Tungsten Corporation was founded in February 2012 by Edmund Truell and Danny Truell to identify and acquire a company, business or asset within the financial services sector which could grow into a business with a significant market presence in a segment with potential for sustainable long-term cash generation, return on equity and growth. They have been joined on the Board in a Non-Executive capacity by Arnold Hoevenaars (Chairman), Peter Kiernan, and Michael Spencer and the Company has been advised by Disruptive Capital Finance LLP. The founders of the Company and management team have to date invested £9.6 million into the Company to provide it with the funds required to undertake the identification and acquisition process.



The Tungsten Board, through its experience in the financial services sector, believed that the financial crisis of the last five years created an opportunity to acquire and/or build a presence in undervalued segments of the financial market where better management and improved use of technology could deliver enhanced returns. Disruptive Capital was exclusively engaged by the Tungsten Board for the purposes of identifying and recommending investment opportunities to the Company.



Admission to Trading on AIM

On 16 October 2013, Tungsten Corporation was admitted to trading on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange, raising gross proceeds of £225 million. Tungsten’s market capitalisation on admission was £225 million.




Proceeds from the IPO will be used as follows:


1.£73 million to fund the cash element of the acquisition of OB10 Limited, the leading global business to business e-invoicing network:
2.£58 - £60 million to finance the acquisition of FIBI Bank (UK) Plc (subject to regulatory approval) and to provide solvency capital to support the invoice discounting activities of the Bank;
3.£15 million for working capital and business development purposes; and
4.£14 million to fund acquisition and transaction fees and expenses, with a further £2 million payable at the board of Tungsten’s discretion.

The Placing of £160 million represented the largest trading company IPO on AIM since 2008.



Tungsten’s strategic vision



The strategic vision of Tungsten is to create a leading cloud based global trading network, monetising the existing OB10 e-invoicing platform with the addition of value added services such as seamless electronically secure encrypted invoice discounting against “approved for pay” invoices, substantially reducing fraud and dilutions risks so evident in traditional “old model” supply chain finance; and the provision of spend analytics technology across OB10’s established network.


http://www.tungstencorporationplc.com/

From the FT - May 21, 2015 8:46 pm
Edi Truell lashes out at short-sellers in Tungsten

Edi Truell hit out at short sellers on Thursday for launching “very unpleasant attacks” on his digital invoice financing company as it tapped shareholders for £15m.

Shares in Tungsten, which the renowned City figure floated on Aim, London’s junior stock market, less than two years ago at 225p, dropped another 29 per cent to 70p after it disclosed the fundraising plans and also revealed that regulators were scrutinising its banking arm.w

Mr Truell, founder of the private equity house Duke Street Capital, started Tungsten in an effort to shake up the invoice finance industry.
But its shares have struggled, and last week the company indicated that customers had been slow to adopt its services.

On Thursday, the company, which had £31m of cash at the end if April, said it planned to raise the additional funds to “improve its cash position”.
The latest sell-off gives Tungsten, which posted a pre-tax loss of about £25m for the year to the end of April, a market capitalisation of £72m.

“We’ve been subject to some very unpleasant short selling attacks — that’s the real problem,” Mr Truell said on Thursday. “I’m furious about it.”

“We’re embarking on a global expansion plan, it’s very disappointing that the wider stock market doesn’t appreciate all the time and money it takes to do this.”

Mr Truell said he was putting up £3m of his own money in the placing and that other large Tungsten shareholders were backing him.
“I, and major institutions, are prepared to put the cash up to say [to the short sellers]: ‘You’re wrong’.”

The financier built up the business by acquiring FIBI Bank, the UK division of First International Bank of Israel, and OB10, a software business that processes invoices.

On Thursday morning, Tungsten indicated it was examining the potential sale of its banking arm, saying it was “actively exploring its strategic options” for the operation. It also disclosed it was in discussions with City regulators “in relation to the nature of the bank’s operations and governance”.
Tungsten said it was in talks with a “global financial institution” to set up another lending platform.

