I could hardly believe some recent comments here to the effect that shareholders should go activist for the purpose of FORCING the board to sell Wilan.
The argument stems from the claim (probably true) that the market is currently according no value to Wilan in the Quarterhill share price.
But remember two things.
First, that could change very quickly, especially in the kind of fickle market we currently have. We may be getting close to the point where Quarterhill's ITS presence is so big that a weak Wilan quarter is only a quarterly earnings reducer--rather than destroyer. If / when we get to that point it's not hard to visualize market sentiment shifting such that Wilan becomes the uppermost excitement in the Quarterhill story. This would be analogous to the fact that no one is arguing (as far as I know) that Qualcomm should sell off its patent licensing business.
Second, you have to keep in mind that there are potential synergies between Wilan and Quarterhill's ITS business. This was referred to directly in the 2020 Q4 press release--which I quoted some time back:
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"ITS also stands to benefit from government stimulus plans targeting infrastructure, in particular in the U.S. market. As ITS becomes more inter-connected, we believe this could create opportunities that leverage WiLAN’s expertise in 5G, which will be a key enabling technology for the industry in the future."
Now I suppose the company could simply have Wilan license all of its 5G patents to IRD & ETC before selling Wilan off. But I'd think this would not be a simple question. Maybe even best to be determined by the board.
I will not be joining any activist mob that would try to force or cajole the board into breaking the company apart.