I will start by saying that I have held Tern (LON:TERN) shares since 2018 and in that time my investment has been diluted with the issue of around 100 Million shares bringing the share issue today to 312 Million. Over the past three years the share price has taken a helter-skelter ride from 3p to 47p back to 3p and today 9.95p.

TERN is not your average listed AIM company that can be measured by looking at growth in turnover or profit, because it is effectively a Venture Capital company comprising 5 small high tech , high growth companies. Fundamental VR, InVMA, Talking Medicines, Wyld Networks & Device Authority.

The thing about VC’s is that they make their money by investing in small high growth companies that they consider have the potential of making significant returns when sold on to bigger organisations within the industry. TERN originally talked about a 3 year strategy from initial investment to a successful sale of their investments, but with the arrival of Covid-19 this timescale has extended. Ironically, the other effect of Covid-19 has been to accelerate the demand for the products that the TERN portfolio can offer.

I am making this post now, because it appears to me that progress towards a sale is now being made. As to which company will be sold first, I have no idea. But I will say that the favourite within the Portfolio is Device Authority. I am not an IT Techie, but I have listened to many that are, and Device Authority’s USP is something called KeyScaler. KeyScaler allows companies to securely register, provision and connect devices to IoT platforms, applications and services. Their CEO Darron Antill refers to it as “their secret sauce”, which has been heavily patented. Over the past couple of years KeyScaler has become the solution of choice and described as “Best in Class” by no other than Microsoft. The sale price of Device Authority could be anywhere from 100 Million (Pounds Sterling) to several billion, the former if sold quite soon or the later if they allow Device Authority to fully embed their subscription based service with the many partnerships that they have already made. With the increasing risk of online crime attacking corporate interests KeyScaler has become a must have resource.

As the current Market Cap of TERN is currently 33 Million Pounds Sterling,…

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