Less than five hours later, the company unveiled plans to raise £15m through an accelerated bookbuild underwritten by Canaccord Genuity, its joint broker.
In a statement, Tungsten said it would use the funds “to continue with the investment required to deliver its stated strategy and long term value for shareholders”.
Last week Mr Truell said he would step aside into a vice-chairman role to work on strategy.

Comments
sah36 5 hours ago
It is all very well for Edi to be 'furious' at shorters but ultimately the SP has fallen due to poor strategy, poor operational performance and his own over-bullishness and deception. He's the one to blame.

In terms of strategy, the IPO prospectus made clear that acquiring a bank was not necessary for launching the invoice discounting service but they went ahead and bought one and are now 18 months later looking to sell it again, having wasted a lot of time (if not money). They starting taking deposits at the bank (to fund non-existent borrowing demand) just three months ago, later admitting that the costs of such funds were higher than their existing 3rd party source - which could have easily been calculated beforehand. They have now stopped taking deposits. Thirdly they admit that adoption of their discounting service is slow due to the lengthy and difficult on-boarding process - something they should have realised as they designed the process.

Operationally - not only do they have the discounting adoption issue above but they have also dismally failed in adding volume to the network at their original target rate of 20% per annum growth. By contrast their competition (Ariba/Tradeshift) exhibited very substantial growth in the last year. It appears that Tungsten are losing the land grab (thoug this could change soon). The Company have also lost 4 or 5 directors from their board in the last 6 months!

Edi, the deceiver, stood up in a shareholder's forum last September and made clear to investors that Tungsten had never lost a 'buyer' client from the network. A few months later Tungsten admitted losing three buyers in the period to October. But even in their most recent trading update they are being 'economical' with the truth. The only buyer losses Tungsten admit to, are due to corporate action or sub-scale clients. However, it is widely known that DHL Europe have moved from Tungsten to Tradeshift with respect to their invoice processing with some success, the move being driven in part by slow on-boarding by Tungsten . Tungsten does not count this as a 'loss' as there is some residual business flowing across Tungsten's network. How many other mandates are being lost without being declared to investors?

In my view it is Edi that shareholders should be furious at, not because of the strategic failures (investors could make their own minds up), but because of the Company's failure to communicate challenges it was facing. Shorters who took advantage of a mis-pricing of the stock aren't to balme. Things may well turnaround from here, but for many investors Edi's reputation is tarnished

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Bobino 7 hours ago
I bought small number of shares in Tungsten for my ISA and seen a 63% drop in value.

Question, are price movements like the last week, its up 25% this morning potentially "market manipulation" or just the fight between long / short?

I was interested in QPP but managed to miss that bullet.

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Leo 16 hours ago
If Edi didn't want people shorting the shares he would have raised money via a rights issue not a placing.

Everybody knows that placings are typically at a 50% discount on AIM so why would an institution hold when they can buy for half the price later? And why would a private investor hold when they know the institutions will lock in quick profit by selling short most of the placed shares before taking delivery?

This has happened so many times now that AIM shares now start selling off at the first hint of a fund raising, but regardless of how low the share price is everybody knows the placing will be 50% of that so there is no bottom until the placing is hurriedly announced. All too often more money is needed say (!) 6 months later and the cycle repeats.

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gd 7 hours ago
@Leo placing was 80p...10p above the price at the time it was announced

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oudeis 3 hours ago
@gd @Leo SP was 147p on the morning of 14 May when the trading update said the company needed to raise capital.

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gd 3 hours ago
@oudeis @gd @Leo it did not say explicitly that. They indicated they were reviewing funding requirements to drive their growth strategy. The placing was accelerated during the collapse yesterday to 70p. The placing was cleared at 80p whilst the SP at the time was 70p. That is not a 50% discount as suggested initially.

Odey weighing in here as well as PLUS again this morning .

Getting wacked again today.

NEW LOWS
69p - 9.50p

has been moving even lower ( SPIKE ) after the recent cat bounce

16 Jun Canaccord... 96.00 Buy
14 May Canaccord... 369.00 Buy
25 Feb Canaccord... 369.00 Buy
16 Feb Canaccord... 369.00 Buy
29 Jan Canaccord... 369.00 Buy
14 Jan Canaccord... 369.00 Buy
22 Dec Canaccord... 405.00 Buy

What's their next target 50p ? Canaccord you couldn't make it up :)

Would they give me a job i couldn't be any more far out on most of their calls.

