PIWORLD Investor Podcasts

This week Progressive's George O'Connor and Ian Robertson canter through the newsflow of recent weeks, Bytes, Accesso, Northcoders and Hostelworld.Is Bytes broken? No, but its reputation has taken another beating.Hostelworld’s direct marketing expense reminds us why many startups sometimes feel they are just working for Google.Reflecting on Salesforce’s recent wins with the US government, George looks back upon the Efficiency and Reform Group in the UK and whether its cost-saving success will be repeated.

This week, Progressive's Gareth Evans and Jeremy McKeown discuss how an emboldened Trump has raised the tariff temperature while also considering the potential for a version of the future to be one of US economic growth. But whatever the path forward, Paul Tudor Jones' mantra, that all roads lead to inflation, seems increasingly appropriate.Risk assets continue their march higher with Nvidia and Bitcoin reaching new all-time highs. Nvidia is not the first company to be valued at over $4 trillion.In the UK, Gareth talks about housebuilder Springfield and merchanting business Lords Trading as prime examples of UK small-cap companies executing well on sensible capital allocation policies.Looking ahead, it is mainly about inflation with data releases in the US, the UK and Japan.

Progressive's Jeremy McKeown and Gareth Evans discuss the week's macro market news and developments, comparing the plight of the Trump and Starmer administrations, which are six months and a year in, respectively. The differing outcomes, at least in part, reflect the degree to which the bond markets constrain the UK government more than the US.We are halfway through 2025 and have had a turbulent Q2. Equity markets are recovering everywhere, but persistent dollar weakness has made the US seem less exceptional than usual.In H2, the pressure will be on Scott Bessent to deliver some magic in the treasury markets and refinance well over a $1 trillion of longer-duration paper. The stronger-than-expected labour market, as measured by the non-farm payrolls yesterday, is not helpful. He is still wishing for a 10-year rate below 4.The UK equity market remains attractive, and there are signs that the IPO market may reopen during H2. Let's see.We discuss Secure Trust Bank's decision to put its motor finance activity into run-off, which investors appear to have welcomed. However, it is a sign that the regulations are driving this lending activity away from the transparency of the PLC world, which would be a shame.Looking ahead, we have some UK GDP data, and Wednesday marks the deadline for Trump's tariffs, which could lead to increased volatility.

Progressive Analysts George O'Connor and Ian Robertson catch up on events in and around the UK small and mid-cap listed tech.Visma – potential London IPO. Parallels with Sage are inevitable. Visma has grown through acquisition, but still delivers on organic growth. It does not, however, scale per the SaaS storybook. A judgement in store not just for London vs the world but PE valuations vs reality and analysis too?IP Group capital markets event – Ian is hugely enthusiastic and reminded that UK tech is alive and well. The presentations highlighted the scale up issue – where the UK still struggles. The comments re the Mansion House Accord should be noted by public market participants.Dotdigital’s acquisition of Social Snowball raises the ongoing question whether the UK public market’s investors’ lack of ambition for software companies with a focus on high margins at the expense of marketing and development may condemn UK tech companies to have to play catch up via expensive acquisitions.Updates from companies, including TPX Impact and Made Tech suggest that the UK public sector now has a better sense of itself and is returning spending.

WW3 is over, oil prices are plummeting, inflation is dead, Daddy Trump is putting the world back together, including doing a trade deal with China and getting interest rates down, even if it means sacking the man who is in his way. And the UK smaller company sector has discovered the Bitcoin magic money tree and is bathing in the prospect of free money. What a time to be alive! What could possibly go wrong?This week, Progressive's Gareth Evans and Jeremy McKeown spend some time discussing the new Bitcoin Treasury Company model being developed among a cohort of UK smaller companies. Is it magic money or a dangerous bubble?Gareth also covers updates from Sanderson Design, Gear4Music and Vertu Motors.Next week is jobs week in the US, and we will get inflation data for the Eurozone. Watch for a non-farm payroll number below 100,000, which the market is likely to take positively.

Progressive's George O'Connor and Ian Robertson wish AIM a Happy 30th Birthday, consider its success and follow Charlie Munger’s edict of ‘invert, always invert’ to gain some context. 1,700 companies on AIM in 2007 was too many (polite way to say it), but 700 now is too few. The politically impossible bail out is not the answer, but what can be done for little cost and risk to the public purse? Perhaps if we make it more profitable for fund managers, and in particular for those with credible voices, for whom improving the quality of the businesses they invest in is a goal. George wants to know how you make a Staveley scale? (Other fund managers are available.) George raises the issue of small-cap and AIM plc governance. How much does it cost, and what, realistically, can a NED actually do? He relates a story of frustration from a NED contact. Inevitably this leads to the RC Fornax shambles and whether fund managers know how much DD gets done by the NOMADs. On the companies front it’s a tough market for Hays, progress for Capita and for Oxford Metrics it’s back to normal but with concerns over US university and research spending under the new regime.

