Inflation at 8%, Oil at $100. Consumer pockets being hurt by inflation.
No elected official would dare to put a new toll road in place. They will be voted out for adding costs on consumers.
New tolls are dead. 15% market growth is a fantasy. That is why all the ITS companies walked away from those forecasts.
Debentures falling. To finance another acquisition will need to offer 8-10% yield. Leveraged acquisition strategy is dead as well.
All that is left is selling WiLan. That won't happen without an Apple resolution. And how do you put a price on patents when PIPCOs are trading below cash value? And Quarterhill announced that as part of the strategic review they will look at acquiring additional patents! So how do you handicap an actual sale?
So the only hope is a settlement with Apple. What are the odds of that? 1%? 5%? And why would they settle until they see the actual THIRD damages theory put forward by the "expert". Perhaps they will just roll the dice on a new jury and see if their $0.05/unit theory works on a third jury. They know their damages have a ceiling of $0.40 a unit as the CAFC said NO to that.
I would NOT pay a 70% premium to the synthetic portfolio of VHC, ITI and REKR for that possibility.
And an Apple deal would have to pay of McKool Smith, Taxes, etc. What is left might be $50million to shareholders net of any refund that has to be given to Samsung.
And how will investors value that announcement when it will be a cryptic announcement of resolution of litigation and a subset of patents. Investors will be in the dark.
Implication: stock price needs to be lower to account for the poor execution and high relative valuation vs. Peers