@thunderhead And while I was busy elsewhere, the price jumped 10%.

O well

Yeah, it has been a pretty quick rebound on reasonable volume too.

@thunderhead @Arizona @Mujo

Don't really trust that rally to be honest.

Bit of a warning when someone quietly disappears without much background information.

Just an FYI: My Oracle holding got decimated when Ray Lane got silently dismissed by the great Larry J Ellison

Had to wait years before I got my money back. Pity I don't hold now as I would be well into profit.

Thanks @edgescape. For sure - sudden departures, particularly from tenured personnel, always make you uncomfortable (and from the looks of it, has the market spooked too).

These "old world", boring/stodgy techies have certainly got a strong tailwind from the AI hype - Oracle is one of the prime beneficiaries, alongside the likes of Dell. It's been a long wait, but everyone who kept the faith is reaping the rewards now.

Thanks @thunderhead

I know Ray Lane was responsible for the massive turnaround at Oracle in the 90s but there was definitely a clash of philosophy between Ellison and Lane which was evident after the transition.

If you search there will be lots of articles that talk about their opposing philosophies which I won't post here. But it is well worth researching and only now I appreciate all the learning from this and applying that knowledge as part of Occam's Razor

As pointed out earlier by @Mujothe fact there is 1 month till departure is a bit more reassuring but we are still left in the dark.

Would be better if Hansen was going out and looking for a replacement CEO though. How can Andrew work so many roles?

@edgescape Great to get your take on this. Its got me intrigued.

I'm certainly hesitant about it all just now.

The fact that they couldn't be super clear and transparent

You'd think Andrew Hansen would be across the best way to communicate with shareholders by now

So perhaps this is the best they can do given the circumstances.

Thanks to all here on SM for kicking this around a bit. The input is invaluable.

@Mujo Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this.

Now that you mention it, the announcement had a fair amount going on.

It really glosses over Taylors exit.

Focusing more on David Caster, Scott Weir, the return of Niv Fernando.

Then Hansen, resuming his role as CEO and Managing Director.

Its potentially some upbeat spin on Taylors stepping down.

Thanks again @Mujo

I did not think too much about the Taylor's exit as the rest of the org changes made sense.

This was also probably heavily influenced by my belated viewing of the 1H24 investor preso a few days prior to the Org Change announcement, where Andrew dominated the session as he talked about the powercloud acquisition, strategy etc. Taylor had only 2 slides of that preso, on R&D I think it was, after both Andrew and the CFO had done their bit, so the writing may already have been on the wall going back to Feb 2024 - his 2 slides appeared like an afterthought really.

It was always going to be hard to try to take over from someone like Andrew and the powercloud acquisition may have well energised him to continue to operate as he has, which made Taylor's position untenable really. 1 less serious $ overhead to pay for, which is probably a good thing for me!

Re: price, am not convinced it it Taylor-driven - didn't feel like he had much impact to begin with to justify the hit taken. The price fell below the strong 4.21-4.42 support area. I topped up at 4.35, and almost topped up again today at sub-4,00 but held off as the next support area is around 3.70-3.80 which could be where it drifts to ahead of EOFY.

For me, the business fundamentals are sound, the powercloud acquisition looks exciting, once this period of "Hansenisation" is done and dusted and HSN has a good track record of integrating acquired businesses. Am hence watching this drop as another opportunity to top up.

Discl: Held IRL and in SM

@jcmleng If the price drop was Taylor driven, there has been a bit of a lag. With hindsight, the SP was already sliding...who knows?

Perhaps I'm over thinking again.

Could just be a buying opportunity plain and simple.

You have inspired me to go and listen to the 1H24 investor pres.

@NewyRookie I didnt see the review, but I heard the Stocktake podcast where the upshot was that HSN was better buying than GTK.

Pulled from Hotcopper: