Absolutely the Slater & Gordon blow up had a huge adverse impact...

Absolutely the Slater & Gordon blow up had a huge adverse impact on investor sentiment. Initially investors didn't really understand why a law firm would be listed (I think they were the first globally), then they became a market darling able to engineer great growth, then they blew themselves up on the worst acquisition and the market said to itself "well I guess we were right in our initial thinking that law firms shouldn't be listed".

It's never got over that. Shine did itself no favours when it took that big writedown on WIP a few years ago. Now the market just thinks "well that WIP is not a bankable asset" and again law firms can't be trusted as listed companies. SHJ continues to trade at a large discount to book value.

You may recall that HWL Ebsworth tried to do a listing at the end of last year and was pulled last minute due to lack of fund manager interest. The valuation was fairly undemanding if I recall correctly, a bit north of 10x P/E. Still a big premium to where SHJ is trading now though...