Thanks @Strawman, the podcast commentary didn't sound harsh. I really appreciated Claude's rant about common traps for naive investors (e.g. me). It was exactly what I need to be thinking about since I have been going through what I assume is a common phase of attempting to pick winners 'early'. I have a list of questions in the slido!

Hard to come up with any backdoor listings that have been good for investors... Plenty that have worked out poorly, such as Douugh (DOU), LiveTiles (LVT) and Aminoca Brands which listed via the shell of a resources explorer (Black Fire Minerals) and did not ultimately work out for investors as they were kicked off the ASX. However, as a private company the kept raising money and were valued at nearly US$6bn in July 2022. See here: Animoca Brands founder Yat Siu says getting kicked off the ASX was a blessing in disguise (afr.com) [06-April-2022]

Then there are those mergers where the smaller company ends up controlling the larger company. Sometimes they do work out OK. One quick example is the merger between SRG and GCS (Global Construction Services) a few years ago, where GCS was the larger of the two so the merger was done via GCS acquiring SRG, then GCS immediately changed their company name to SRG Global and their ticker code from GCS back to SRG, and within a couple of years the only remaining senior GCS person at SRG is one of the SRG Board members; all of the others have left the company, whereas the majority of the SRG people from before the merger are still at SRG, including their MD, David Macgeorge.

Another interesting case study is what happened with Uniti Wireless (UWL). The founders of Uniti Wireless, Che Metcalfe and Sasha Baranikov (pictured below) were happy to get the backing of Telco industry veterans, Vocus founder James Spenceley and Amcom founder Tony Grist, who are both now at Swoop (SWP), to back UWL both financially (before and during the IPO) and with their own industry connections, including arranging for their old MTU (M2 Telecommunications or M2 Group) and VOC (Vocus Communications) mate Michael (Mick) Simmons to come in and assume the recently vacated CEO position after the former Uniti CEO, Rick Correll (who was a former CFO at Vocus) left the company after just six months, for personal reasons. The IPO went well, and on the very first day after the IPO, Mick sacked Che and Sasha.

"Uniti Wireless co-founders Che Metcalfe and Sasha Baranikov have made a business out of disrupting the NBN." Photo:Vince Caligiuri

Source: Float hopeful Uniti Wireless CEO departs after just six months (afr.com) [19-April-2018]

Further Reading: Adelaide telecom startup Uniti Wireless raises $3 million to "fill the gaps" and take the fight to the NBN - SmartCompany [28-Mar-2017]

L-R: Tony Grist, Sasha Baranikov, Che Metcalfe and James Spenceley when Uniti Wireless were floated (first listed/IPO'd) on the ASX. The company's founders (the middle two) were sacked the following day by the CEO (Mick Simmons) who had been appointed by Tony and James.

Uniti Wireless may just be South Australia's next billion-dollar business - CityMag (indaily.com.au) [05-Nov-2018]

Uniti Wireless says it never expected to fire its two co-founders one day after listing - Stockhead [26-Feb-2019]

The ASX thinks Uniti Wireless is lying about those fired co-founders - Stockhead 15-March-2019]

Uniti Wireless pursues aggressive growth after $15 million raise (businessnewsaustralia.com) [28-May-2019]

Uniti Wireless Limited (UWL) Corporate Presentation: "Premium Connectivity. An NBN Alternative."

At the time of their employment being terminated, Sasha Baranikov was Uniti's chief operating officer (COO) and Che Metcalfe was their chief technical officer (CTO), and they were both Uniti Board members, however they had their Board memberships "revoked because Uniti’s constitution forebode them from continuing as executive directors."

There was of course a "Please Explain" from the ASX, who stated that it was reasonable to assume that the company had planned this move since before the IPO (remembering that they had IPO'd just one day before the sacking) and therefore the IPO prospectus, which had described the Uniti Wireless Board, of which Sasha and Che were members, as having an "appropriate range of independence, skills and experience," had been misleading to prospective investors.

