Pinned straw:
I wanted to add my 2 cents about EVS after watching the presentation. I've only known them for a year but clearly, they have to move the needle for more than a few quarters before anyone will believe a word. That ARR goal he mentioned should have been kept on the vision board rather than putting it out there for a collective eye roll.
But, I felt that something has changed. The new CFO was a breath of fresh air, she went through the financials line by line, added colour and answered questions without hesitation with a straight bat. Also, at the outset they said 'we welcome questions so fire away' and then answered them all with reason rather than defensiveness.
From various metrics it looked like they really are trying to rein in costs, while letting go of the minimum of people - because the software and science is complex and he implied that the availability of various modules ultimately helps with expanding with companies like BHP (like the 'Water' module which disappeared into 'Industrial'). And, his vision has apparently been bigger than the companies wallet.
If I can indulge in a bit of my own waffle, I would say Envirosuite look like a high touch, complex software that have historically fallen into the 'nice to have' rather than 'must have' bucket. There's a mismatch between the goals of people who went into environmental science 20 years ago and finance professionals. However, despite the inevitable policy back and forth, there is more legal expectation that companies watch their emissions now AND, the technology to monitor it is better and cheaper. So, it's a slow burn but on balance it's likely to pick up, not snuff out. Now they have Hitachi, who are Japanese (a slow burn culture) AND will surely boost the effectiveness of sales given their size and strength. Hitachi also have a seat on the board.
On the plus side:
Risks: