Has Brave Bison Turned A Corner?
A bison on a corner… perfect
Over the last 10-ish years, Brave Bison has had more CEOs than I’ve had social occasions in the past godforsaken year.
That is to say, lots of the former, little of the latter.
As one of the UK’s largest social video groups, Brave Bison has, in one guise or another, been around for nearly 11 years now, having begun its life as Rightster.
So, how have they fared and are they on the up?
Founded in May 2011 by serial-entrepreneurs Charlie Muirhead and Tabitha Goldstaub, Rightster provided a rights management service (rightster, get it?) through its proprietary platform, as well as providing audience development and YouTube and Facebook management services.
Muirhead had noticed the fragmentation in the online video market and set about creating a single technology platform for media companies to reach more audiences, monetise their content and the like. At the time, he said, “It’s hard to get your content in front of the right audience, it’s hard to build a loyal following around your content, and selling advertising is a challenge in its own right.”
Within that first year, monthly video views of Rightster's clients - such as London Fashion Week, ITN Productions and The Guardian - grew from approximately one million views per month to 100 million per month.
The idea behind Rightster’s platform paid off in spades; in November 2013, Rightster raised over £22 million through an IPO, making it the first YouTube MCN to go public.
Muirhead and Goldstaub used that money to make some acquisitions, one of which was a fellow MCN, Base79, run by Ashley MacKenzie, the son of Kelvin MacKenzie, former editor of The Sun. Ashley sold his company to Rightster in 2014 for a tidy £50 million of which he walked away with £7 million.
Just a matter of months later, in January 2015, Muirhead stepped down as CEO and was succeeded by Patrick Walker.
(Muirhead and Goldstaub went on to found CognitionX, the company behind the massive annual AI conference, CogX)
Years: 3.5
CEOs: 1
Walker had the right background: he’d been senior director of YouTube EMEA for more than six years before landing the role of chief content officer at MacKenzie’s Base 79, and then, after the Rightster acquisition, became chief commercial officer at Rightster.
Alas, just 10 months later, in October 2015, MacKenzies junior and senior were still on the scene and joined forces to oust Rightster’s board of directors.
Walker was asked to step down less than a year into his role as CEO and take on a non-executive role instead. Three members of the board were also asked to leave.
Years: 4.5
CEOs: 2
(side note: you’ll notice that ‘months’ is the prevalent timescale regarding key moments in Brave Bison’s storied existence)
A new management team was installed, said to be "supported by the major shareholders", and Ashley MacKenzie was proposed as the new CEO.
The investors had apparently taken action after they saw the company’s share price plummet from 50p to around 9p, a source close to the matter said.
Once the dust had settled following Rightster’s leadership upheaval, a £10 million investment raise swiftly followed in January 2016, and in May it was announced that Rightster was to be transformed.
The company was relaunched under the name Brave Bison and it would evolve from a third-party technology provider to a social video company. The decision was made that the company would be better off embarking on capturing advertising spend and using its skills in online video content, video creator partnerships and audience generation.
So, after a wobble in 2015, Brave Bison… bravely re-established itself in 2016 but the board jitters soon returned. By January 2017 (see? months) a showdown loomed with investors.
Ashley MacKenzie had suddenly quit as CEO, apparently having had a string of disputes with Sir Robin Miller, the company chairman.
Years: 5.5
CEOs: 3
(It’s always worth bearing in mind that there were committed, hardworking folk busily toiling away on the company’s day-to-day operations while all the board-level jiggery pokery was going on)
MacKenzie senior subsequently launched a bid to remove the board, looking for support among fellow shareholders and replace Sir Robin with his son as executive chairman.
But by June, it appeared the MacKenzies had failed in their bid to oust Sir Robin (he eventually decided to step down at the end of 2019).
In the intervening months, Kevin Deeley, CFO and COO of the company, had been handling chief executive duties until the situation was resolved. He stood down in July and, in August, Clare Hungate was announced as the new CEO.
Years: 6
CEOs: 3.5
Like Walker, Hungate had the right background: she’d been MD at Wall to Wall Media and, having negotiated its acquisition by Shed Media, became Shed’s COO before moving on to work as MD/CEO for Warner Bros UK’s TV Production arm.
Throughout 2018, the hard work was put in to turn this Brave Bison around. In September, the company won big. It struck a landmark deal with mega Chinese tech conglomerate, Tencent, agreeing to provide it with content and thereby gaining access to over 1.5 billion Chinese viewers. The deal was one of the first for a British company to provide content to a Chinese service.
In March 2019, Brave Bison’s financial results showed the company had increased revenue to £21.2 million in 2018 and cut losses before tax from £17.2 million to just £0.1 million.
So things were looking good for Hungate, right? Wrong.
The very next month, Hungate was removed as CEO and swiftly replaced by an ex-Google executive, Kate Burns. (Hungate has, among other things, gone on to join the advisory board of the newly launched TV content aggregator app, Must TV.)
