@EneNoob Das wird eine relevante Auswirkung haben, aber fรผr so einen groรen Assetmanager wie CVC, ist das nur ein kleiner Anteil am Gesamtportfolio. Ein Investment in CVC sollte man eher aus der Sicht machen ob sie als Plattform erfolgreich sein kรถnnen.
1/ FULL Post-mortem โ Why I sold $SLYG
After seeing your responses, receiving many questions, and reading some very well-done threads โ some challenging my points โ I decided to write up my main reason for selling Shelly. I also decided to respond to @ThomasTangMI 's thread.
Selling was not hard. What has been extremely difficult is letting the story go, after it being a core position of Arauca for so long. I think the best thing for me is to write in full what I saw in the annual report and public filings and what my rationale was.
An important disclaimer: there is only one point in this post-mortem that I did not know when I sold. I decided to add it anyway, as it raises an important set of questions. I learned it through @mavix_leon 's latest thread, and it relates to what was behind the BGN receivables, an aspect I was extremely curious about but did not know before. Mavix also subsequently reached out to me privately to clarify certain points from his thread โ I have incorporated both his public thread and his private clarification in Tweet 3, with full attribution and with the appropriate caveats. So, when you see me discussing that specifically, you should know I only learned it a few days ago. I knew about receivables booked in BGN of course โ but not what was behind them. Everything else comes from the official reports โ so nothing I post should be a surprise. It is all there. What I am sharing is how I read that information, and that is my entirely personal interpretation.
As I said previously, I am not responding to the company's FAQ. I have moved on. I do however raise many questions in this post-mortem โ but those are exclusively my honest questions. I have shared all of these points privately with some of you and have seen a range of interpretations, which has been a wonderful exchange. I decided to share it with everyone.
You might ask, given some negative reactions, why I do it. Well โ first, I learned how to use the block button. Second, I do it more for myself, to put an end to the story and express clearly, while it is still fresh, my exact thought process. Additionally, nothing that follows should be new to you: I have already sold, everything comes from the financial statements except the BGN receivables detail from Mavix, and I have incorporated some of the most frequent questions I have received โ so this also serves as a final reference document.
In this post-mortem I cover mostly reason number one: the lack of cash flow generation and the increase in receivables and why that is a problem for me. Almost all points relate to that. That is the bulk of why I exited Shelly. I am not covering every reason โ mostly reason number one.
One more thing before we start. I received a lot of pushbacks on my comments about the optics of the compensation package. I stand by them entirely, and I have dedicated a full section to explaining exactly why โ including how the package actually worked, because I think most of the criticism came from a misunderstanding of its mechanics. I will get to that in Tweet 6.
One clarification upfront, because it is the most common misreading of my position. My concern is not that Shelly burns cash โ high-growth companies burn cash and I accept that completely. I would have been comfortable with negative free cash flow if the cash were going into R&D, marketing, capex, or inventory. Those are investments you can evaluate. What makes Shelly different is that the cash is not going there. It is sitting in receivables. That distinction is the entire foundation of my decision.
One important point: my reasons for selling and my concerns are in many ways easy for the company to fix and demonstrate. Nothing more is needed than meaningful cash flow generation and a reduction in receivables over the course of the year. I am equally sure that this will be a catalyst for improved communication. I have said repeatedly that I am a Shelly fan โ of the products and of what the company has built. That cannot be taken away. But I am truly disappointed by the lack of cash flow and the working capital metrics and the facts for the investment definitely changed.
Important Disclosure: Neither Arauca Capital nor I, nor any closely related person, nor any firm that does business with me or my firms, has any position โ short or long โ in Shelly shares, to my knowledge. This post is therefore entirely informational. My intention is to show you how I came to this conclusion.
For reference, my position in Shelly was long-only for years. I never trimmed. I sold the full position following the Q4 2025 results, and that is that.
Please note that nothing in this thread can be considered investment advice, and this is not an investment recommendation. The thread is long and may contain mistakes โ if so, they are mine. Please verify everything independently and do not take anything I say below as fact. I hope to share my process, why I sold, and the questions that continue to dominate my thinking.
8 /END - Conclusion $SLYG
When I put everything together that I have described in this post-mortem, I had one central concern that I could not shake: whether the working capital metrics I was observing were consistent with a business collecting its revenue efficiently โ or whether something structural had changed in how the channel was being managed that was deferring cash collection in a way that the topline did not yet reflect.