However Simmons (their CEO) and the Board managed to bat that away with an unlikely story that the ASX was unable to disprove. At the end of the day Simmons had the Board's support when he made that move and it had clearly been their plan all along to get control of a decent company and then sideline the founders, then use that company as a base to do something similar to what they'd done in their previous roles at Amcom, M2 and Vocus, meaning become a Telco roll-up company with an eye to being taken over themselves at some point.

Sasha and Che still had decent stakes in UWL at the time (around 13% according to this article) but not enough to get enough Board representation to make any significant difference. I believe they subsequently sold their UWL shares after their 2 year escrow period had expired.

Meanwhile Michael wasted no time in getting his old M2/Vocus mate Vaughan Bowen, the former founder of M2 Group and the former chairman of Vocus Communications, to join UWL as well, and they then did 5 acquisitions in 5 months:

There were other acquisitions also, however the largest acquisition by Uniti Group, as they had then become known, was of OptiComm in 2020 for which they paid around $530m, a price that was slightly higher than Uniti's own market cap at the time.

New billion-dollar telco takes on NBN (afr.com) [15-June-2020]

"Vaughan Bowen joined Uniti with the explicit purpose of building the company through mergers and acquisitions." (AFR)  Photo: Josh Robenstone

Also: Uniti Group completes OptiComm acquisition - Telco - CRN Australia [23-Nov-2020]

And: Uniti Wireless looks set to keep growing | Montgomery Investment Management (montinvest.com) [04-Aug-2020]

And then, the inevitable happened...

In Feb/March 2022 Uniti was in talks with a consortium led by Macquarie Asset Management (part of MQG) but no deal was agreed to, then in April 2022, UWL agreed to be acquired for $3.6 billion ($5/share) by a consortium led by New Zealand’s Morrison & Co (managers of Infratil - IFT) and Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management (after nearly a month of talks), who were generally referred to as the Morrison-Brookfield Group.

Uniti signs binding $3.6b deal with Morrison/Brookfield group (afr.com) [14-April-2022]

That was a decent payout for the Telco roll-up lads after a few short years of wheeling and dealing, and James Spenceley and Tony Grist (but NOT Mick Simmons or Vaughan Bowen) ended up at Swoop (SWP) where the share price has gone down instead of up unfortunately (I hold SWP shares, and I also previously held UWL, VOC, AMM and M2U shares). Swoop's Board and Management is full of people from Superloop (SLC), Vocus (VOC), Pipe Networks, TPG (who acquired Pipe Networks), Amcom, and M2 Group, however they abandoned their roll-up strategy a couple of years ago for some reason and instead started actively buying back their own shares on-market, so while I hold Swoop and believe they are significantly undervalued by the market, I am also not entirely happy with their Board and Management in terms of having a consistent strategy that is well communicated to their shareholders and to the market.

Anyway, way off track there, but that is one example of a type of backdoor listing, but not in the conventional sense, so not like a biotech or fintech (or any tech co) using the shell of a failed mining/metals explorer to list, but just an unconventional way to get a foothold in an industry as a listed company using what could be viewed by some as "short cuts". That one did work out well for most retail shareholders. The conventional backdoor listings usually do not.

Further Reading: BACKDOOR LISTINGS in Australia (study by the Business School at the University of Technology, Sydney)

Michael Simmons (businessnews.com.au)

Telco heavyweight Vaughan Bowen resurfaces at microcap (afr.com) [13-March-2019]

Damn - forgot - Swoop (SWP) was ALSO a backdoor listing - see here: Forrest wins big as Swoop more than doubles on ASX debut (afr.com) [27-May-2021]

Excerpt:

The Andrew Forrest-backed Swoop Telecommunications has made a stunning debut on the ASX – the stock has more than doubled in price within hours of a backdoor listing.

Swoop began trading at 50¢ and closed at $1.25 on Thursday in what chairman James Spenceley said was a positive sign after recent gloom and doom around IPOs.

