Weekly Updates

Firm Returns Weekly - tinyBuild postpones vote, and newsletter update

tinyBuild Minutes before the Special Meeting was due to take place on Thursday (18 Jan), tinyBuild released a notification through the regulatory news service (RNS) to say the board had taken the decision to postpone the vote due to a number of significant shareholders being unable to submit their votes

Firm Returns Weekly - Tom Cruise sets up shop at WB, and other news

Just a brief note this week as I've been travelling, but here are a few news items I've picked out for you. Warner Bros. Discovery Tom Cruise sets up shop at Warner Bros. Studios Tom Cruise's production company has entered into a strategic partnership

Important update for tinyBuild shareholders

For people who are struggling to vote on the resolutions for the Special Meeting, I have been told that tinyBuild has now appointed Equiniti as a proxy service advisor. Their representative, which you can reach via email at Wayne.Slyfield@equiniti.com, will be able to collect your votes ahead

Firm Returns Weekly - 2023 box office figures, streaming ratings, and the UK financial services sector

A breakdown of the 2023 global box office figures; Young Sheldon tops the US streaming chart; and taking the temperature of the UK financial services sector.

Firm Returns Weekly - WBD acquires BluTV, and other news

WBD has acquired BluTV, and I take a look at how Wonka and Aquaman 2 are performing in theatres.

Firm Returns Weekly - TMI, WBD, TBLD

Factors impacting the dry bulk charter market; Paramount merger talk; and Verses Evil shut down.

tinyBuild equity raise

tinyBuild has sent out a circular with the details of the equity raise. Regrettably, it looks like the dilution is going to be around 50%.

Firm Returns Weekly - Newsletter overview, and updates on TMI, WBD, and TBLD

TMI's half-year report and trading update, WBD's podcast deal with Spotify and a strong start for Wonka, and a positive response for Deadside's v0.10.0 update (TBLD).

Firm Returns Weekly - Four Mile legal ruling upheld (ECOR), Max in Verizon bundle (WBD), Vessel sales (TMI)

A good result for ECOR in its legal dispute, Max bundling and new releases at WBD, and higher rates and vessel sales at TMI.

Important tinyBuild update

Things have taken an unfortunate turn for the worse at tinyBuild. The company is facing a liquidity crisis and looking to raise equity.

Firm Returns Weekly - Aviva to acquire Optiom, David Zaslav interview, Arkham trilogy switch release

Aviva to acquire Optiom On Monday (27 Nov), Aviva announced the acquisition of Optiom O2 Holdings Inc - a leading provider of vehicle replacement insurance in Canada - for total consideration of c.£100m (c.CAD$170m). This should bolster Aviva's existing Canadian operations, and move them closer

Firm Returns Weekly - tinyBuild (TBLD), Warner Bros Discovery (WBD), Aviva (AV), and Fuller, Smith & Turner (FSTA)

tinyBuild Broken Roads release delay Broken roads was scheduled to release on 14 November, but on the 8th they announced it would be delayed until early next year. There was still some confusion because they forgot to change the release date on Steam, which resulted in the game appearing in

Firm Returns Weekly - WBD Q3 earnings, SAG-AFTRA strike ends

Q3 earnings On Wednesday (8 Nov) WBD published their Q3 earnings, covering the period ending 30 September. Overall I came away pretty positive, but the market may have disagreed. There's been quite a lot of talk about fears of a weak advertising market in 2024, but as far

Firm Returns Weekly - TBLD, Investing Approach

tinyBuild Slime 3K On Thursday (2 Nov), Slime 3K launched in Steam early access for $4.49, including a 10% launch discount. There was also cleverly an additional 20% discount if you owned Despot's Game, which has helped to drive up sales of the original entry in the

Firm Returns Weekly - ECOR, TMI, TBLD

Ecora Resources Ecora Resources released their Q3 trading update this week. Portfolio contribution was down significantly at $5.8m vs $14.7m in Q2, due primarily to low production volumes at Kestrel and Voisey's Bay. The lower volumes at Kestrel were the result of operations moving outside Ecora&

