Insightia reported live from the Sohn Foundation’s ninth annual conference in London on Wednesday.
Muddy Waters Research announced it was short DLocal. The short seller’s founder Carson Block began by saying how the payment processing company “prides itself in being an outlier,” before detailing a series of red flags.
The event’s headline speaker told the 300-strong audience how conflicting subsidiary accounts and a yearly cohort figure of $471 million in 2019 which suddenly changed to $56 million without explanation “points to fraud.”
In a rare London appearance, Block explained how fund movements between the company and its clients do not reconcile. “It could be due to incomplete or inaccurate disclosures,” and “could also imply that the company dipped into client funds for its uses,” he noted in his presentation.
Block also said that DLocal has “extensive governance deficiencies” with high manual back-end processes and a “troubling” relationship with its former parent company AstroPay. He also said it “appeared to be dodging regulations by the FCA.”
Shares in the Nasdaq-listed company were down 11.6% at 12:46 p.m. EST, following the event.
Polygon Global Partners pitched European mid-cap Kahoot. Portfolio Manager Abhishek Agrawal said that the educational gaming app company has a “strong position in a large market,” and enjoyed over 100% annual organic sales growth in the last three years. This rapid growth was driven by the COVID-19 pandemic when home learning took place across the world at an unprecedented level.
Agrawal also stated that “’Kahooting’ is even being used as a verb in classrooms,” with 70% of U.S. schools using the service.
The occasional activist was involved in three campaigns in 2021, at Biotest, Orange Belgium, and GoCo Group.
Lodbrok Capital presented on 2027 convertible bonds at Germany-based Delivery Hero 2027 earlier in the day.
Chief Investment Officer and Managing Partner Mikael Brantberg said the idea people will spend less on food deliveries in the future was a misconception, stating that “cohort behaviour is consistent and growing.”
He detailed how the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of food deliveries and that, crucially, this change in behaviours has largely stuck. “People eat out less and eat in more,” Brantberg said.
“We are seeing a very strong pivot from growth to profitability,” he said of the company, which has a 60% market share in South Korea.
Also at the conference, Dan McCrum discussed his book Money Men which tells the story of the Wirecard scandal. McCrum will appear on Insightia’s Beyond The Boardroom podcast later this month to discuss the extraordinary tale.