Shares - Tungsten considers AIM exit


Perhaps it was a bad idea to name a start-up technology firm Tungsten. The metal known for its unusual weight has become an embarrassingly appropriate moniker for a stock which for the past six months has sunk like a stone.

It’s all getting a bit too much for co-founder and 16.9% shareholder Edi Truell.

Rumours are swirling, according to the Financial Times, that the private equity baron and highly regarded investor is considering taking the firm private.

Shares in the stock are up 7.5% this morning on the news at 61p.

Buy shares in Tungsten Corporation, said the Sunday Times' Inside the City column. The electronic invoicing company, which floated seven years ago as a "disruptive global player that aims to transform the financial aspects of the global supply chain", is still lossmaking and after a £17m fundraising in June is worth a sixth of its peak valuation and has become a target for short-sellers. The situation appears rather bleak - the perfect time to make a contrarian bet.

With suppliers waiting more than 60 days to be paid by many big companies, Tungsten's electronic invoicing service offer to pay these bills immediately for a small commission. Kellogg and Unilever are two of the blue chip companies that have signed up after many years of getting the system up to scratch. New chief executive, American Richard Hurwitz, started last week and, as he looks the right man to take the company forward, now is the time to take a punt.

That knocked it back down this morning
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Tungsten Corp more than doubles FY pretax loss

StockMarketWire.com

Tungsten Corp has more than doubled its FY pretax loss to £27.3m, from a loss of £11.1m. Revenue was £23.1m, from £10.8m.

CEO Rick Hurwitz commented:

"Our leadership team is focused on establishing Tungsten as an indispensable partner to organisations in assisting them to optimise their accounts payable, procurement and working capital.

"Tungsten has made progress in its first full year of operations, growing our electronic invoicing network and securing maiden sales of our invoice financing solution, Tungsten Early Payment.

"As with any growing company, we are becoming smarter about our challenges, and with continued investment, hard work and a dedicated team we have transitioned into the execution phase.

"I look forward to leading the further expansion of our global Network to its users so they can benefit from our supply chain, financing and analytics solutions."

another disaster company

TUNGSTEN AGREES SALE OF TUNGSTEN BANK

16 December 2015

Tungsten Corporation plc (LSE: TUNG), the global electronic invoicing, analytics and financing company, today announces it has reached an agreement for a sale of Tungsten Bank (the "Bank") following the conclusion of a previously announced strategic review, and subsequent to the exclusivity agreement announced with our Interim Results earlier this morning, for approximately £30m in cash.

The consideration represents net assets of £25.4m plus a premium. Completion is expected within six to 12 months.

The change in control agreement comes as Tungsten's Board concluded that operating a regulated deposit-taking banking license is incompatible with the pursuit of profitable growth from the foreseeable invoice financing opportunity. The development of its invoice financing offering remains a key component of Tungsten's strategy.

The transaction is subject to approval by the UK's Prudential Regulatory Authority and the Financial Conduct Authority ("FCA"). This process is expected to take between six to 12 months, although approval may be received sooner.

This announcement should be read in conjunction with the disclosure today of Tungsten's interim financial report for the six months ended 31 October 2015 for more details about Tungsten Corporation's invoice financing strategy.

StockMarketWire.com
Tungsten has materially improved its H1 pretax loss to £3.08m, from a loss of £12.04m.

Revenue was £15.54m, from £12.98m.

"I am very encouraged by the emerging momentum across our business, notably in the areas where we have been investing," said CEO Richard Hurwitz.

"We are making good progress toward our strategic goals, repairing operational efficiency while positioning the business for profitable growth. The benefits of the changes we are making are starting to show in our reported results.

"We have been executing to plan and ensuring cost discipline as we take needed steps on the path to profitability. I am especially encouraged by our customers' response to the new products we have launched.

"Completing the sale of Tungsten Bank is an important component in the reshaping of our business. With a stronger customer proposition, improved funding structure and the right leaders, our expectations for developing a successful invoice financing business are high."