made more valuable by the rise of AI<\/a> \u2014 suffering big share price hits.<\/p>\nSo is Pinewood about to be run off the road? That seems doubtful, at least in the short term. Pinewood\u2019s last set of annual results, for 2024, points to the stickiness of its customer-base: its total users rose by 6.3 per cent to 35,200 and churn among existing clients was only 1.1 per cent. Recurring revenues that year also accounted for 86.5 per cent of the \u00a331.2 million total.<\/p>\n
This reflects the fact that its software is typically deeply embedded within a dealership\u2019s business, meaning it would probably take a great effort for a customer to extricate itself. As an incumbent player, Pinewood has also amassed the industry relationships and datasets that would give it an advantage over an outsider seeking to disrupt its market.<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s the fact that, as its rebrand suggests, Pinewood is developing its own AI offering, having last year spent $42 million acquiring Seez, a Dubai-based start-up behind several AI-powered tools for car dealers including a chatbot tailored for the motor industry. <\/p>\n
Still, it\u2019s no wonder Apax has walked away, what with the current turbulence in software stocks. Under City rules, the private equity firm is now barred from making a bid for six months, unless certain conditions are met. Perhaps by then it will be clearer whether the \u201cSaaS-pocalypse\u201d, as the AI-fuelled sell-off in software stocks has been dubbed by traders, really is coming for companies like Pinewood.<\/p>\n
A winning bet<\/p>\n
Have bosses at Plus500 called the top for shares of the financial betting company? <\/p>\n
Last week, the stock, which has been on a tear, reached a record high of \u00a349.34. Now, David Zruia, its chief executive, Elad Even-Chen, the finance chief, and Nir Zatz, its marketing head, are together offloading 1.5 million shares, which were worth a combined \u00a370.7 million at last night\u2019s closing price.<\/p>\n
The disposal of 2.14 per cent of the FTSE 250 business is notable not just because it comes so soon after the stock\u2019s peak, but also because it\u2019s the first time the trio have cut their stakes since Plus500\u2019s initial public offering 13 years ago, when its shares made their debut at 115p apiece.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re selling now \u201cfor personal financial and tax planning purposes\u201d, Plus500 said, and the trio will be left holding a combined stake of 3.89 per cent. They\u2019ve also agreed not to sell further shares for a year.<\/p>\n
There have been plenty of winners from the Plus500 story. Even before the share sale, they included Zruia and Even-Chen, who receive generous pay packages from the business, despite frequent revolts from shareholders<\/a> against Plus500\u2019s executive remuneration plans. In 2024, they each earned about $5 million.<\/p>\nPlus500 has also handed back about $2.9 billion to stock market investors through dividends and share buybacks since its IPO. <\/p>\n
The losers? The 76 per cent of retail investors who, according to the warning on Plus500\u2019s website, lose money trading its high risk contracts-for-difference.<\/p>\n
benjamin.martin@thetimes.co.uk<\/p>\n
Alistair Osborne is away<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It turns out that even going as far as to shove \u201cAI\u201d into your company name is not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[345,343,344,85,46,125],"class_list":["post-295476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}