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  "documentTitle": "Burford Capital (BUR)",
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  "authorName": "Carson Block",
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  "sourceTypeLabel": "Short seller",
  "presentationDate": "2019-08-13 00:00:00",
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  "notes": "This slide functions as a forensic accounting critique, highlighting discrepancies between reported ROIC/IRR and actual outcomes, and questioning the motivations behind bailouts and subsequent capital raises.",
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      "text": "The ROIC turned out to be only 18% and IRR 3%. Of course, without the bailout led by Invesco, Napo would have been a complete loss.",
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      "text": "On June 1, 2017, BUR issued another retail bond of £175 million while showing the 2011 vintage with a ROIC of 75% and IRR of 23%, while knowing that:",
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      "text": "BUR launched another retail bond offering in January 2018, and raised £310 million in equity in 2018.",
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      "text": "In part based on its representation of the 2011 vintage’s performance, just months after issuing the 2013 annual report, BUR issued a retail bond of £90 million.",
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      "text": "At the end of 2017, with Jaguar shares having declined 76.2% from August 1, 2017, BUR moved Napo’s ROIC up to 195%.",
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      "text": "The ROIC turned out to be only 18% and IRR 3%. Of course, without the bailout led by Invesco, Napo would have been a complete loss. Had either a complete loss or 18% ROIC / 3% IRR been reflected in the 2013 or 2014 annual reports, we speculate that Messrs. Molot and Bogart would live in smaller houses than they do today.",
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      "text": "In 2016, BUR issued another retail bond of £100 million soon after issuing its 2015 annual report showing Napo with a ROIC of 189% and the 2011 vintage with a respective ROIC and IRR of 77% and 26%.",
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      "text": "The cash recovery was predicated on the successful completion of the acquisition of Napo, accompanied by an Invesco-led cash raise specifically to repay Burford, and",
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      "text": "The vast majority of the returns would be in the form of shares in a nanocap run by same person who founded the failed Napo.",
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      "text": "ROIC: 195%",
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      "text": "BUR raised many hundreds of millions of sterling in part based on its representation of the success of this case and the 2011 vintage. The fact that BUR quietly trued this disclosure up in 2019 does nothing to atone for the false impression of vintage success under which it raised those funds.",
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      "text": "BUR's supposed “entitlement” until the Invesco-led bailout in 2017. Yet, the case was booked in the 2013 annual report with a 113% ROIC and 104% IRR, which raised the vintage’s overall ROIC from an abysmal 2.9% to 53%, and produced a supposed 31% IRR.",
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      "text": "In terms of the motivations of Invesco and Burford when bailing out the Napo investment, we are incredulous that the parties were truly excited about owning Jaguar Health shares. It is questionable that they really perceived changing the corporate form would change the prospects of Napo’s drug, Fulyzaq®, which had so far done little but put Napo on the verge of bankruptcy. The fact that Jaguar’s share price went straight down from August 1, 2017 (the day after the",
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      "kind": "source-note",
      "text": "16 https://www.burfordcapital.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Final-Prospectus3.pdf\n17 Burford Capital 2016 Annual Report, p. 11.\n18 Equity raise source: Bloomberg.",
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