Last week there was a special crossing of 4m shares in EPY at $0.55 which was 10% above the highest price traded that day which caused a few to comment on twitter.

The next day we could see that First Samuel was the seller reducing their holding to 11.6% from 14.0%.

Today interestingly, the buyer of that crossing has been revealed as COG taking their holding up to 19.87%, just under the compulsory takeover limit.

Shares are now at $0.56 above what COG bought at.

Will COG make another bid for EPY or not?

EPY upgraded guidance again this morning increasing from their previous guidance by 10% to +60% NPATA growth to $14m+ for FY22.

This is actually their second upgrade since they first gave guidance of FY22 NPATA growth of +40% on 26 Aug 2021. Then they upgraded to +50% on 18 Nov 2021.

They highlighted a significant increase to their next dividend as their policy is to pay out 60% of their NPAT as dividends.

So over the next year we can expect around 6cps in dividend. That's over 10% dividend yield at the current price of $0.48 which is up over 11% today on the news.

EPY has rewarded the patient investor who stuck with them as covid disrupted their business with the government handouts reducing demand for their invoicing lending and equipment finance businesses.

24 Jun 21: EPY raised $18.86m in a placement to fund new Trade Finance product expansion until establishment of an anticipated new $50m warehouse facility to fund Trade Finance and Invoice Finance products.  44.9m shares @ $0.42 @ 10.5% discount to the 30-day VWAP of $0.469.

This is the 3rd and largest capital raise since December 2019 ($7.6m raised @ $0.48).  The other raise was in Nov 2020 of $3.5m @ $0.328.

Outlook for FY22 is NPATA of circa $12m, before the net returns it expects on the new Trade Finance product.  This is a +41% improvement of the FY21 guidance of $8.5m.

Business activity appears to be improving for EPY and the warehouse facility will enable expensive loans to be repaid.

Thorn Group (TGA) annouced today that they will enter the debtor finance space.

This will add another competitor to EPY.

EPY significant step up yesterday +10.26% on significant volumes on no news.  EPY is in the invoice and equipment financing space.

See my previous straw re: thoughts on possible corporate activity in the future regarding COG or Scottish Pacific.  

Otherwise it could be a fund buying before the 1H21 result on the back of a good result from COG.

9 Feb 21: EPY (formerly CML Group - CGR) was subject to COG and Scottish Pacific in 2020 which failed due to covid.  Scottish Pacific walked away from thier $0.60 bid.  COG ended up with a $17m stake in EPY and is the largest shareholder at 16.3%.

COG annouced NPATA growth of 140% on 27 January for 1H21.  It has unrestricted cash and term deposits of $53m.  With its shareprice at 12m highs I wonder whether they will have another tily at EPY.

Even if they don't COG's strong results bode well for EPY's 1H21 result as they operate in similar markets.

EPY is still trading well below the takeover bid of $0.60 at under $0.40.

24 Nov 2020: The change of name to EasyPay has immediate effect - up 10% today!

16 Oct 20: AGM resolution to change the name of the company to "EarlyPay Ltd".  It's got to be even better than "AfterPay" right?  I hope the name change as the same effect on its share price though I some would say that I'm dreaming.

3 Oct 20:

1. COG owns 17.4% stake.  In an investor call for Thorney investors recently the CEO of COG commented that they are opened to reopening discussions in the future. 
2. If they refinance their expensive loans, costs will decrease by $1m p.a.
3. The acquistions of Skipper Invoice Finances in July 2020 provides an online automated platform and enables CML the ability to service smaller clients profitably, typically with receivables book of less than $200k, a market sector previously cost prohibitive for traditional invoice finance providers. Brings forward CML’s planned technology enhancement roadmap and development by approx. 2 years.