Anna Burton quits TechStacked, formerly Xinja
The company formerly known as Xinja Bank Limited (ACN 618 937 054) that now trades as “TechStacked” has suffered a major blow to its effort of becoming an investment platform provider after the resignation of chief executive, Anna Burton.
The departure of the ex-McKinsey consultant has compounded the uncertainty surrounding TechStacked’s future given that the company only had $A1.4 million in cash at the end of June and has not undertaken a capital raising since then.
Burton’s resignation was announced to shareholders in an email from the company’s board of directors that continues to be chaired by Lindley Edwards.
In its email the board conveyed a determination to rebuild the company and to appoint an experienced replacement for Burton.
“We are writing to advise that Anna Burton, the current Chief Executive Officer has resigned and that the board of ACN 618 937 054 is currently in the process of recruiting for a new CEO,” the board said in the email.
“The board is focused on finding a suitable experienced replacement that can continue the work that Anna has undertaken in building a B2B financial services business and execute on the technology deployment and business channel strategies.”
Since relinquishing its banking licence in February 2021, the Xinja board has been trying to refashion the business as a specialist technology provider to distributors of retail wealth and investment products.
Soon after the banking dream crumbled in 2020, the company signalled it also wanted to be a service provider to emerging digital banks but the business case for that has evaporated.
Financial accounts lodged with regulators show that the company’s proprietary banking software - which previously had a carrying value of $A 5.4 million - had become fully impaired in June.
“Following the cessation of the Group’s banking activities, it was determined that the carrying value of the banking software was no longer recoverable,” the board revealed in notes to the 2021 accounts.
“During the financial year ended 30 June 2021, the banking software which had a carrying value of $5,466,521 was impaired in full.”
Burton’s departure comes only four months after she told shareholders in the annual report that the company’s new business was “taking shape”.
“TechStacked focuses on providing technology solutions together with innovative product offerings and user experiences to make investing simple, efficient and profitable for our partners and their customers,” Burton told shareholders in November.
“To deliver this, we are leveraging the technology created in the former bank business, whilst extending it to be scalable and flexible in order to support numerous partners, Business to Business (‘B2B’) and Business to Consumer (‘B2C’) models.
“The remaining capital has been carefully managed to help enable the pivot, both by managing expenditure where possible and by bringing in only a limited number of staff, each with a deep area of expertise in their designated role.
“Whilst the team is small there is no doubt as to the commitment of our people and I am proud to continue to be working with exceptional engineers and developers who built the Xinja bank and investment technology.”
The company posted a net loss from discontinued operations of $A 31.5 million in the twelve months to the end of June last year.
The loss from continuing operations was $393,000.
Auditor Wali Aziz from Walker Wayland noted in his audit statement that the company’s ability to continue as a going concern was dependent on generating revenue from investment platform software.
The group generated no revenue, according to the 2021 profit and loss statement.