The Easter eggs will not taste quite the same for entrepreneur Philip Letts after he saw a cool £26million wiped off the value of his 47.6 per cent stake in blur, the AIM-listed global technology group he founded.
The shares crashed 41 per cent before closing 172.5p down at 280p, after publication of its full-year results for 2013 were delayed until May 20, rather than in early April as analysts had expected.
That was accompanied by worrying news that the board has changed guidance on revenues and revenue recognition.
Shares: Philip Letts saw a cool £26million wiped off the value of his 47.6 per cent stake in blur.
Letts sold 900,000 shares at £4 a pop in October, trousering £3.6million. He must wish he had sold more.
Gross revenues for 2013 are now indicated at up to £3.3million, against analysts’ forecasts of around £6million.
Full-year revenue expectations have had to be lowered because of delayed revenue recognition on several project bookings in 2013, which will now be recognised in the current financial year and beyond.
Analyst Robin Speakman at Shore Capital says his core concern is that revenue recognition has not matched cash flows.
He has pulled his forecasts and recommendation from consensus for blur and expects to make major changes in due course, possibly further deferring the timing of the inflection point of profitability and cash generation to a material degree.
He believes blur still has an interesting and potentially attractive business model that may yet dominate the services procurement space.
But the hyperbole of market penetration announcements must be matched by delivery to clients and investors alike.
With technology stocks both at home and in the US in a neurotic state, blur could not have chosen a worse time to put serious doubts in analysts’ and investors’ minds.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-2607225/MARKET-REPORT-Philip-Letts-faces-bleak-Easter-shares-Blur-Group-tumble-delayed-release-revenue.html