Thanks to @mikebrisy and @lankypom for the nudge to watch the TNE AGM recording. I hold TNE, but hadn’t made it to the AGM yet.

WELL WORTH watching, at least the first hour. Very instructive in how AI is likely to impact SaaS businesses in general.

As it happened, I’d just listened to the boys at Stocktake (latest episode: Sell off as a Service), and in explaining his new framework for assessing which companies would be at AI-risk versus those not, Nick Cummings’ response echoed the TNE explanation, outlined in the two slides below:

Obviously, there’s more in the TNE AGM video - I strongly urge anyone with an interest in assessing the impact of AI on SaaS businesses to make the time to watch.

Discl: Held in RL and I will be adding going forward.

Yeah, just finished watching it. Very impressive!! TNE is definitely on my "To Buy" list now - for when I get that income stream account up and running. The AI argument Ed makes for why it's a tailwind for them rather than a headwind is compelling. Of course you are going to come away from watching a presentation like that as a believer absent any dissenting opinions - such as a well articulated bear case - but there's more than just that - the 3 board members who spoke (2 new ones, & one up for re-election) were also outstanding choices of people to have on that particular Board, in my opinion, and all spoke very well, and answered their questions well.

I did watch it right through to the conclusion of the meeting and while I know Stephen Mayne is an activist investor who is trying to "keep the bastards honest", his main problem with Tech1 was probably Adrian DiMarco (the founder) a few years ago who has retired from both the Board and any management role in the business plus Ed getting the vast majority of his shares via incentives as part of his remuneration, but geez Louise, give them a break Stephen. They've clearly liased with proxy adviser groups and addressed concerns, hence every resolution passing almost unanimously, even the Rem Report got over 98% approval, and you want to ask the man why he's not buying more shares on-market? Or what percentage of his total shareholding he's bought himself on-market? If he's doing a great job and getting plenty of shares as part of his Rem Package, which he is (on both counts), maybe he doesn't need to buy shares on-market.

Also, with Stephen Mayne's final dummy-spit question at the end of the meeting, sure, the Chairman was reasonably brief with his answers, but he was also obviously very aware that this was probably the longest AGM that TNE shareholders have ever had to sit through, because of Ed's long but necessary presentation and the three directors also all having prepared oral presentations and having to answer questions as well. If Stephen Mayne (the only online questions came from him) hadn't asked such leading and/or rediculous questions at every possible point, Pat O'Sullivan (the Chair) might have had more to say, but Stephen Mayne's final question was worded in a way that showed that Stephen was clearly butt-hurt with not receiving much of a response from Pat to a couple of his earlier questions including having one completely ignored - Pat just said, "Great Question Stephen" and moved on. Which I actually thought was a perfect response to that particular question.

Anyway, good to see the ASA guy there in person and asking decent questions, as well as giving credit where credit is due.

TNE has certainly come a long way in terms of addressing proxy adviser and shareholder concerns over recent years, with every resolution passing with a vote of somewhere between 97.47% and 99.95% "FOR"; even the grant of shares ("Awards") to Ed (resolution 6) got 98.29% voted "FOR".

It's not often that a company publishes proxy numbers before the meeting, during the meeting, as well as the final results after the meeting.

Great business, well run, company culture clearly improving as demonstrated by that massive employee NPS increase that was mentioned, very profitable, growing, dominating their chosen sub-sector of the market, and their SP has come down recently from over $40/share to under $25/share. And they keep hitting those "double ARR every 5 years" numbers. So they have ambitious targets, but they hit them.

Yes, on the shopping list now for sure.