See in conjunction with my bull case.

Transparency is not great. really have to dig into the notes of the annual report to see segment revenues etc. Presentations seem to be just management speak (on slides at least - I haven't attended any), with details buried in the back and kept to a minimum. Perhaps being run somewhat like a private company (as mentioned in my bull case, to 20 own 96.5%)

They changed auditor from EY to RMS a couple of years ago and are reporting much higher revenues. It is a complex business admittedly but that is a concern. At least RMS are credible. They do report unearned income in relation to contracts that are paid upfront but for which TMH must provide investor relations type services throughout the course of the next (typically) 12 months. This exploded in 2020, but encouraging to see cashflows come through in 2021 and the amount stabilise.

HotCopper and potentially stockhouse and potentially TMH are all in competition with larger companies like twitter in terms of how and where people go to get their news these days.

CEO Jag Sanger holds 11m shares plus some options (5-10% of company), however he paid for them via a loan from the company. Likely all part of the package to sign him up, however would always prefer that management had purchased their own shares or were founders in the business. He has some history with vehicle financing operations and they have gone into this at TMH, seems totally off mission and they haven't really promoted it.

Low profile company with high insider ownership, top 20 hold 96%. As a result highly illiquid but represents an opportunity for the little guys who are patient enough to get in.

~200m shares fully diluted (7m options) gives a market cap of 120m at 60c. Balance sheet is net cash, they do have ~10m in debt but produced a healthy amount of cash last year and have 13m in the bank, plus about 14m in other financial assets (shares).

TMH was formerly Hot Copper, and still own the hotcopper website, but business model is to leverage that network (and canadian acquisition stockhouse) to disrupt in the investor relations space. Large chunk of income is received in these ~12month contracts from small - mid listed companies and TMH (via hotcopper, stockhouse and the maket herald news desk) becomes their investor relations department, releasing news, directed ads interviews with management etc in relation to the company. They also participate in equity raisings, IPOs etc and take a stake of shares and so are incentivised to promote the company within their community websites. Chance that the content loses credibility but I think hotcopper comes with a buyer beware understanding! This has been a good avenue for profit the last few years in a hot market. Stockhouse was purchased for 22m in 2019 and contributed about 11m in profit last year, great timing, great management or too good to be true I'm not completely sure. They have stated a desire to expand into an additional 3x international markets in the future. Director Gavin Argyle (David Argyle owns 37% of the company, I assume they are brothers) has experience in capital raisings etc for small and medium companies (founder of a Perth based investment bank Capital Investment Partners) and David requested he be assigned to the board a few years ago. Think he probably has a strong network and influence on the company.

Stated profit after tax (which they did pay about 2.7m - this is good!), was 10.8m. Gives a PE around 11 depending on how you like to treat the balance sheet. For a company that has grown very quickly in the last few years this is pretty cheap. I think the price might be a combination of distrust from market due to low detail reporting, operating in the finance industry and somewhat behind the scenes, a feeling that 2021 isn't repeatable and the illiquidity making it hard for outsiders to buy. Plus there's a bit of negative stigma around hotcopper (here we all are on the superior strawman of course!).

CEO looks pretty slick, outsider appointed to move the company forward this definitely seems to be happening based on results. Has a history in vehicle financing and they're moving quietly into that as well. The messaging from the company has improved since he came on board (coming from a very low base).

There are some things that I don't like too, covered in bear case.