George and Ian catch up on events in and around the UK small and mid-cap listed tech.

Visma – potential London IPO. Parallels with Sage are inevitable. Visma has grown through acquisition but still delivers on organic growth. It does not, however, scale per the SaaS storybook. A judgement in store not just for London vs the world but PE valuations vs reality and analysis too?

IP Group capital markets event – Ian is hugely enthusiastic and reminded that UK tech is alive and well. The presentations highlighted the scale up issue – where the UK still struggles. The comments re the Mansion House Accord should be noted by public market participants.

Dotdigital’s acquisition of Social Snowball raises the ongoing question whether the UK public market’s investors’ lack of ambition for software companies with a focus on high margins at the expense of marketing and development may condemn UK tech companies to have to play catch up via expensive acquisitions.

Updates from companies, including TPX Impact and Made Tech suggest that UK public sector now has a better sense of itself and is returning spending.

George and Ian wish AIM a Happy 30th Birthday, consider its success and follow Charlie Munger’s edict of ‘invert, always invert’ to gain some context.

1,700 companies on AIM in 2007 was too many (polite way to say it), but 700 now is too few.

The politically impossible bail out is not the answer, but what can be done for little cost and risk to the public purse? Perhaps if we make it more profitable for fund managers, and in particular for those with credible voices, for whom improving the quality of the businesses they invest in is a goal.

George wants to know how you make a Staveley scale? (Other fund managers are available.)

George raises the issue of small-cap and AIM plc governance. How much does it cost, and what, realistically, can a NED actually do? He relates a story of frustration from a NED contact.

Inevitably this leads to the RC Fornax shambles and whether fund managers know how much DD gets done by the NOMADs.

On the companies front it’s a tough market for Hays, progress for Capita and for Oxford Metrics it’s back to normal but with concerns over US university and research spending under the new regime.

George and Ian catch up on events in and around the UK small and mid-cap listed tech.

London Tech Week - George has been out and about and is enthused about by the talk by Gary Turner and Steve Vamas of Xero fame.

More LSE departures - To read the eulogies you would think that Ricardo was the greater success story. Ricardo was just easy to explain and love. Spectris was a bit of an effort to understand but made the effort to grow. Few make the observation that WSP Global, the acquirer of Ricardo, was, not too long ago, a not-too-exciting Canadian small cap that simply had ambition, execution and its home market on its side.

Molten Ventures - the ~50% NAV discount persists. It’s complicated. It delivers NAV growth but it has a primary valuation driver, Revolut – and how do you value that?

GB Group - Whilst the revised management are getting to grips, will investors simply end up with a business model that the brokers could sell rather than one that works?

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