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@smallcap_stonks doing some research on Burford. Anything I should read to get background/insight into ETM and the claim? Thanks, would be greatly appreciated.

$ETM $ETM.AX I still stand by my statement of the 100 bagger potential here. What happened to the company was a total sham and they have a very solid claim backed by Burford. The real jüs would be the project is restarted at some point.

@EarningsB4Hugs Agree but perhaps YPF was the speculative piece and that’s not priced in now. I love how everyone is talking about the company in the past tense. Are you taking another look now?

Remember $BUR was a fintwit darling at one point of time. I could never press the trigger on it. Felt litigation financing has a speculative nature to it, so in turn I was speculating on litigation outcomes via a stock. Now I m seeing a lot “re-checking my thesis on Burford” again.

@insiwest @ToffCap if you're willing to believe their modeled returns, yes.

@ToffCap Are there any hopes left for it? 🫣

Burford $BUR has been one of our best investments. A 7-bagger in a couple of years, with very little downside vol. Thought we were pretty smart at the time, having done a massive amount of DD. Now I just believe we were mostly lucky.

@Broswar1 @siyul Agree here, if you assume full staffing and interest costs you have to assume they keep deploying into good deals. If they do and receive enough realizations to deploy $700M+ annually, the numbers look silly even if you assume they delever completely which is unrealistic.

@siyul You are comparing future opex obligations against portfolio that does not need opex(already had it opex costs when originating it). That future opex will be used to find new cases and should be measured against the capital available and the IRR of that capital.

$BUR: A top pushback on my recent cautious view is: “At a ~$1B market cap with $5.2B in future cash realizations, Burford is cheap.” I’ll walk through the bridge from $5.2B in gross realizations to the actual shareholder return. First, some background. Burford began featuring future cash realization, rather than commitment/deployment in 2025, a smart marketing shift, imo. But let us do the rough math: 1⃣✔️Using 85% historical ROIC, $5.2B gross realizations imply $2.4B net cash proceeds. 2⃣✔️~30-35% OpEx on net proceeds and ~10% tax, remaining ~$1.5B operating income. 3⃣✔️Modeling total 8Y (avg gross $600+Mn/year), subtracting $0.9Bn cumulative interest (8% IR on $1.5Bn net debt), cumulative net income ~$0.6Bn. 4⃣✔️apply 8% discount rate to ~$0.4B NPV of true shareholders' return. $5.2Bn to 0.4Bn Bridge. At a $1B+ market cap, does it still look cheap?

@siyul @karimyoussef Yeah, and the key is more realizations. They need to hit all-time levels over the next few years, which sounds aggressive but it'd be in line with their trajectory thus far.

@Spii75 @karimyoussef If you believe it will have a 5x larger portfolio, then absolutely it is a steal at today's price.

Burford $BUR "When a stock drops sharply, we face three choices: double down, hold, or fold. Smart decisions come from a disciplined process: staying engaged, removing ego/emotion, and thinking critically." Today, that process is being tested in real time, as Burford plunged 47% in a day after its $16Bn YPF claim reversal, ~70% below when I first wrote it a year ago. I break down how the reversal affects Burford’s three core assets: ✔️Burford-only portfolio, ✔️asset management platform ✔️PF claims I provide a Sum-Of-The-Parts estimate, my positioning plan, key headwinds, and what I’ll be watching closely. Link in the bio

@siyul @karimyoussef Agreed. The IRR scrape is huge at this scale and so they need debt to hit the 20% ROE target they talk about. The operating leverage would be superb with a 5x larger portfolio in the future though.

@Spii75 @karimyoussef You are right ofc it has value, what I mean is 25% is more a headline (like adjusted EBITDA), the real shareholder return, which is what carries real value, is much smaller, and more pronounced today. i lay that out in my writeup, a good portion b4 the paywall if interested.

@siyul @karimyoussef Agree OpEx is too high right now at current scale, but a 25% gross IRR absolutely carries value if they can scale the portfolio at those returns through 2030. Not sure what you mean by a shrinking asset size unless you're talking about YPF.

~25% gross IRR is a catchy headline, but it alone doesn't carry much value. Burford needs to battle a shrinking asset size, with an OpEx profile grown for a much larger footprint. A lot has to be given to restore its real profitability. I'm not sure it has either the incentive or the capability to do that.

@siyul @karimyoussef If they can keep deploying money at a ~25% gross IRR and scale the portfolio, the cash numbers start to look silly. If you believe returns are sustainable, this is a good entry point ex-YPF IMO. Not quite cheap enough to feel protected in a drawn out liquidation scenario though.

@karimyoussef I present my analysis/plan in the write-up, hopefully, that could help others be better informed to make their own choices.

@Broswar1 what do you think comes next? Seems like en banc and cert are both unlikely but given the remarkability of the situation, perhaps there's a much higher chance than normal?

