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Birddog Technology Ltd (ASX:BDT) has confirmed it’s de-listing off the ASX after listing back in December of 2021 at 75cps – a price to which it never returned.
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Today, the stock is worth 4.6cps, and the relatively brief history of Birddog is worth considering.
Perhaps the greatest sign of all that investors back the decision is the announcement pushed the illiquid microcap up nearly +50% (on $54K worth of trades), suggesting bad news can be good news when things get bad enough.
But a look at the company’s 5Y chart shows a pretty clear rationale, in itself, for why the stock has arrived at the decision to de-list.
So what went wrong for the once-seemingly-promising company?
Worth considering is Birddog Technology’s value proposition was always its tech offering for Television stations. It designed hardware and software ultimately marketed as “broadcast-quality video technology.”
It doesn’t take any level of serious expertise, however, to raise a pretty good observation in retort: TV has been dying for decades.
And in 2022, ad markets everywhere were struggling with COVID inflationary pressures – it was one of the most hard-hit sectors.
And, ad markets are pretty important for the TV industry’s overall health.
Then one is also surely left to think about the rise of Netflix, Stan, Amazon Prime, and everything else in that space. As well as a shift to short-form video content on social media platforms. And the more obvious global rise of the smartphone.
The more you start thinking, the less Birddog’s listing ever really made much sense.
To me, at least, it looks like Birddog’s only real upside catalyst was timing: Perhaps, with everyone locked indoors, everybody would be watching more TV. And that may be true, but it mightn’t necessarily be free-to-air programming. Nor paid.
According to a December 2023 report from the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), “78% of [surveyed] adults now own a smart TV.”
But Smart TVs are different from normal TVs in one key way: They generally have Netflix apps pre-built-in. This finance journalist can attest to owning one himself, and I usually use it to watch Bloomberg or YouTube.
Unless Heartbreak High is on ABC Entertains or the footy is on, I hardly use it. That’s just anecdata, true, but I feel I’m probably part of a much larger cohort there.
So, at the end of the day, it’s perhaps for the best Birddog gave it a shot and hung on while it could justify doing so, but after a brief run, it’s now hanging up its boots.
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From here, it appears unable to do anything, really, but fall into penny-stock-dom.
That’s assuming it couldn’t have pulled off a complete 180 pivot into… what, data centres?
BDT last treaded at 4.6cps.
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