September Round Up
Products, people and other news...
Items of interest that are on the periphery or aren’t big enough to write a single post about in September include:
Ingram Micro filed their S-1 Form on 30th September with the SEC relating to their much anticipated IPO1. Looks like proceeds will be used to pay down the debt used for the previous buyout and give the organisation who completed that LBO a payout too. Current owners will maintain board control on a sliding scale based on share ownership.
Reebelo, a marketplace for refurbished electronics and other goods, have announced a partnership with SquareTrade in Australia to provide a 24month service plan including multiple service journey options2. Assume this is replacing the existing product partnership with xcover.com. I’m just finalising a survey that appears to suggest offer rates on refurbished devices is far lower than on new, so this is good progress on Reebelo / SquareTrade’s part.
iSmash UK Trading Limited (09347088) acquired sequentially by Assurant over the last two years and fronting their Pocket Geek Repair stores posted accounts at the end of September. Despite a slight uptick in revenue and gross profit, it’s not pretty and almost reads like the last part of the acquisition was a bit of a rescue.
AWP Assistance UK Ltd (01710361) issued 2.4m new shares to it’s owner (Allianz) for a tenner each, taking it’s capital to £59m. Looks like 2023 has been another challenging year after the challenging year in 2022 and the challenging year in 2021 etc.
Likewize registered two Satisfaction of Charge notifications midway through the month, which alongside the equity cancellation back in May and the (re) Statement of Capital and Memorandum and Articles of Association in June suggests some entity/accounting housekeeping has been underway. Perhaps it’s all related to Genstar’s purchase of an additional 35% of the equity taking their holding upto 80%3.
A few senior changes at Domestic & General Insurance PLC who notified Companies House that as of 31/08/2024: Robin Ashton joined the Board chairing the Audit & Risk Committee; Barbara Merry left the Board and Patrica Roufca was appointed as a Director to the legal entity. Mark Simmons becomes President at Bolttech in addition to his existing position as CEO of Europe & Asia.
Counterpoint ended August on the up telling us that Smartphone shipments will grow 5% in 2024 to reach 1.23billion units4. So that’s all good then.
Peace.
sb.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1897762/000119312524228597/d126458ds1.htm
https://coverager.com/reebelo-partners-with-squaretrade/
https://disclosure.spglobal.com/ratings/en/regulatory/article/-/view/type/HTML/id/3215041
https://www.counterpointresearch.com/insights/global-smartphone-forecast-2024/