This week, Progressive's Jeremy McKeown and Gareth Evams discuss the market reaction to Trump's potential intervention in the Israel-Iran conflict, as well as interest-rate "holds" from the US and UK in the face of ongoing inflationary pressure. Japan continues to confuse - and to present major risk - with high inflation and close-to-zero interest rates, while the US/Japan trade deal is still conspicuous by its absence. Progressive client news focussed on one stock, Oxford Metrics, whose H1 results statement highlights H2 weighting along with a skew towards US academia - a market segment clearly under pressure from Trump's defunding of large chunks of US educational budgets. Smart Manufacturing growth will, over time, diversify the group away from these risks, but investors are worrying about the near-term. Following a recent IPO, the UK now has its own version of the US-based Strategy (fka Microstrategy) - a "bitcoin treasury" business known as The Smarter Web Company. The stock has rocketed post its recent float, and Jeremy and Gareth discuss the fact that, from almost all bubbles and collapses, there are persistent changes, and some survivors... Speaking of survivors, Thomas Moore's fund at Aberdeen has now moved to trading at a PREMIUM to its NAV - after a decade of discounts...and the fund is raising new capital. Evidence of green shoots then, both in terms of micro-cap investor risk appetite, and investor perceptions of value at a steady and high-quality long term investment trust. Next week looks quiet - US GDP and inflation data will allow Trump to blame "Too Late Jay" Jerome Powell (and maybe Joe Biden) although clearly events in the Middle East will be key.

Progressive's George O'Connor and Ian Robertson catch up on events in and around the UK small and mid-cap listed tech. London Tech Week - George has been out and about and is enthused about by the talk by Gary Turner and Steve Vamas of Xero fame. More LSE departures - To read the eulogies you would think that Ricardo was the greater success story. Ricardo was just easy to explain and love. Spectris was a bit of an effort to understand but made the effort to grow. Few make the observation that WSP Global, the acquirer of Ricardo, was, not too long ago, a not-too-exciting Canadian small cap that simply had ambition, execution and its home market on its side. Molten Ventures - the ~50% NAV discount persists. It’s complicated. It delivers NAV growth but it has a primary valuation driver, Revolut – and how do you value that? GB Group - Whilst the revised management are getting to grips, will investors simply end up with a business model that the brokers could sell rather than one that works?

This week, Progressive's Jeremy McKeown and Gareth Evans talk about the dramatic overnight events in Iran, as Israel's actions have led to spikes in the prices of oil and gold, but not driven the usual "flight to the dollar" in any meaningful way - the USD is trading at three-year lows. Does this signal a loss of status as a safe haven, or is it simply that investors expect the conflict to be contained and localised? More broadly, we have seen the US / China trade deal being pieced together, although President Trump couldn't help himself launching some other tariff threats even as the China situation appears to be stabilising. Look for an interesting discussion next week about Jay Powell's competence if the FOMC dares to not lower rates... On the UK front, Jeremy makes the point that the ongoing M&A departures are nowhere near to being replaced by IPOs - by a factor of 30:1, based on some work by Peel Hunt. UK stocks are disappearing at a steady (and worrying) rate - those who remain are clearly "resilient" as we discussed previously, and they're becoming more and more scarce....hopefully this scarcity makes them attractive - a positive sign for valuations among those not (yet) acquired by mainly American bidders. We had Progressive client news from Gear4Music, who acquired some cut-price assets from a failed competitor, Idox, who saw 9% y/y growth in their order book in the H1 they reported, and Intuitive Investments Group who raised just under £10m to propel activity in Hui10, a business involved in modernising and streamlining the antiquated Chinese state lottery. Next week we have UK inflation and a rate decision (likely no change), and the US Fed rate decision (likely no change but watch for Trump's response). Also, keep an eye on Japan - they have a rate decision on Monday and inflation data on Friday; hopefully no surprises, although as Jeremy reminds us, at some point Japan could make headlines again. In the meantime, we hope that the Middle East sees a degree of calm returning.

This week, Progressive's Jeremy McKeown and Gareth Evans describe what felt like a more normal few days, with signs of a slowing US economy and falling bond yields. This was suddenly upended by the public and bitter (and very rapid) falling apart of the Trump-Musk relationship. Musk's backing of Trump was at least partly predicated on promises of a smaller state, but Musk (and DOGE) have failed to deliver the meaningful cuts promised. Now we have Musk shouting from the sidelines about the unsustainability of the budget deficit, which could lead to downward pressure on the dollar, upward pressure on yields and increased expectations of inflation - hence buying of Gold. The UK has had growth forecasts downgraded by the OECD, to levels well below the OBR (and presumably Rachel Reeves's) expectations - so the likelihood appears to be further tax increases and spending cuts. The Mansion House Accord and the Pensions Investment Review give some (but potentially morally questionable) impetus and cause for optimism - but Wise Technologies plans to move to a main US listing, and a pulled cobalt-related IPO bring us back to earth. Progressive stocks mentioned include IG Design Group, tinyBuild, SDI, all with news, but most broadly relevant is Van Elle whose early-stage involvement in housebuilding projects is being delayed by building regulator logjams....alongside earlier news from MJ Gleeson this points to a more-cautious view on the recently-rosy prospects for housebuilders.  Next week is all about US data - non-farm payrolls, inflation data and sentiment from the University of Michigan...