I am a shareholder in both Cirralto as well as Raptor, I think comments made by both ‘Debono’ and ‘Itsmymoney’, show a misunderstanding of the recent history of our company Cirralto. The company would probably not even still be listed if it were not for Raptor and certainly would not be potentially be ‘the next big thing’ if it were not for Adrian Floate.
Raptor were engaged by the company (then Motopia) some years ago to turn around the fortunes of the company. It was moribund, and its stock chart had been flatlining for some time due to previous questionable deals and directors. However, Raptor only got control of the board in 2015 when Lestrange took over the chair, that is when the real changes commenced.
Raptor identified an industry expert and innovator in Adrian Floate and bringing him onto the board was probably the single biggest leap forward the company could have made. From the ASX announcement 16/6/2015: Adrian is an IT innovator who has been building software for 20 years. He has founded, built and sold several technologies businesses and worked in Asia, Australia, the UK and US. Adrian has both private and public company experience at executive level. He is a business strategist that looks to overcome complex problems with software automation solutions.
Adrian has worked in supply chain management systems since 1997 and has experience in manufacturing, wholesale distribution, retail and eCommerce. Adrian’s career includes designing and developing the Bunnings BITS system EDI over IP network, the development and commercialisation of Australia’s first SET payments gateway, the development and commercialisation of a Windows Mobile based email platform that predated the Blackberry equivalent technology, designed the CAPlink EDI network for the automotive industry in conjunction with the Capricorn Society, co-founding the CLANG online car service portal and in more recent times leading the Appstablishment software team to create award mobile App’s for business collaboration.
Raptor managed the raising of between $3 and $4 million dollars (which they also participated in directly) over several years for the company before the big guys became interested in the story and the most recent capital raising was managed by Hartleys. Additionally, Raptor provided funding for the development of FlashConvert which is now one of Cirralto’s primary assets after it was vended in as part of the Cirralto Business Services acquisition.
As far as trying to find fault with the operations team and not the board, Floate is an Executive Director, ie he sits on the board and works on the operations (as does Mulvey).
As to the comment of ‘the tail wagging the dog’, again look at the history. Raptor were hired by the company to assist in re-structuring and optimising operations. They did take board control during the re-structure period, however as per company announcements this year once the re-structure was complete one of their directors Shaun Melville stepped down from the board of Cirralto and more recently Lestrange stepped down as Chairman to a Director to make way for the new Chairman Peter Richards who has an impressive CV and experience to take the company through its next stage of hopefully exponential growth. From ASX announcement 12/01/2018: Mr L’Estrange commented: “It is great to see that the business is now delivering on the potential that we have always seen. The journey to date has been both challenging and rewarding to lead the board through the necessary restructuring of the corporate and operational sides of the business, including overseeing the appointment of Adrian Floate, Mike Mulvey and now Peter Richards, as well as the acquisition of Cirralto Business Services Pty Ltd.
Taking the next steps in the company’s evolution requires a different set of skills at the head of our Board. I am excited that Mr Richards has joined our Board and firmly believe he possesses the necessary experience and skills to help grow and transition the Company in to its next phase of growth. I look forward to continuing to support the Board and the Company in a non‐executive capacity as we work together to realise the Company’s full potential of becoming the leading IT modernisation business in Australia for SME’s.”
The company’s mission statement right throughout this time has been to become an industry leader in data migration and IT modernisation. Creating such a company takes time and does not happen overnight.
I think Cirralto is now in a better position than it has been in many years and certainly is now at a stage that it is significantly de-risked and about to take off. It has money in the bank, it has the right skills in place, great assets and a great business plan. They have done deals with majors like Telstra and Xero and if you have listened to the Directors at AGM’s etc their main bottleneck has been growing the operations team fast enough to keep up with the jobs being provided by Telstra, Xero, Neto etc.
The last CR done by Hartleys raising $2.6 million was pretty much to address this bottleneck as per ASX announcement 23/02/2018: Cirralto has seen remarkable growth in its pipeline of potential new business opportunities over recent months resulting in the decision to accelerate the roll-out of its modernisation business solution.
Funds received under the Placement will provide the working capital required for Cirralto to expand its workforce, including the addition of new employees focussed on business implementation and an additional sales executive to manage the growing pipeline of opportunity.
I agree with the sentiments of several here that the company is in a great position and it is now more a question of how quickly they can grow. I will be a happy shareholder if the company demonstrates quarter on quarter revenue increases from here on.
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