UK 18:50 Friday, 23 October 2026
Breaking news and expert analysis on fast-moving AIM and LSE listed shares
Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from ShareProphets). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
A belated happy St Patrick's day and in this podcast I look at Synety - what a horrible POS - Wandisco, Hunter Resources, Imagination Technologies, Gate Ventures and LGO Energy
Already a member? Sign in
• All premium articles
• Tom Winnifrith’s Bearcast
• Access to all the entire nearly 13 year archive
• ShareProphets Daily Newsletter
Cancel any time
This area of the ShareProphets.com site is for independent financial commentary. These blogs are provided by independent authors via a common carrier platform and do not represent the opinions of ShareProphets.com. ShareProphets.com does not monitor, approve, endorse or exert editorial control over these articles and does not therefore accept responsibility for or make any warranties in connection with or recommend that you or any third party rely on such information. The information available at ShareProphets.com is for your general information and use and is not intended to address your particular requirements. In particular, the information does not constitute any form of advice or recommendation by ShareProphets.com and is not intended to be relied upon by users in making (or refraining from making) any investment decisions.
Comments
DUCK AND DIVE
Some of your LGO questions answered here – by an above-average (for media whores) interviewer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9ZU-njGFPA
Did we really need the full, inexorable 10 minutes on Synety? Even you sounded bored.
James
RE: LGO, I can’t argue that simple answers to all the questions you’ve raised would be very welcome. Some of them have been answered already actually by the company across various forms of media, but yes a straightforward RNS or investors summary would be welcome I’m sure.
I would say however that Neil Ritson of LGO is usually very responsive to shareholder queries. Much more so than other AIM CEO’s and therefore if you’re genuinely interested get in touch with him.
wildrides
Lgo sells to West Texas prices ie $43 at present , and not Brent so one needs to factor this in as well . As a long term trader of LGO I can tell you you wont get any useful info out of NR . He is great at giving info but NO figures, ged it NO figures, None , Zero , Zilch . Always been the same, because the old field workovers turned out absolute complete shite and have massive and quick decline . He will be keeping stum until the next batch of brand new drills come on line . Note the key give away line in the RNS which said that all drills on the new pad ( five I think ) would be drilled first and then completed together when all have been drilled . Read that as “dont you awkward feckers ask me flow numbers after the first whole is at TD cos I aint telling you jack shit this time after all the doomsters slagged my initial output fiqures last time . Your only fecking share holders and I can fuck you over if I want . You have no right to know what your wells are producing” . It was the same under Lemongas when they were doing only workovers and no new wells . They would announce an initial flow then Radio silence for 3 months interspersed with “ we are cleaning and painting the old storage tanks ready blah blah ……… bit of new pipe blah blah ………. ordered a pump blah blah …………. pumps on the dock blah blah ………….. pumps been loaded blah blah ……….. pumps reached trini blah blah ………….. pumps in customs blah blah ……… pumps reached field blah blah ……….. its the wrong type of pump blah bah ……… re ordered pump blah blah .
When you gonna pump some oil NR ? “ Oil ! feck that , we dont want to get our new pump dirty with that messy stuff ! “ “ Its just for pumping water when we steam flood in 2019 . Dr Ali is on the report (MK 67) Any way we are waiting for a flow meter now ……… Ive ordered the wrong one so that I can send it back so I dont have to sell any oil till 2016 . You feckers will never know how much we have produced any way cos I am gonna stick a fecking great magnet on it to slow it down just like mam used to do on our lecky meter . Feck you , you fecking feckers .Feck all share holders except the directors ! “
Mappy Man
I believe that this company and together with Tom Winnifrith has behaved very poorly in regards to its posting and blogging of QPP.
I think this company and ~Winnifrith has done a lot of harm and has gone out of its way to attack a British Company trying to make good.
I am convinced somehow or some shape or form Shareprophets have been accomplices in somethings which has been immoral and wrong and it has gone on far to long.
I think because of the above I think this company has dropped its standards and have got it seriously wrong. I think the sooner Winnifrith is dropped the better, keeping him on only drags this company further into the gutter.
Regards
Mappyman
Tom Winnifrith
Mappy,
The Editor, directors of and shareholders in SP have considered your request to fire me and the message from the gutter is “screw you arsehole, if you dont like the content dont read it”.
I have shown with documentary back up that QPP has lied to investors and committed securities and accounting fraud. That is what good journalists do even if that meas that insider dealing crooks like Rob Terry waste shareholder cash by sending bully boy lawyers letters.
If you want someone who ignores all the lies & fraud and just prints sugar coated lies to keep you happy in your poverty, fuck off to a Quisling blog like Betaville.Best wishes
Tom
PS Patriotism is the last refuse of the scoundrel. Why say “British company”?
Paul Scott
Hi Tom,
There are a number of factual inaccuracies in your Bearcast today attacking Synety, so let me correct them;
1. The company had enough cash to last until about Aug 2015, and a small top-up of c.£1m would have been adequate to take them to breakeven in 2016. Now if you want to take a very extreme view, I suppose you could call that being bust, but to most people I think a modest top-up fundraising would be seen as par for the course with an early stage growth company. They only needed to raise about £1.5m, hardly a king’s ransom. They decided to raise another million on top of that, for additional sales people, because they are getting a rapid payback of about 5 months on new salespeople added.
