Friday High Five – why we don’t take ‘undisclosed’ for an answer

Eagle eyed readers may have noticed that I’ve banned the word “delighted” from TheBusinessDesk.com.

Not only that, but any sentence that includes that word is also taken out of any quote sent to us. It always improves the quote, by the way.

This week, however, there were other words that popped up even more.

They were: “difficult”, “challenging”, “weakness” and “subdued”.

Another word I wish I could ban would be “undisclosed”.

Why are people so shy about saying how much they bought, or sold, a business for?

Elsewhere this week there’s been some frantic debate and hustling over how much was paid for two decent regional tech businesses which were acquired by hungry American software companies.

At first sight AppLearn, bought by Nexthink, was a loss making cash burner, but chief executive Andrew Avanessian insisted to me it was a major North West tech success story. “We have created a product led SaaS company worthy of being acquired,” he said.

Though it depends on the class of shares you held whether you see a meaningful chunk of the eventual valuation in the ballpark of $50m.

Much of the same can be read into the purchase of Manchester-based software-as-a-service company, Membr, which another US-headquartered group, Xplor Technologies were also coy about the price paid.

There was no such shyness in the publicly quoted vehicle Location Sciences Group (LSG), which completed a reverse takeover of Sorted Group.

Me and Neil Hodgson both had to triple check that the amount paid wasn’t missing an m at the end of the stated acquisition price of just £66.73.

But at least it was disclosed.

I’m hoping that there will be full disclosure of strategy, tactics and prices paid at our Rainmakers conference on the 20th of March.

There’s a good buzz about the event and we’re happy with how things are shaping up. Delighted, in fact.

Have a great weekend.