I am not making an accusation. I am describing a question I could not answer. And the reason I could not answer it is that the metrics โ taken together โ did not give me enough comfort to hold, and the engagement I was hoping for did not close the gap. That is the honest summary of where I landed.
And I want to be precise about when everything changed for me. I had been asking questions about receivables and working capital since February 2024. I was watching. I was patient. I was willing to wait for improvement. What I was not prepared for was Q4 2025. In a single quarter: receivables grew at nearly three times the rate of revenue. A BGN 41.8 million concentration in Bulgarian lev appeared from nothing โ a figure that had been essentially zero for the entire prior year. The bank added inventory as collateral for the first time. The impairment provision grew tenfold. And a large management compensation package expired permanently on December 31, 2025 โ the same date every one of these metrics was at its most stressed. Q4 2025 was not a continuation of a trend I was monitoring. It was a step change. And it was that step change that made me sell.
The sell-through data โ activations โ does confirm product reached end customers, and I acknowledge that clearly. But sell-through and cash collection are separate questions. The first was answered. The second was not, at least not to my satisfaction.
When I raised my initial questions, I was hoping for specific, direct engagement that would help me test my concerns and โ ideally โ put them to rest. I want to be fair: I do not think the intention was ever to dismiss or avoid. But the answers I received, and what I heard on the earnings call, left me with more questions than I arrived with, not fewer. For an investor in the middle of trying to resolve a concern, that matters. Not as a criticism of management โ but as a signal that the picture was not yet complete enough for me to hold with conviction. The combination of the metrics and the open questions โ together is what prompted me to sell.
There is also a process point I want to make, because it explains something deeper about why I sold. My investment framework has one rule that becomes stricter as a company grows in market capitalisation: as the business gets bigger, it must get better across every key metric โ not just revenue, not just profit, but the full picture. Cash conversion sits at the very top of that list for me. A small company finding its footing can be forgiven for imperfect working capital. A company at Shelly's scale and ambition, in my view, cannot. The direction of cash conversion in 2025 was not better. It was materially worse. At that scale, that is not something I can set aside.
The concern I have described is one of the easiest concerns a company can disprove. Shelly does not need to change its business, its products, or its strategy. It simply needs to demonstrate, over the coming quarters, that 2026 growth was not built on the same working capital deterioration โ that the receivables are normalising, that cash is converting in a meaningful way, that the topline is being earned in cash and not just on paper. That demonstration, combined with full clarity and candour in investor communication, would render everything I have raised in this thread unfounded.
I have said many times that I am a Shelly fan โ of the products, the technology, and what this team has built. That has not changed. The coming quarters will show whether the cash flow generation matches the topline story. That answer belongs to the filings over the next 4 quarters.
Wishing the best to Shelly and to all remaining shareholders.
Disclosure stated at the beginning of the thread
My opinion on the European Commission's proposal for an "EU Inc":
We are getting the icing, without the cake.
We asked for structural reform, for a genuine 28th regime.
Draghi asked for a 28th regime. Letta asked for a 28th regime. The Council asked for a 28th regime.
We got 27 new national forms instead. Each in their local ecosystem, local courts, and only partial harmonization, with *some* genuinely appreciated goodies.
But I fear these goodies won't be consequential.
Because this was always about building something that is better than Delaware. If we can't manage that Europe's best and brightest will continue founding outside of Europe, will move elsewhere, take capital from elsewhere and create jobs and growth elsewhere.
Europe deserves better than this. And we frankly cannot allow unambition and political complexity to hold us back from building the Europe we need.
If the EU and all 27 member states cannot deliver a true EUโINC, then we might need to build a coalition of genuinely ambitious European countries that are actually serious about fixing Europe.
Why should a damn EU Court - that apparently is "too hard" to implement - keep us back from reaching global competitiveness and technological sovereignity in Europe? It shouldn't.
European founders, investors and everyone who cares about Europe need to step up now and lobby their national governments and MEPs for a real EUโINC.
Nobody else will do it for us. Clearly.
Watch Lambertus Robben of @EU_Made_Simple analyse the "EU Inc" proposal by the Commission below. This is spot on.
We can do better. For Europe. ๐ช๐บ๐ซก
@jptissot1 You did nothing wrong, the internet is full of people writing stupid stuff behind anonymity. You explained your thoughts well and raised important points. Donโt let these guys bother you to much and focus on quality exchange with the normal people. I highly appreciate your input!
Earlier today, @jptissot1, an investor I hold in high regard, announced that his fund has exited its entire position in Shelly Group. In the image below, Iโve shared my perspective on the primary driver behind the divestment.
Long $SLYG