2. The historic figures look awful, but are in line with the business plan. This was a start-up about 2 years ago, so revenues are building rapidly, but from a low base. This type of technology start-up business will incur losses in the first few years. That’s the deal that shareholders fully understand, that’s what we have signed up for, and should not come as a shock to anyone, other than people (as you admit you are) who have done no research on the company.
3. Annualised Recurring Revenue (ARR) is basically the most recent month’s revenue multiplied by 12, which gives the current run rate of revenue (and bear in mind revenue is recurring – being billed monthly, has a very low churn rate (customer retention rates are very high, especially for larger customers), and is high margin (gross profit is over 70%). So this is the best measure of the company’s current performance, not the historic figures.
4. Therefore, as ARR rose 247% in 2014, it’s meaningless to look at the £1.63m total revenue for the year. What you should be looking at, is that at the start of the year ARR was only £0.87m, but by the end of the year it was £3.02m. It has since risen to £3.46m in just the first two months of 2015. So this is a very rapid growth company. ARR should be say £6-8m by end 2015m, rapidly bearing down on the breakeven level, which is £9-10m revenue.
5. This rapidly accelerating revenue also means that cash burn is reducing each month. So the £400k+ per month that you mention for 2014, again was skewed by the big fundraising in April, at which point overheads were greatly increased, to push for growth. As I’m sure you understand, it’s overheads first, then the sales come through, which is exactly what is happening, as planned.
6. The company has NOT missed its forecasts by a mile. In reality sales growth is on target. Overheads are a bit higher, but not massively. The main miss in the cashflow is that they are finding much greater retention rates with larger customers (as opposed to small customers with just one or two users), BUT it takes about two months to set up larger customers, which has opened up a two month gap on cashflow. The good news is that the churn rate on larger customers is tiny – so they are clearly the best customers to go for, which is what Synety is now focused on. So a positive in the medium to long term, but has a short term cashflow impact.
7. The £1.4m contingent consideration which you refer to, in current liabilities, is NOT a cash outgoing. It is payable in shares, to a maximum of 740,861 shares, as disclosed in the last Annual Report. These things need to be checked before you fire a factually incorrect broadside!
Overall, I appreciate that Synety is not an investment that will appeal to most people. The reason I hold shares in it, and took part in the 90p fundraising recently, is because I use the product (cloud telephony which integrates with multiple CRM systems, and keeps recordings of all customer calls integrated into that customer record on your CRM system). It’s absolutely fantastic! The most impressive stat is that 70% of people who try the product on a 14-day trial go on to purchase it. The product pays for itself in cheaper phone calls, if you spend £50pm on calls. The new Chrome browser plugin is fantastic, and will accelerate CRM integrations.
You really need to try the product to understand what the appeal is. When people use it, they love it. So that explains why sales are growing fast.
Has the company handled the fundraising well? No! They made a total mess of it. There was no need for such a deep discount, and obviously the accounts being delayed 3 weeks sent all the wrong signals to the market. This is what caused the share price to drop from 200p to 90p. So obviously I’m annoyed about that, but the value of the company hasn’t changed at all – in fact the KPIs have been GOOD in the last 3 or 4 months. Therefore the share price should, once the dust has settled, recover.
I would say the guys running Synety are very clever, very committed & hard-working, but they are not good communicators (they’re too immersed in the tech stuff), and they’ve made mistakes in handling fundraisings, budgeting, etc. Hopefully the recruitment of Peter Simmonds, the outgoing CEO of DotDigital, as new Non-Exec might inject some additional expertise into the company, on better control of the finances, and how to properly present the company to the City & investors.
At £11m market cap, fully funded to breakeven in 2016, I would say the shares are looking a bargain now. It’s counter-intuitive, but when everyone is tearing their hair out, saying what a terrible company it is, that is often the best time to buy, PROVIDING the company has enough cash in the bank, which after this latest fundraising, it does.
I would say though, that patience is wearing thin with management, and they have GOT to make this work. If they come back for more money next year, then it will be carnage. So very much a case of high risk, high reward, definitely not for widow’s & orphans! Having said, that, I’m pretty comfortable that doubling my stake at 90p is going to look a smart move this time next year.
Love the bearcasts, by the way – compulsive listening for me, every day. Although maybe a bit more research is needed sometimes, before flying off the handle?!
Regards, Paul.
wildrides
Ooooh err Missus …………… Tom gets bitch slapped by “ beam me up” Scotty . Yes the very same he who said the other day that blue sky companies are always to be avoided ……. barge poles .
Sounds like your smarting from investing in a 50% drop piece of shite to me Scotty . Just hope this new tech has barriers to entry .
Oh I am such a bitch ! considering some of the absolute shite I have bought to trade over the years . I feel guilty now ( but not much ) ;-)
Paul Scott
Hi WildRides,
Ouch!!! I’ll take that one on the chin.
No disputing that, so far, SNTY has been a crap investment. However, that doesn’t mean it’s a crap company – it’s not.
Regards, Paul.
DUCK AND DIVE
Excellent comments, Paul Scott, and very readable. Might you be available as a gun for hire? D. Lenigas needs someone to articulate a coherent, factual response to people like The Sheriff, Doc,etc — instead of running home to mummy with his ball.
Shytot
Tom,
GATE VENTURES
I know 2 days is a long time on the Casino, but @75p you suggested Fatty had sold, and wouldn’t be buying more.
Its now £1.75p as I write Friday lunchtime?
Any up to date comment / bearcast mention? Perhaps its all the WRNers who have been yearning for something to play with since suspension are going for round 2?
Good weekend.