Escrow Watch: it's going to be a slow couple of weeks

Escrow Watch is Stockhead’s fortnightly recap of the small cap companies releasing shares that have been locked away in escrow.

Escrow refers to shares that are held by early investors or directors, who are restrained from selling them for a year or two. The release of escrowed shares can have a big impact on a stock’s price. If the holders choose to take up their right to sell – the shares you own can fall.

Coming up, 10 small caps are set to release over 183 million shares between them.

Code	Company	Date of Release	Shares	% of company
APV	AppsVillage	28 January	1,829,439	2.39%
IMR	Imricor Medical Systems	29 January	917,655	0.01%
JAY	Jayride Group	29 January	22,184,259	21.78%
BC8	Black Cat Syndicate	30 January	24,788,267	29.44%
SZL	Sezzle	30 January	11,307,418	6.34%
ATU	Atrum Coal	1 February	57,142,858	11.94%
RML	Resolution Minerals	3 February	4,875,000	4.30%
EOF	Ecofibre	4 February	3,384,582	1.10%
RCL	Readcloud	7 February	43,574,909	44.50%
AX8	Accelerate Resources	14 February	13,125,000	24.10%

Among those not listed but due to release escrow notes in the coming month or so are Angel Seafood (ASX:AS1) and Simble Solutions (ASX:SIS) which listed two years ago, and Opticomm (ASX:OPC) which has a six-month post-listing moratorium over some shares lifting in February.

According to Bloomberg data, shares in a company named Wakenby were also supposed to come out of escrow next month.

However, it was delisted in early 2018 rather than revived, after a backdoor listing from an eastern goldfields explorer called Roman Kings fell through.

As discussed in the last Escrow Watch, ReadCloud’s (ASX:RCL) escrowed IPO shares are due out next week.

The educational software company had a stellar first five months on the market, before the bottom fell out of a run in August 2018.

ReadCloud still has the support of investors like Cyan Investment Management, but its shares have struggled for lift-off since 2018. In November the company said current users were double that of 12 months earlier, with the implication that revenue would follow.

It reported $575,000 in cash receipts in the December quarter, a seasonally quiet period for the company as the school year closes. Investors will be expecting bumper results from the March quarter, when school is in again.

Almost a third of Black Cat Syndicate’s (ASX:BC8) register is coming out of escrow as the company reaches the two year mark on the ASX.

It is preceding that event with good exploration news from the Bulong gold project, where it exhibited best-on-ground assay results ranging from 9.43 g/t to 21.38 g/t gold.

It’s the same deal for Jayride (ASX:JAY), which entered the ASX promising an airport shuttle booking platform.
As at the end of December it was making over $1m a quarter, still burning about the same, and with $4.5m in the kitty.