Years: 8
CEOs: 4.5
Unfortunately for Kate Burns, her hiring was accompanied by a considerable shock to the business. The company's four largest Facebook accounts (lifestyle pages VTRND and Bluntly, arts and crafts page Supercrafty and video content publisher Daily Viral Stories) were demonetised following Facebook’s new content policy. As such, no advertising was allowed on the pages.
The company rebranded three of the pages so that advertising could begin again, but the company warned that it was “taking much longer than expected for the pages that were demonetised to grow their reach and views”.
“The returns over the last half decade have been stomach churning. Like a ship taking on water, the share price has sunk 90% in that time.”
Two months later, in June 2019, a digital experience agency called Tangent, headed up by 27 year-old Oli Green, came onto the scene. Seemingly undeterred by the demonetisation disaster, Tangent acquired a 19% stake in Brave Bison.
As it turned out, 2019 appeared to be somewhat of a baptism of fire for both Kate Burns and the new shareholders, Tangent.
In November the company’s shares plunged as it warned that it expected the year’s results to be “significantly below” market expectations, as a result of Facebook de-monetising some of its largest pages in April.
Nevertheless, Brave Bison, which now describes itself as a ‘social video group, specialising in cross-platform video content,’ did manage to achieve 30% growth in non-Facebook revenues during the year from branded content, YouTube and Snapchat. Burns explained that the company’s previous “over reliance on Facebook” led it to invest in more original production across platforms.
Following those November results, it was then that Ashley MacKenzie’s board-nemesis, Sir Robin Miller, took the decision to step down at the end of the year.
The next month, in January 2020, Tangent’s Oli Green joined the board as a non-executive director and Interim Chairman while retaining all his responsibilities at Tangent.
At 27 years old, Green had become one of the youngest directors of a UK-quoted company. And Tangent was now Brave Bison’s largest shareholder, owning just over 27% of the issued share capital.
At the time, Kate Burns said Oli “brings valuable strategic input and a powerful network of potential partners to Brave Bison and the executive team. We are thrilled to have him join the board."
In April, with Covid-19 now in full swing, the company bought recently defunct The Hook*, a rival social media publisher, out of administration for £150,000. Green said The Hook will form “an integral part” of the group’s social-first publishing strategy and that “we are confident that the acquisition price represents good value for shareholders.”
By May, Green moved up a notch from Interim Chairman and was announced as Brave Bison’s Non-Executive Chairman. To which Kate Burns said, “I am thrilled to have both Oliver and Philippa [the new CFO] joining the team to undertake permanent roles. [...] I am excited for the Company to benefit from their valuable strategic insight.”
Unfortunately for Kate Burns (excuse the repetition), their ‘valuable strategic insight’ was to axe her the very next month.
Years: 9
CEOs: 5.5
This opened the way for Green to take on the roles of chief executive and executive chairman.
As Green took the reins of Brave Bison, the company also reported its full 2019 financial results. It reported that it had seen a busy 2019 and positive momentum in 2020 despite challenges posed to the group as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
However, the release of the financial results also led to a stinging critique of Brave Bison by Simply Wall St, an investment analysis firm.
‘While it may not be enough for some shareholders,’ Simply Wall St said, ‘we think it is good to see the Brave Bison Group plc share price up 18% in a single quarter. But that doesn't change the fact that the returns over the last half decade have been stomach churning. Like a ship taking on water, the share price has sunk 90% in that time. It's true that the recent bounce could signal the company is turning over a new leaf, but we are not so sure.’
Simply Wall St advised potential investors that Brave Bison was unprofitable and not forecast to become profitable over the next 3 years.
Despite that withering analysis, Brave Bison saw its shares rise a few months later in December after the company signed a deal with Veritone to make its content available via the AI company's portal.
In January this year, the company reported that while revenue is set to rise by 7% year-on-year to £7.2 million, for 2020 as a whole the company expects gross profit to be around £3.9 million, a 25% drop from the year before.
Indeed, despite continued expectations of an annual decline in profit and revenue, shares rose again in January following a strong performance in the second half of 2020.
So, has Brave Bison turned a corner?
For the sake of its staff and their jobs, one can only hope that it’s a big fat Yes - especially after so many leadership changes.
On average, there’s been a new CEO for roughly every 18 months of the company’s existence. As for the results, like they say; look after the people and the numbers will look after themselves.
For his part, Green put a, er, brave face on it and said, "Brave Bison is in a stronger position heading into 2021 than it has been in previous years. [...] Our outlook is cautious given the material uncertainty presented by the fallout from the pandemic, but our strong balance sheet will allow us to weather the storm and capitalise on potential opportunities.”
Though it’s not yet been a year, Mr Green has figured out that to improve one’s chances of staying on as CEO at Brave Bison you need a considerable stake in the business and, as MacKenzie junior belatedly discovered, make friends with the board.
Years: 10.5
CEOs: 6.5
*Full disclosure - the author worked at The Hook until it went into administration.