Monday, 25th April, 5.00pm – 9pm
Programme
5.00pm Mello news
5.05pm David Stredder interviews Phil Ratcliffe
Group Commercial Director, Tandem plc
5.40pm Company presentation by RBG Holdings plc
6.10pm Michael Taylor Educational session
6.30pm Company presentation by CentralNic plc
7.00pm Kevin Taylor analyses company debt
7.30pm Company presentation by Belvoir Group plc
8.00pm Mello BASH
Company Presentation – Belvoir Group PLC
Belvoir Group PLC – UK-wide property franchise group 
Founded in 1995 and listed on AIM since 2012, Belvoir Group (BLV.L) operates a multi-brand property franchise network of 463 offices delivering residential lettings and sales, and property-related financial services across the UK. Managing 72,900 properties, Belvoir reported profit before tax up 39% to £9.3m in 2021 and marked its 25th year of uninterrupted profit growth.
Dorian has extensive experience in the property industry having spent seven years with Countrywide before joining Belvoir in 2005 as Business Development Manager. Appointed Sales Director a year later and subsequently Chief Executive Officer, Dorian also spent five years as a director of The Property Ombudsman. Dorian has a deep understanding of franchising and the strategic vision to deliver a successful franchise operation.
Louise is a Chartered Accountant having qualified with Ernst & Young in 1991. She has 20 years’ board-level experience with AIM-listed companies overseeing a wide range of corporate transactions. Over the past eight years Louise has undertaken nine significant acquisitions for the Group. Louise, who is also a Chartered Secretary, serves as Company Secretary to the Group.
Company Presentation – RBG Holdings plc
RBG Holdings plc is a professional services group, which comprises the following divisions:
RBG Legal Services Limited (“RBGLS”)
RBGLS is the Group’s legal services division which combines the businesses previously operated by Rosenblatt Limited and Memery Crystal LLP.
Rosenblatt (“RB”)
Rosenblatt is one of the UK’s pioneering legal practices and a leader in dispute resolution. Rosenblatt provides a range of legal services to its diversified client base, which includes companies, banks, entrepreneurs and individuals. Complementing this is Rosenblatt’s increasingly international footprint, advising on complex cross-jurisdictional disputes.
Memery Crystal (“MC”)
Memery Crystal offers legal services in a range of areas such as corporate (including a market-leading corporate finance offering), real estate, commercial, IP & technology (CIPT), banking & finance, tax & wealth structuring and employment. Memery Crystal is one of the leading legal practices in the UK to advise the emerging cannabis sector on a wide range of business issues. Memery Crystal offers a partner-led service to a broad range of clients, from multinational companies, financial institutions and owner-managed businesses to individual entrepreneurs.
LionFish Litigation Finance Limited (“LionFish”)
The Group also provides litigation finance in selected cases through a separate arm, LionFish Litigation Finance Limited. LionFish finances litigation matters being run by other solicitors in return for a significant return on the outcome of those cases. As such, the Group has two types of litigation assets – Rosenblatt’s own client matters, and litigation matters run by third-party solicitors. LionFish is positioned to be a unique, alternative provider to the traditional litigation funders.
Convex Capital Limited (“Convex Capital”)
Convex Capital is a specialist sell-side corporate finance boutique based in Manchester. Convex Capital is entirely focused on helping companies, particularly owner-managed and entrepreneurial businesses, realise their value through sales to large corporates. Convex Capital identifies and proactively targets firms that it believes represent attractive acquisition opportunities.
Nicky Foulston took over the commercial management of Rosenblatt in September 2016. She had been a client of the Firm for nearly 30 years. Nicky’s background was the acquisition, in 1992, of the Brands Hatch Circuit Group and the subsequent stock market listing in 1996. Brands Hatch was acquired three years later by Interpublic, returning IPO investors a 6-7x return on their money.
Nicky Foulston, CEO
David Stredder interviews Jim Shears, Tandem plc
Designers, developers, importers, distributors and retailers across a number of product categories including toy, sports & leisure; bicycles; home & garden; and emobility. The Group sells character licensed and own brand ranges via a number of channels from large national blue chip retailers to small independent customers as well as direct to consumer. Character licences include Batman, Disney Princess, Frozen, LOL Surprise!, Nerf, Paw Patrol, Peppa Pig and Spider-Man. Own brands include Airwave, Ben Sayers, Boss, Claud Butler, Dawes, Falcon, Hedstrom, Jack Stonehouse, Li-Fe, Pro Rider, Squish, Stunted, uMoVe and Wired.
Phil Ratcliffe
Group Commercial Director
Phil joined MV Sports & Leisure Limited in 1999 and has many years’ experience in commercial and strategic roles within the consumer goods sector, incorporating well known companies such as Car Plan, Waddingtons Games and Mattel.
His experience encompasses marketing, licensing, product development, Far East sourcing and account management. Phil is a Fellow of The Chartered Institute of Marketing, Vice-Chairman and formerly Chairman of The British Toy & Hobby Association.
