I wouldn't bet on FLN's share price going below 10c, or not...

I wouldn't bet on FLN's share price going below 10c, or not making stabs back into 30-40c territory. Tightly held stocks are easy to manipulate.

The company's best bet is the Clauspiracy - where Simon Clausen lets the company slide until it's untouchable, then touches it. It doesn't matter how many shares MB buys in the interim. They'll be bought for cents on the dollar. SC seems astute yet he's let the balance sheet slide into dangerous territory (negative NTA, negative working capital, user obligations greater than real assets). Bad look for a director. But this stops MB from raising money on the open market. Investors want growth, not to rescue a mess.

Under the Clauspiracy the balance sheet worsens until ASIC starts sniffing about, or there's a 'bank run' of freelancers trying to get their user accounts out when they realize FLN can't cover. MB falls on his sword. He gets a figurehead role and is freed to theorize full-time about "why can't I get a meal after 9pm" and "what's going on with the Aussie real estate market", which he seems to be doing already. SC comes in and fixes the disaster (partly with his own money, but probably leading a consortium, not including Matt).

FLN is rebooted as a low-overhead, leaner version of UPWK/FVRR. Freightlancer goes. This is a bad purchase for a supposedly global company that wants to be scalable. Why not buy a struggling Aussie supermarket or shoe store as well? Selling Escrow before the parent company's balance sheet makes regulators start to question those hard-won licenses is a good idea. Escrow is good but not great, and there isn't any real synergy with FLN. It's 24 years old. Obviously all the minor apps, Warrior Forum, Sydstart all go.

The management team in Australia goes. Why pay first-world salaries to people in Australia? They're not connected to FLN's core client market and aren't near good sources of capital. They're a bunch of pliant nobodies. Big headcount in Sydney is there to make Matt feel important. Without KMP in Australia sucking down $1M/year for the achievement of "losing an average of $2.2M/year over a decade", FLN looks better. SC could find some young and hungry fire-breathers to take nominal wages in exchange for decent equity in the new structure (note that there are almost no FLN employees with meaningful equity in FLN).

Under the Clauspiracy you may as well hold and see what happens. Is it real? SC has the money. Does he have the balls, or the brains?