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  "documentTitle": "Burford Capital (BUR)",
  "authorId": "51_Muddy_Waters",
  "authorName": "Carson C. Block",
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  "sourceTypeLabel": "Short seller",
  "presentationDate": "2019-08-16 00:00:00",
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  "notes": "This is a continuation page (Page 7 of 9) of a research note focusing on management credibility.",
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      "text": "This spontaneous and extreme negation suggests they may increase it more rapidly than they presently want to reveal.",
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      "text": "Management relies on convincing statements to give the impression that they have \"high standards and principals\" around governance and transparency, such as \"We are, after all, a firm run by lawyers.\" Yet, their behavior appears to demonstrate the opposite.",
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      "text": "Furthermore, they qualify that they have no \"current\" intention of raising capital and \"no plan to become a serial equity issuer.\" The temporal qualifier and extreme negation suggests that raising equity again in the near future is a real possibility.",
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      "text": "Finally, their evasion behavior around their sovereign wealth fund communications opens the possibility that this relationship has become strained. After avoiding the question once and being prompted to address it, the CEO tries to give the impression that no one has spoken to them by saying \"I think we have you know, at least I have largely been focused on public investors and on rebutting the various,\" but never denies that a conversation has taken place.",
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      "text": "Management's evasion and persuasion behavior in response to other questions about buybacks also suggests that they're highly unlikely. For example, they consistently refuse to answer what the likelihood or potential amount could be and make statements to justify not repurchasing shares.",
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      "text": "They exhibit evasion behavior on their leverage appetite and make the highly qualified statement, \"you would be very unlikely to see us overnight, going and exploding the leverage profile of this business.\" This spontaneous and extreme negation suggests they may increase it more rapidly than they presently want to reveal.",
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      "text": "They claim their governance is \"robust,\" but their statements about \"Board succession and structure\" being \"an active topic of discussion\" tacitly acknowledges that there's a need for improvement. However, their statement that they \"expect to refresh the board in the relatively near team\" is extremely vague and qualified. When asked for specifics in the call, their language is even more qualified when they acknowledge, \"The line in our report today was more about the prospect that, you know, in the in the relatively near term, we suspect, well, we believe that one of our existing directors is likely to retire from the board and be replaced.\" This is clearly less of a \"refresh\" than they were hoping investors",
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      "text": "“you would be very unlikely to see us overnight, going and exploding the leverage profile of this business.” — Burford Management; “I think we have you know, at least I have largely been focused on public investors and on rebutting the various,” — Burford CEO; “We are, after all, a firm run by lawyers.” — Burford Management; “The line in our report today was more about the prospect that, you know, in the in the relatively near term, we suspect, well, we believe that one of our existing directors is likely to retire from the board and be replaced.” — Burford Management",
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      "text": "QVERITY, INC.",
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      "text": "6. Governance and transparency.",
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