Firm Returns Weekly - AV, TMI, WBD

Aviva Takeover rumours Aviva has been subject to some takeover rumours that sent the share price up to over 420p earlier this month (the shares have since come back down to below 400p). The following excerpt from a Shares Magazine article lists some of the companies said to be considering

Firm Returns Weekly - TBLD

Asterigos anniversary update On Wednesday (11 Oct) Asterigos received a free anniversary update and featured as a daily deal on the Steam homepage. There was also a developer Q&A livestream which got a good number of concurrent viewers - when I took the screenshot below there were 1,

Firm Returns Weekly - TMI, TBLD

Taylor Maritime Investments Grindrod will be carrying out a capital reduction and cash distribution of US$32.44m in two tranches: the first distribution of US$1.01598 per ordinary share will be payable on 26 October 2023, and the second distribution of US$0.63193 per ordinary share on

Firm Returns Weekly - AV, WBD, TMI, TBLD

Aviva Aviva is acquiring AIG's UK protection business for total consideration of £460m, in line with their strategy of pursuing capital light growth. AIG's UK protection business had 1.3m individual protection customers and 1.4m group protection customers as of 31 December 2022. Aviva to

Firm Returns Weekly - WBD, TBLD

Warner Bros. Discovery Mortal Kombat 1 Mortal Kombat 1 has got off to a strong start, achieving a peak concurrent player count of 38,129 on the day of launch - higher than the 35,147 achieved by MK11 - and holding firm with peaks in excess of 20k in

Firm Returns Weekly - WBD, TBLD, AV

Warner Bros. Discovery Webcasts There are a couple of new webcast recordings available on the WBD website, with commentary from both David Zaslav (CEO) and Gunnar Weidenfels (CFO). Warner Bros. Discovery - Events & PresentationsWarner Bros. Discovery, Inc. Logo The Nun II The Nun II made $32.6m in its

Firm Returns Weekly - TBLD, ECOR, AV, WBD

tinyBuild We're expecting tinyBuild's interim results soon, so there should be a fair amount to discuss when they're released. In the meantime, I wanted to share a couple of articles I read this week that could be useful for anyone trying to gauge a

Firm Returns Weekly - TBLD, WBD, TMI

tinyBuild Streets of Rogue 2 Streets of Rogue 2 has continued to gain momentum, with the game breaking into the top-100 most wishlisted upcoming games on Steam this week. Using the internal wishlist data we've been given for recent releases (see I Am Future article below), we can

Firm Returns Weekly - WBD, TBLD

Warner Bros. Discovery Blue Beetle Blue Beetle topped the US box office rankings in its opening weekend with domestic ticket sales of $25m, and is currently the widest release, showing in 3,871 theatres. Performance is looking comparable to Shazam! Fury of the Gods, which released earlier this year and

Firm Returns Weekly - AV, TBLD

Aviva This week, Aviva released their interim results for the first half of 2023. Here are some highlights: Group Level * Operating profit up 8% to £715m (1H22: £661m). On a per share basis, this rises to 10% due to share buybacks (19.9p vs 18.1p). * Cash remittances (the money

Firm Returns Weekly - WBD, TBLD, AV

Warner Bros. Discovery Films Barbie has continued its upward trajectory with another week at the top of the charts. Here in the UK it is still the film with the most showings in cinemas, and when I went to see the Meg 2 on Wednesday, there was a crowd of

Firm Returns Weekly - WBD, TBLD, FSTA, ECOR, AV

This week's newsletter is a little late because I was travelling to attend a wedding over the weekend, but there's quite a lot to discuss. Warner Bros. Discovery Barbie update Barbie continues to perform very well, and has now exceeded $1bn in worldwide box office revenue.

Firm Returns Weekly - Week 1

As a way to give you ongoing coverage of the companies in the portfolio, and generally keep you informed with what I'm doing, I have decided to start this weekly updates newsletter. It's completely separate from the Stock Analysis and Portfolio Updates newsletters, so if you