Ann: Software Subscription TCV and ARR Update, page-6

I don't think a takeover is in the cards any time soon.

CEO owns ~4% of the business, and acquired the vast majority of his current stake on-market in 2011-12 (i.e. he spent real money to acquire most of his shareholding, he didn't just get gifted a whole bunch of options). He started off as a non-executive director, then took over in 2012 with the specific goal in mind of taking RPM's software product suite and turning it into an end-to-end, enterprise-level solution for miners - to get there, RPM spent $70m (excluding a few little acquisitions along the way) from 2013-19 in software R&D.

Then, once they'd fully built the enterprise software suite, they had to completely change their sales model from desktop licencing, to enterprise-level cloud-hosted subscription services. This necessitated hiring a bunch of new sales guys, as well as foregoing short-term revenue - the worst of both worlds (i.e. more expenses and less upfront revenue).

The results that are just starting to come through now are a direct consequence of a long-term business plan that has been well-executed. This business now is in the early innings of harvesting the fruits of the last 6-7 years of slog.

Unless the CEO is a complete idiot - which he's obviously not - there's no way he's going to give this business away any time soon. I think the most likely scenario is he will monetize the fruits of his labor over the next 3-5 years, continue to grow it and displace the competition, then end up selling this business at an eye-watering price to one of the big enterprise software businesses whose lunch RPM has eaten (e.g. Schneider Electric, SAP, Dassault etc.).