What's The Holdup With A Decision on Wi-LAN...? December 15, 2021:
QTRH press release announcing there will be a Strategic Review of WiLAN.
March 7, 2022:
QTRH press release announcing it hired Stout as its financial advisor for the WiLAN Strategic Review process.
Excerpts from today's (May 10, 2023) press release:
"The ITS industry has a compelling growth profile and with our world-class assets in tolling (ETC) and enforcement (IRD) we remain committed to our pure-play strategy..."
""Regarding the strategic review for WiLAN, the process remains ongoing, and we continue to engage with interested parties..."
It's now been over 14 months since Stout has apparently been on the case re. the WiLAN Strategic Review and there has been no final decision on WiLAN. However, given today's statement that management remains "....committed to our pure-play strategy", it appears that they wish to sell the entire WiLAN portfolio.
The question then becomes, what's the problem selling the rest of WiLAN? Is there no other entity willing to pay what QTRH thinks WiLAN is worth? Is QTRH overestimating the value of WiLAN and thus can't sell it? Other...?
There must be some problem if the financial advisor has been trying to sell the thing for over a year and still can't get a deal done. Meantime, it's obvious that QTRH needs plenty of money to pour into it's ITS business, so much so that they eliminated the dividend.
Maybe it's time for QTRH to simply accept the best offer they can find for WiLAN and move on, as the longer it takes to sell this division, the more skeptical the investment community is likely to be as to exactly how much it's worth and probably part of the reason why the share price continues its downward trend.