Company Presentation – CentralNic Group plc
CentralNic (AIM: CNIC) is a London-based AIM-listed global company that develops and operates marketplaces for online presence and online marketing services, growing organically at 39% per year. In addition to its organic growth, CentralNic has a stellar track record at making earning accretive acquisitions.
In addition to rapid growth, CentralNic’s strategic focuses include maintaining a pure-play recurring revenue model with 100+% cash conversion, and managing debt at a low level.
CentralNic operates globally with customers in almost every country in the world, across the digital economy, ranging from the Global 1000 companies including the major tech platform, through to Governments and entrepreneurs.
For more information please visit: www.centralnicgroup.com
Ben Crawford is the CEO of CentralNic Group Plc, a company he IPO-ed on the London Stock Exchange in 2013, and has grown from $2M in revenues to over $500M, through a combination of organic growth (39% in 2021) and acquiring complementary companies and merging them in its online services marketplace model.
Ben specializes in developing international media and technology businesses, through a combination of business development, including personally negotiating many multi-million-dollar contracts, and M&A activity, having completed 30 acquisitions to date.
Ben’s previous positions include President of Louise Blouin Media in New York, Managing Director of SportBusiness Group in London and Executive Producer of the Official Website for the Olympic Games in Sydney, as well as managing significant internet projects for Microsoft in the 1990s.
Ben is also a frequently-invited contributor to such events and publications as the World Economic Forum, Forbes, the New York Times, the South China Morning Post, Politico, Robb Report, and others.
Michael Riedl was Executive Vice President and CFO of KeyDrive S.A. from August 2011, overseeing the company’s growth over the next seven years. Before joining KeyDrive S.A., Michael held managing positions in the private equity and ICT industries. He started his career with Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, where he specialised in performance improvement programmes. Michael was Chief Restructuring Officer at Group Saint-Paul in Luxembourg from 2004 to 2007 before joining DZ Equity Partners, the private equity firm, in Frankfurt in 2007. In 2008, Michael joined BIP Investment Partners where he worked on private equity opportunities with a focus on buyouts until 2011. Michael holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from James Madison University, USA, a Master of Science degree in Business Administration from European Business School, Germany, and an LLM from Frankfurt School of Finance and Management. He is also a Chartered Management Accountant.
Company Presentation – Dowgate Wealth
Dowgate Wealth is an employee-owned private company founded in 2020. The business is built from the ground up by a group of investment professionals moving against industry trends, who saw the need to put the client first, focusing on their objectives and delivering a high-quality service through a bespoke offering.
Our team of 20 professionals have over 430 years’ combined industry experience and has generated superior returns through a number of economic cycles. The core team received their education at Hargreave Hale, a boutique family-style investment house that was well known for its client service and focus on investing in smaller companies. Hargreave Hale was subsequently acquired by Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management in November 2017.
Dowgate Wealth are passionate about their active investment process and engagement with clients, it is embedded in our core values and the Firm’s culture. As an employee-owned business, our structure allows us to focus on generating sustainable returns over the long term, forsaking gathering assets to meet short-term commercial targets. We believe this creates complete alignment with our clients’ objectives. The inherent benefits of this approach are a product of our continued investment in our people, processes, and systems.
Will Searle
Fund Manager
Will is our Fund Manager and joined Dowgate Wealth in September 2021 to launch and manage the SVS Dowgate Wealth European Growth Fund. The European fund launched in March 2022 and will allow unitholders to benefit from the attractive investment opportunities across the European market by focusing on bottom-up investing. He studied Accounting & Finance at Southampton University. Since then, Will qualified as a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) which is a globally recognised professional designation, that measures and certifies the competence and integrity of financial analysts.
Will began his financial career in 2010 at Hargreave Hale, working as a UK small-cap analyst for Giles Hargreave on the Marlborough Special Situations and Marlborough Microcap Funds. He was also part of the team that launched the Marlborough Multi-Cap Income Fund in 2011 and the Marlborough Nano Cap Fund in 2012. In 2015 Will expanded his role to include European equities by joining David Walton as Assistant Fund Manager of the Marlborough European Multi-Cap Fund before being promoted to Deputy Fund Manager in 2017.
Educational insights from Michael Taylor
Michael Taylor is a full-time UK trader of his own private capital since December 2016. He is willing to take a contrarian view and go against prevailing sentiment, relying on price action analysis to generate alpha.
My Trading Philosophy
I have a rules based system trading both directions which draws heavily on technical analysis and some use of Level 2. Being net short in February and March 2020 delivered positive returns as global equities slid across the board due to the coronavirus (Covid-19) crisis. This method was described in detail in my free short selling guide.
Risk management is the most important factor for me as capital drawdowns work against traders exponentially. I run technical filters that allow me to focus find strong names without listening to the noise, and I share these concepts in my email subscription and in my writing.
If you have any questions or would like to get in touch, you can email me directly at michael@shiftingshares.com.
The Mello BASH (Buy, Avoid, Sell & Hold)
Kevin Taylor Professional Private Investor
Damian Cannon Private Investor
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