The Second Circuit is applying the wrong Argentinian law—full stop. The tender was a PRIVATE, separate commercial obligation in the bylaws; under Argentina’s administrative law its breach didn’t impede the 2012 expropriation. Recasting it as sovereign act is indefensible. $BUR

The YPF decision is extremely concerning. It creates a regretable precedent: even where US courts have jurisdiction, contractual disputes against sovereign states can be displaced by framing them as “expropriation” $BUR

@PDuddumpudi Yeah they have a long runway. They made up 1/3 of all industry commitments in 2025 so you'd think they've benefitted from pricing power on recent deals. Could easily be better than historical but hard to bet on that after YPF loss. Seems management didn't see it coming either...

@Spii75 True, $1.5B of deployed cost is 4+ years old; at a 10.2% lifetime loss rate, most converts to cash. The $400M 2028 notes are a natural deleveraging event if repaid from accumulated cash. Time is on their side if performance is anywhere near historical.

Lot of “ $BUR is a zero” takes from ppl who haven’t opened a 10-K. $885M cash. $530M/yr cash receipts. No debt due until 2028. Incurrence-only covenants. No default. No acceleration. Management bought $4.3M with their own cash two weeks ago. 1.14x ex-YPF book. Full analysis below

@ShmuelLon Those more recent deals (deployed+committed) have to be nicely profitable to continue deploying into the landscape. They should intuitively be good deals but this all adds more leverage to the story. Cuts both ways.

@ShmuelLon I'm thinking more of the last few years' vintages which are mostly still active. They have $1.1B of unfunded commitments against $900M in liquidity. I'm effectively netting those out since they've only deployed 80% of commitments historically.

$BUR

@ShmuelLon yes which is the dilemma for me. Despite this setback BUR is still the market leader and did 1/3 of all commitments in 2025. They should be getting more favorable deal terms due with less competition, but hard to quantify. How much is that story worth against the wind-down case?

@Spii75 btw litigation financing has taken a big hit lately (LIT.L, and a british BK financing whose ticker i don't recall rn)

@ShmuelLon Yeah if YPF=0 the business is in a tough spot. If they can't harvest large realizations before 2028 and especially 2030, they'll have to delever rather than rollover notes and do new deals due to the issuance covenants.

@Spii75 You're right, not covenants only limitations on debt issuance, restricted payments, permitted investments. need to dig what that means but perhaps the first step would then be a dividend cut? also a risk to the whole business that relies on a steady input of new assets i think.

@ACapitalLP @gruust Source?

@gruust Smart money says $BUR is a 🍩

@Shrimp_a_Whales Burford made up nearly a third of all commitments in the industry based on the report. Seems like maybe their competitive advantages continue to solidify their position as other participants struggle to raise capital, or maybe I’m an idiot…

‘Big LitFi Report Is a Bit Skinnier This Year: Litigation Finance’ $BUR news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation-fin…

@SebastianMaril Thanks, Sebastian - this is good context and I very much enjoy reading your updates. Will the oral arguments for the four appeals still proceed in Mid-April, or will that court date be delayed?

[ENGLISH POST BELOW] 🛑Mi impresión sobre la decisión de la Corte de Apelaciones sobre suspender el discovery. Primero, contexto: - Existen 5 apelaciones simultáneas. Cuatro de ellas, hace dos semanas las consolidaron bajo el mismo panel de jueces. La apelación primaria, sigue con otro panel. Este fue la primer señal de que la Corte de Apelaciones buscaba simplificar el proceso judicial. Lo escribí en un post. - Todas las apelaciones excepto la primaria, son periféricas o secundarias. Todas dependen de la primaria. -Hoy el panel de jueces de las apelaciones secundarias, las suspendió (no canceló) a la espera que la primaria salga. Es decir, no hay necesidad que las apelaciones secundarias salgan antes que la primaria. - Mi única lectura: la decisión que todo estamos esperando, va a salir antes de lo que esperábamos. Los jueves del panel de las apelaciones secundarias hoy dijeron no vamos a empezar a decidir cuatro apelaciones si estas dependen de otra decisión que puede salir en cualquier momento. 🛑 My take on the Court of Appeals’ decision to stay discovery. First, some context: •There are five parallel appeals. Two weeks ago, four of them were consolidated under the same panel of judges. The primary appeal remains before a separate panel. This was the first signal that the Court was looking to streamline the process — I flagged this in a previous post. •All appeals, except the primary one, are peripheral or secondary. They all depend on the outcome of the primary appeal. •Today, the panel overseeing the secondary appeals decided to stay them (not dismiss them) pending the resolution of the primary appeal. In other words, there is no need for the secondary appeals to be decided before the main one. •My only takeaway: the decision everyone is waiting for may come sooner than expected. The judges handling the secondary appeals are effectively saying: we won’t start ruling on four appeals that hinge on another decision that could be issued at any moment.