Has this business got more skeletons in its closet than Tim Burton has featured on screen in his film and TV repertoire? Yet another hedge fund would think so, judging by the latest bear raid on the cybersecurity group.
A year since ShadowFall had a pop at the business, along came another damning criticism of Darktrace earlier this week from Quintessential Capital Management which has raised questions about the groupโs accounts.
AJ Bell’s Russ Mould said:ย โNaturally this has resulted in share price weakness in recent days, and itโs enough for Darktrace to launchย aย ยฃ75 million share buyback programme.
โThis sendsย aย message to the market that Darktraceโs management clearly thinks the shares are too cheap. It also reinforces the message transmitted earlier this week that the business doesnโt think it has done anything wrong, saying it has โfull confidenceโ in its accounting practice.
โHowever, the fact weโve had two damning reports meansย aย lot of investors will have lost faith in the business.ย Aย buyback might provide short-term relief to the share price but ultimately Darktrace needs to come up with some detailed responses to Quintessentialโs accusations or investors are simply going to walk away.โ
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