Good morning!

I've been busy over the weekend, setting up a new website called Placing Watch, which is designed to track fundraisings by listed companies, and campaign for private investor interests. All too often companies & advisers take the easy option, by raising money in a discounted Placing. This has the effect of excluding existing investors, causing them to suffer dilution often at an unfavourable price.

On the other hand, Institutional placings are quick and easy to arrange, and fees are relatively low. So in emergency situations, or where speed is of the essence, or if the amount being raised is too small to justify doing an Open Offer to all shareholders, then a Placing can make sense.

So I thought a good starting point would be to scrutinise Placings, and rank them on the key criteria of price discount, dilution, Director participation, and expenses. Then give each Placing an overall rating. Once that is established and well publicised, pressure can be put on brokers and companies to structure deals in a way which protects private investor interests. So if you think it's a good idea, and want to help, then please publicise the site. The more people who follow it, then the more influential it will become. I set up the site, but a group of private investors will be writing the content with me.


Trakm8 Holdings (LON:TRAK)

This is a small telematics company, making vehicle tracking devices for fleets. I recall speaking to management some time ago and being impressed with them, trying to buy stock at 19p, but finding the market was so thin & the bid/offer spread so wide, that after a few days I gave up trying to buy. What a pity, as the shares have 4-bagged since then, and are now 80p! So clearly I should have just paid up and not worried about the spread - something to bear in mind when you find something really cheap.

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Results for the year ended 31 Mar 2014 have been published this morning, and look very good from the headline figures. Turnover is up 94% to £9.2m, although most of that increase seems to have come from an acquisition of BOX Telematics, part way through the year. The increase would have been even more marked for a full year;

From the date of acquisition to 31 March 2014…

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