The Forrest family’s private investment arm, Tattarang, owns 19.7 per cent of Swoop, and the value of the stake jumped from $16.7 million at the start of the day to about $43 million.

Mr Spenceley, who is the founder of Vocus, and Amcom founder Tony Grist are among the other big shareholders.

Forrest, Spenceley and Gist backed a $20 million capital raising pre-listing that was 15 times oversubscribed.

"Swoop operates one of the country’s largest fixed wireless networks with 246 towers spread across all states and has plans to build more towers and gobble up rival operators.

Mr Spenceley, who is also chairman of recently listed Airtasker, said he had been asked many times in the past few weeks if he was nervous about the IPO market and talk of the IPO window closing fast.

“It [the Swoop listing] is a good sign for the market for IPOs and also for the telco sector,” he said.

Playing to its strengths

“I think the market goes very strongly into businesses that are high quality, good sectors with defensible earnings.”

He said Swoop would look to play to its strengths in outer suburban and regional areas rather than well-serviced and highly competitive inner-city markets dominated by Telstra, Optus, Vocus and TPG.

“Not every single person wants to deal with a big guy and when you come and invest in town, you get some real positivity from the people in that area,” he said.

“We are on a mission to connect as many people as possible and invest in those regions that are less well served.”

Mr Spenceley said there could be a round of consolidation in the sector similar to the period late in the 2000s and early in the 2010s when the likes of Vocus, TPG and iiNet were making acquisitions.

He said some small businesses had grown to a scale that made them attractive takeover targets.

Perth-based wireless internet provider Pentanet has been a standout among the IPOs so far this year. It listed at 25¢, has traded at more than $1 and is now sitting at 81.5¢.

The Forrest leap into telecommunications started with the 2019 acquisition of NodeOne, which was founded in the WA town of Geraldton in 2009 before becoming a leading player in internet and fixed wireless technology in the state.

Tattarang then invested in Swoop, formerly known as Cirrus Communications, alongside Spenceley and Grist, before a merger of the NodeOne and Swoop assets.

--- end of excerpt ---

So, like many backdoor listings, they start off well (as described above - written in May 2021, i.e. 3 years ago), and then...

Cirrus Communications was suspended from trading prior to Swoop's IPO (backdoor listing) in May three years ago, then Swoop shot up to $2.37 before going into a big downtrend. The commentary below that chart above suggests that they're in a near-term uptrend which is not obvious at all on that chart, but is a little more obvious on a 1 year chart (below).

I wouldn't call it a CONVINCING uptrend though; It wouldn't take much to break it, but then again I am expecting a good report from them in August so let's see what happens then. One thing's for sure, they haven't been kind to investors over the past 2.5 years. I'm only still holding them because I can't see much wrong with the underlying business or business model. They are not the best business in the world by any measure, but they are worth more than where they've been trading at lately, IMO.

They are profitable. Their balance sheet is good. They're just not the roll-up play (growth via acquisitions play) that people thought they were, and, to be fair, they were marketing themselves as that (a "roll-up") before they changed their strategy and started buying back their own shares instead, so I can understand the market's lack of interest at this point. There is also a perception that the low hanging fruit has all been picked and there isn't much value left to roll up. And that because Swoop have a focus on outer suburbs and regional areas, their margins are likely to be lower than the Telcos who focus more on the higher-population-density cities, especially city businesses. And that is likely true, but just because they won't have the best margins in the sector doesn't make them uninvestable. Like I said, they're not one of the best businesses on the ASX, but my thoughts are there is an opportunity here that will play out if and when they get a positive re-rate - i.e. when the market becomes vaguely interested in them again. And it wouldn't take much, because they'd be coming off such low levels now - take Friday for instance, they went up one and a half cents (+$0.015) and that was a +7.5% rise because it was from 20 cps to 21.5 cps.

I just think the selling has been overdone and there will be upside as long as they keep putting runs on the board (keep growing the business and their profits). Time will tell. I've been wrong before, and I will be again. Don't know if I'm wrong yet with Swoop, but either I am or the market is.