Monitise Plc (OTCMKTS:MONIF) Explodes Up The Charts

Monitise Plc (OTCMKTS:MONIF) is finally putting together a course of action for the turnaround we talked about in January. Monitise is in early talks to potentially sell its marketing content business, Markco Media, in a bid to transition to cloud-based services. Shares on the OTC markets closed up over 35% after Reuters reported the news.Shares of Monitise have struggled for quite some time. A series of management departures and revenue misses left many wondering if MONIF was a sinking ship. Visa announcing last summer that they would be selling off their stake in the company did not help. Add in a series of negative articles on Seeking Alpha and you get a depressing situation.Montise bills itself as the largest mobile money specialist in the world with a single-minded and realistic vision: to make money totally mobile across the globe. MONIF is working with over 300 of the world’s leading businesses and financial institutions across global territories to make the most of the opportunities this creates.The company offers a strong mobile banking platform through its Bank Anywhere, Pay Anyone, Buy Anything, and Engage Anytime services and has developed strong partnerships with Visa and MasterCard that connect it with millions of users around the world. Already 28 million consumers benefit from Monitise’s patented technology to ‘bank anywhere’, ‘pay anyone’ and ‘buy anything’, accounting for $71bn of payments, purchases and transfers annually.Monitise bought Markco Media, best known for being the parent company of coupon and deal site MyVoucherCodes.co.uk in 2014. With a sale of Markco Media, Montise will be entirely focused on its cloud-based business. Going forward the company will focus on Europe, the Middle East and North America. Monitise’s new cloud platform is at the core of its strategy. The platform provides ‘ready-made’ products (Software as a Service/SaaS) as well as a ‘build your own’ (Platform as a Service/PaaS) capability, with bank-grade security and compliance for financial institutions and beyond. This is complemented by a dedicated on-premise platform that supports businesses that want to leverage Monitise products behind their firewall, together with the digital agency based in London, Istanbul and San Francisco, and the London-based content business.Monitise’s cloud platform launched in April 2015. It is a private cloud running on IBM’s Bluemix scalable infrastructure. It provides API-based delivery of Monitise SaaS products, as well as through the Company’s new PaaS offering, giving financial institutions a secure environment where they or other fintech developers can develop and operate their own applications.A sale of Markco Media will also help shore up its financial position. Many investors have priced MONIF for bankruptcy and we felt back in January that a price below $.03 per share was unwarranted. We said that gross cash of £88.8m as of June 30, 2015 provided balance sheet strength to see Monitise through to break-even and beyond. While the company is currently burning cash, management forecasts that MONIF will see positive EBITDA starting this year. For this year, MONIF will most likely see no revenue growth. Operating costs are likely to decline on the back of layoffs, lower IT costs, and exiting non-core regions. MONIF expects to end 2016 with £45m in cash.We like the fact that Monitise is everwhere. Consumers can buy and sell online, pay bills, move money around, book tickets and accommodations, and perform everyday tasks all using Monitise technology. Monitise provides specialized technology and associated services that help clients, particularly financial institutions, deliver innovative digital experiences to their customers.Currently trading at a market cap of $95 million, we see Monitise continuing to trade higher. We think a sale of Markco Media will happen and the company will continue on its turnaround path. We believe that the low is in on the stock and that the worst is behind the company. We will be updating Insider Financial as soon as we know more. For continuing coverage on MONIF and our other hot stock picks, sign up for our free newsletter today and get our next hot stock pick!Disclosure: We have no position in MONIF and have not been compensated for this article.