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Morning Yanis,
"Ofcourse it wasn’t overly positive since there is no profit yet. They are still loosing money yes, they chose to be loosing, remember the 2021 investor webinar?"
Oh yes, I remember that very well.... that was also a very red flag. It was difficult for me to square that statement with a company that had never made money previously and that the market was keen to see if they had done it and apparenttly thay could bur decided not to....
Yeah... that didn't fly for me. I just didn't believe it. So that's why I came to the conclusion that they HAD to go into France while they had the money. It looked last ditch to me at the time.
But when you say "Anyway, hopefully for everybody’s sake,, this disappointment will change to delight by EVE finding a buyer willing to pay a good price. Is possible, fingers crossed."
I could not agree more.
Wyn, you read it as “… this is slow and we are still losing money..." and to you it wasn’t overly positive?
Ofcourse it wasn’t overly positive since there is no profit yet. They are still loosing money yes, they chose to be loosing, remember the 2021 investor webinar?
But, as Jack pointed out “This is the third year of consecutive revenue growth in the UK&I market, demonstrating clearly that the benefits of the rebuild strategy continue to deliver and that the recovery is built on sustainable foundations”
Not only they were growing revenues but as they said in 2021 … were going to reach sustainable profitability in 2022.
There is no question about it, their statements on growth and profitability did not come to pass. Instead, we are now facing an uncertain FSP.
One invests in developing companies for the potential growth and maximum returns. Going in early before profitability you can earn a lot more bags for your money than waiting for success (profitability) when the SP will be much higher.
In 2021 EVE looked that it had a bright future, at one stage the cash in hand went up. It all looked and sounded very positive.
A lot of us fell for it. DGU needs a bit more time to come in terms with that fact that what CC & TP promised did not materialise and learn from it.
Anyway, hopefully for everybody’s sake,, this disappointment will change to delight by EVE finding a buyer willing to pay a good price. Is possible, fingers crossed.
Just taking this opportunity to say a big ‘thank you’ to all the fellow EVE shareholders that I feel some emphatic support from.
It’s tough to know what is the best thing to do now.
I am sure it was Jack. Overheads had been reduced, sales were increasing, profit margins sustainable, even with discount. Basically it was on track. But the key there is "on track". It did not mean they were there yet, simply it was still progressing to plan.
I heard, " ...this is slow and we are still losing money..." So , to me it was not overly positive. Others here took a different view.
And to be fair, I think there is not enough consideration to the upset the Russian/Ukranian has caused companies incl EVE. (remember, forget the politics, but it was to be a 5 day war and most expected the Russians to walk in and it all be over very quickly so any spike would be very short lived.)
Wyn as late as End of Jan 22 this was being spouted:
“This is the third year of consecutive revenue growth in the UK&I market, demonstrating clearly that the benefits of the rebuild strategy continue to deliver and that the recovery is built on sustainable foundations.”
Sustainable- really?
I Know Yanis, but I I don't know how else to try to get through to DGU after all these weeks and months. He admits to being a novice which is fine because we all were once but he seems reluctant to face the reality of his actions.
I doubt (without painstakingly going through every word CC has uttered), that there has been anything misleading. There was a time when she was optimistic, but otherwise I have never read anything which made me think anything was remotely nailed on.
I'm not sure aim is the jungle rather that it deals more with small companies with on the face of it, great potential. This attracts emotionally susceptible investors who think they will get rich quick and hear and read what they want. And as a result over extend themselves.
Wyn, you been very harsh on DGU. I fully agree with Jack, the BOD has performed badly, misled? CC & TP gone from sustainable profitability in 2022 (choosing to be loss making in 2021) … to break even in 2022 (and only for UK & I) … to now up for sale and very little cash left. I too added substantially back in 2021 when they chose to be loss making …
Am I now annoyed? Yes, more so with myself now than with Eve though, will not fall for it again.
When the CEO promises richness and throws up numbers and graphs a lot of investors/traders fall for it, not just me and DGU. Is a pity this is AIM and not a larger company on the main market as it may have led to a class action lawsuit.
And btw Jack is not just retail companies, oil exploration companies too. One of them said the train was about to leave the station, shareholders will be holidaying in the Bahamas … the SP wend from under a penny to double digit and now sits at less that 0.1p. A lot of people got burned on this one. AIM is a jungle.
Wyn agree there were clues but clues don’t mean bod are not accountable for this monstrosity.
There is argument that retail investors shouldn’t have access to AIM due to risks/lack of governance and only HNW/Soph investors should use it. I tend to agree as the financial and psychological harm to the investor can be life changing.
