for buyout theft.

True = 6/12

False = 2/12

Hard to quantify = 4/12

My analysis indicates half of the warning signs listed in the article are true regarding Humm being targeted for buyout theft. Another question to ask is if the company really is being targeted, is it being done by more than one perpetrator considering the two interested parties we know oft?

If it turns out Humm is being targeted, then everything happening appears to be legal even though management may have violated their fiduciary responsibility to small investors.

Luckily retail investors hold half of the company and resolutions cannot be easily forced through. It is my opinion that only new investors who have bought under $0.90 will do any good under the proposed deal, and that is provided they dump their LFS shares before they tank much further (Already down 19% since the deal was announced). Irony is the recent investors will also be the greatest beneficiaries of the newly implemented dividend.

GLTAH & DYOR