Forum Topics WTC WTC AGM

Pinned straw:

Straw deleted
lankypom
Added one year ago

Your analysis is entirely credible @mikebrisy , but it seems to be biased towards suspecting the worst, I.e. that the RW fiasco / distraction is a smokescreen for the revised downward guidance, and that it is a pretty poor show if the company's product launch timetable depends on input from the CEO.

I am going to remain a believer both in WTC and in RW as founder and figurehead. I can well understand that his 'distraction' during the ongoing witch-hunt by the AFR has had an impact on the product roll out strategy. I think the same would be true if Mick Farrel at Resmed, or Jeff Green at Tradedesk, were similarly distracted. These founders, or sons of founders, have unparalleled insights into their companies, products and markets. I don't feel the same about Edward Chung at Tech One, for example. He is a great manager and has steered that ship brilliantly for 7 years, but I don't have the same sense that he calls all the shots.

Meanwhile I am in the same camp as @OxyBBear.

I don't think the WTC thesis is even remotely broken, so I am happy to keep holding despite the lofty valuation.

Held in RL portfolio for 6+ years.

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Bear77
Added one year ago

I haven't looked at the WTC AGM material today as I actually offloaded my WTC position here within a fortnight of buying it for a quick 13% profit (sold at $121.52 here on 4th Nov) and I sold them out of my SMSF 4 days later for just over $125/share for a 17% profit, which is massive if you annualise it, but I won't. They kept rising, right up to $138.93 yesterday with an intraday high of $141.61 yesterday, however I was happy to lock in a smaller profit because I was becoming increasingly worried that the RW saga was going to take another nasty turn - a nagging feeling that was most probably influenced by the continuing drip-feeding of allegations and revelations on MinRes and Chris Ellison in the AFR and also the knowledge that there had been at least one complaint made to the Wisetech Board that RW had used company funds for personal expenses - I think the wording was "alleged misuse of company funds" - it was repeated in this article today: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/nov/22/richard-white-wisetech-ceo-cleared-bullying-allegations-ntwnfb - but I read a different report on it a couple of weeks ago - and while that allegation remains unsubstantiated, and the complaint apparently came to nothing, my thought process was that I didn't want to be caught out by a possible fire after seeing what looked a lot like smoke. So I got cold feet on Wisetech a couple of weeks back and locked in a few thousand dollars profit in my SMSF for less than 3 weeks of capital "at risk" and a smaller profit here due to the position here being a lot smaller - and the exit price also being a bit lower.

While I felt my logic stood up as to why I bought into Wisetech on the dip when I did, the subsequent additional allegation left me feeling uneasy, whether it was true or not. My whole point was that unlike CE, RW hadn't cost WTC shareholders any money by using company funds for personal stuff - but then that's exactly what that additional allegation alleged and so my investment thesis didn't seem so solid to me any more. Like I said, it was part of an old complaint to the Board that was mentioned in a newspaper article, and as far as I know hasn't been addressed by the Board in terms of any company announcement, and probably can't be backed up by any evidence now, so it's likely just heresay, but I viewed it as smoke, and smoke meant danger, to my investment thesis for WTC in my view anyway, so I took my profit and moved on.

Additional: So they did look into that allegation along with others concerning alleged bullying and intimidation and an update today said that the law firms that have reviewed those allegations during the past few weeks have concluded that their investigations uncovered “no impropriety” by Richard. Fair enough. Still looked worrying to me at the time I sold out though.

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