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  "documentTitle": "Burford Capital (BUR)",
  "authorId": "51_Muddy_Waters",
  "authorName": "Carson Block",
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  "sourceTypeSlug": "short_seller",
  "sourceTypeLabel": "Short seller",
  "presentationDate": "2020-05-12 00:00:00",
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  "notes": "The slide uses aggressive, accusatory language ('bullshit', 'manipulated', 'hiding the ball') to frame the financial analysis.",
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      "kind": "callout",
      "text": "Burford's 2019 financials use reclassification, redefinition to inflate cash receipts, operating profit, and to otherwise present a misleading picture of the business.",
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      "text": "cash receipts: -11.8%",
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      "text": "Burford's 2019 financials use reclassification, redefinition to inflate cash receipts, operating profit, and to otherwise present a misleading picture of the business. Cutting through the new bullshit, we adjust Burford's cash receipts to show a YoY decline of -11.8%. We also adjust reported 2019 operating profit lower by approximately -8%. Burford manipulated its 2019 vintage “Direct” return recoveries up 13x by reclassifying a complex strategy case into Direct – after the end of the fiscal year. In 2019, Burford changed its definitions of deployments and realizations by including hedging in them for the first time. Removing this misleading padding (i.e., using the previous definition), balance sheet deployments actually declined in 2019 by -35.5%, rather than the claimed -30.6%. Realizations, as previously defined, show a decrease -22.9%, versus the reported -14.2%. We wonder whether all this goalpost movement was the real reason Burford delayed releasing its 2019 accounts.",
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      "text": "Our adjustments show that Burford's cash receipts declined in 2019 by -11.8%. Burford uses changed segment reporting to obscure that in 2019, its cash returns were poor, while it also reclassified certain investments to provide the appearance of growth in a stagnant portfolio. By constantly changing its segment reporting, Burford is hiding the ball from investors and making it difficult to do true apples-to-apples comparisons between periods. Over the past three years, Burford's investment-related balance sheet line items have gone from four to six to three, bringing with them numerous adjustments:",
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      "text": "Page 2 of 10",
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      "kind": "title",
      "text": "Burford: Husbanding Liquidity, Wife-ing Financials",
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      "kind": "title",
      "text": "New Reclassifications Inflate Cash Metrics and 2019 Vintage Recoveries",
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