Until that happens I think these CEO’s should be accountable if they knowingly mislead. It’s too easy to start blaming the investor for greed or lack of experience. Before you know it these BOD’s will have carte Blanche.
Hold em more accountable I say, they are happy to take the big wages and the perks and in some cases options etc.
"Should one sell in and buy what?"
I only just noticed that DGU.
This is not advice but an example of my thinking for a longer term hold as you were happy to hold EVE for some years.
WOSG: Its retail (which is bad right now) but they make profits, have very little debt, sell in-demand, luxury items so more or less recession proof, in a recovering market (lots of airport concessions) and a global expansion that has hardly started. The recent high was 1518p with a more recent low of 746p.
They look to have the potential to challenge the ATH in the next 12 months and go on from there if expansion and profits continue on their path and so far and there is no reason I can see why they wont. I think a divi cant be far off which in turn will fuel greater SP appreciation.
So I like a 5 year view on this one.
Maybe Jack, but I have to say I think there were some pretty obvious clues at the time in CC's pronouncements.
BE (not counting overheads), was just a spun way of saying still losing money. Never over egging the results (which at the time many here thought was refreshing), was in fact confirming progress was slow and small, which in turn would mean not much would need to happen to reverse all the progress.
And this was on the backdrop of having never made money and although I hark on about it now (and at the time I did too), was that it was not proven that there was a successful business model available for CC to copy or refer back to.
I don’t have any angst having sold out around 3 but I agree with DGU that investors have been misinformed and not given a true picture.
I also agree with Wyn that all bod’s have a duty to existing holders to put on the best face possible but at what at point is a line crossed?
Choosing to be loss making? Really?
On track to break even? really?
Some say that CC was doing a good job at one point increasing turnover. With millions in digital marketing budget and an obvious focus on turnover at the expense of profit what metric suggests she was doing well?
Her own BS words that “we will break even this year” honest guv?
DGU is obvs a bit inexperienced and has learned the very hard way about the need to understand what is being spun by the co and what Is actually fact but let’s not blame DGU for expecting more from the so called experts.
All that does if give CC an even easier ride that the one she’s had. Disgraceful management imo.
DGU, I don't think anyone here with their best intentions is going to change your mind.
Most of us have experienced before what for you seems your first time. Things go wrong.
As a result we are all trying to pass on tips to help you not make the same mistake again.
To be harsh:
No one told you or forced you to buy EVE stock. There were and are, 100's of other companies available for you to buy into instead of EVE.
You chose EVE out of Greed. You thought you would make more money in EVE's potential stock appreciation then other companies.
You were so greedy that you spent (or invested if it makes you feel better), so much, that a failure on this scale has hurt you emotionally and financially.
So, you over bought into a company that had never made a profit, had cash raises previously but was going to have one more go with limited (and £8m is very limited) funds when historically looking at their annual losses and cash burn.
I would hope you at least recognised how precarious and high risk the company was when you first bought.
Stop harking on to what was said by the BoD. I have explained why they have to accentuate the positive and downplay the negative, they are forced to do that, they have no choice. And that goes for every single BoD in every company reporting. Learn to read through RNS and reports.
And the big one. Don't spend (or invest), more money than you can comfortably afford to lose.
If you had a total investment here of £100 would you care that you may have lost 80% of of it?
You would still presumably be a bit peeved that you got it wrong, but you could objectively stand back and see where it went wrong and what criteria you use to pick stocks and can be improved.
All of your angst here is of your own making.
Stop trying to justify your mistakes on the perceived errors of the EVE BoD. You actually have no idea how hard they have worked or how well run they have actually been and that it could have just been rotten luck that there was an explosion of costs at just the wrong time. Who knows? Or maybe they are just crap, but you bought into them, they did not ask you to, so which ever way you look at it, ITS YOUR FAULT
Why do some fellow shareholders wish to belittle others (shame on them) when it is mismanagement that has caused the problems with EvE?
Shame on them too!
Vern .... if one buys a house from someone else who has been living in it — do you not now own the very house that someone before you paid to have built? Yes one does. So if you buy shares after the original shareholder sells their stake say 1% do you not know own that exact 1% stake —- of course you do.
D-G —— with respect if you go back through my many posts I have highlighted again and again there is little point of having higher sales if each and every sale is not adding profit to the overall business.
The management have done an appalling job in the background but what they have always said on the record was how much EVE was both progressing and how nimble the business is/was to be able to quickly adapt if expectations were not going to the overall plan - just rewatch the live March presentation to hear the positive forecast for EVE for years to come and the reality of where EVE are now.
Will the bod even apologise?
