Scentrics is still worth half a billion quid, and other fiction

Suppose that you were a UK company with a real valuation of £500M. Would you - or indeed, your shareholders - tolerate you teetering on the edge of being de-listed as a UK company?

If your company name is Scentrics, it appears that you would:

Date: 04/06/2019
Ref: DEF6/06539484

Companies Act 2006 (Section 1000(3))

The Registrar of Companies gives notice that, unless cause is shown to the contrary, at the expiration of 2 months from the above date the name of
SCENTRICS INFORMATION SECURITY TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
will be struck off the register and the company will be dissolved

Apparently Scentrics, as a nominal £500M valuation company, finds it too expensive to employ a £20K/year admin to ensure that their basic legal obligations to their national legal authority are covered.

But they are totally still worth half a billion quid, if you're a prospective investor. Swear it, cross my heart.

Scentrics did actually fix the problem - at least, for now:

Date: 06/07/2019

Cause has been shown why the above company should not be struck off the register and accordingly the Registrar is taking no further action under section 1000 of the Companies Act 2006 pursuant to the Notice dated 03/07/2019

Presumably, the previous notice scared the cr*p out of the Scentrics directors and got them to scramble to address the cause of the proposed strike-off. I'd give a good few quid to know that cause, by the way.

The Scentrics accounts for year end June 2018 still assert that Scentrics is worth a bit short of half a billion quid, but the directors certainly aren't acting like this is actually true; per the doctrine of revealed preference, one is left with the conclusion that those owning the shares believe that it's worth, on the balance of probabilities, only a small multiple of the employment costs of a part-time admin assistant with UK company law knowledge.

Sure, it's totally worth £500M. Practically all of its assets are intangible, it has £90M of liabilities, and no-one has taken a good hard look at its accounts. I have £100 that says it will not have more than £10K of tangible assets in 5 years time. Anyone like to take the other side of that bet?