Evening dontgive, I know you blame the bod but they are the same bod who were doing quite well up to … 8? months ago. I don’t recall you mentioning that customers are fewer and further between due to cost of living crisis, and higher costs. It surely can’t all be the fault of CC/TP suddenly going rogue can it? Obviously that’s a leading question & I’m in the same boat as you but I think you are missing what’s happened, to some extent. Two years ago, sales were ahead of expectations and that was under CC.
On my phone so harder to make sense but trust my point comes across.
Would be good to have some news and I assume ‘positive news’ would arrive by now if not already overdue (if any is coming)
Dontgive..with respect is boring now.
You have put zero cash into the business.
The bod owe you no duty of care.
You are dealing in the secondary market.
CC, TP & Co by managing EVE the way they have —— have largely taken the investor ( by being able to hold onto ones bought in and paid for share of the business indefinitely) to a gamble point of either hold and hope, sell at enormous losses, average down into the ‘Hope gamble!!!!!
Shame on the bod here they should have been replaced if the information on progress they again and again stated on the record was not the whole truth —- if they were seeing they were unable manage the business into a profitable state they should have been replaced before now!
An utterly disgraceful situation they have brought EvE too.
Thanks for taking the time there Wyn.
Investing to me is what I thought possible with EVE by buying a share of the business and waiting years if necessary - but that option seems to have been sucppered by CC & Co in their mad dash to gamble expansion before going bust - instead of a steady progression of the business!
The gamble now is a very high risk game now of EVE going bust of someone buying it —- a diabolical situation for CC & Co to have got EVE into - ( extremely bad management is my opinion - but at the same time always reassuring investors all was progressing towards profitability)
DGU, this is bit of a hobby horse for me and as its a Sunday...: "Gosh I’m definitely not a gambler."
It gets a bit picky as to how you define words but here's my take (and I actually think its important.)
A gamble is a bet on an unknown outcome often backed with money. I think EVERY share buy falls into that category.
The best you can say its an "educated guess", but there are plenty of "professional" gamblers that have a methodology to reduce risk while still taking the bet and I think its fair to say we would all, still, consider them to be gamblers.
So why when we buy shares do we recoil (is that too strong word? I don't think for some it is), when "accused" of being a gambler rather than an "investor"?
I think basically being a "gambler" for many is not a positive character trait. it suggests perhaps a dilitory , get rich quick, slightly dodgy, mixing with maybe not so nice people etc etc.
But being an "Investor" is much more acceptable and we know this because historically, rich well to do types from banking and the City, also gambled and pimped their services out to other middle and upper class people with the carrot of getting rich on the stock market but invented the term investing to separate them from their socially poorer cousins and give a much more respectable veneer to the same process.
In other words you think your peers will think better of you as an "Investor" rather than a "Gambler"
So why is it important? In my view mis-labeling yourself as an investor artificially and psychology lessons the risk from the activity for the individual.
It makes it psychologically easier to distance ones self from the outcomes if they go against you. Which in turn can mean the individual does not learn anything very much or useful when these mistakes or losses are made. And therefore repeat themselves more frequently then they might.
Now plenty of posters will bridle against this (and fair enough its just my point of view), but for me as a test, if you substitute the word "Spent/Spend for "invested/investment", in any context the meaning seems to be the same.
So in my world I can invest in EVE but I am gambling on the outcome.
Gosh I’m definitely not a gambler.
It definitely looked liked EVE being a safe haven and despite CC & Co constantly reassuring how can the truth of 1.5 million cash and 900 k debt at end of June not be the complete opposite of the ‘truth’?
Anyone any ideas how to try and recover from this? Should one sell in and buy what?
Can our board of directors claim anything better than playing kamikaze pilots with shareholders money here over the last 2 years?
* main responsibility ( auto correct error)
What an absolutely diabolical and shameful situation our (EVE shareholders) experienced board of directors have put longer term and loyal shareholders of EVE into? The bod who had the main respiratory to safeguard shareholders interests - that’s what they are paid for! Will they return all of their salaries??????!
If we continue to hold we could lose everything! If we average down we could lose everything. If we sell at a massive loss we will have lost so very much of out initially hard earned and worked for cash ( CC & Co need to realise this).
I believed totally in CC & Co and everything she and TP said this past 2 years - not look where we are?
It all feels very precipitous with a yes or no to a large equity investor. Although is no priced in at this SP? With a small premium for a potentially successful deal being done?
My view is also they have a plan b for now if nothing materialises. But obviously not sure how long that may last.
I suspect they will update us only when there is news - positive or negative.
If there’s no news then silence and… then at some point news is inevitable.