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Sorry -- meant to say Unicorn not Acorn!
The CEO will know best if we have a chance or not. I understand that he has said he is not going anywhere which must be positive (although I'm still not ready to buy back). RR is in a very strong position vis-a-vis his atrocious board within the company --without RR the company is finished. This gives him a golden opportunity to demand resignations of all the old guard and their replacement with a more able team to take things forward. I suspect that Acorn will be fully supportive of this and may have alternative individuals in mind.
My hunch is that if this happens, the share price reaction will be very positive indeed.
Cat, a brilliant written post. So glad your on this board. You put a clearer picture on the verditek front.
Sophie - to some degree VDTK's fate is out of their hands. If the orders don't come through due to Cov19 or other reasons then they could be up the river without the proverbial paddle. However, they do claim that they haven't lost any orders to competitors so that is a plus. Life goes on, the global transition to solar has been delayed by Cov19 not derailed. Even if VDTK don't make it under their own steam, I suspect that there is always the backstop option of finding a strategic partner to take a majority stake and believe that VDTK have been approached in the past but decided to reject these advances. If VDTK didn't have a viable product, that would worry me a good deal more.
cat, excellent post, pretty well sums it up. We are where we are and we can't change that. As you excellently put it, we are in a better position than we were this time last year. If the TU had good news with it, it would have been swallowed up by the bad.
As far as the TU yesterday is concerned, I was ok with it. We knew that sales had disappeared so that was not a shock and there was nothing else negative in there. I'm still confident that the sales strategy is changing in as much as they are still going for distributors which will take further time to develop, but will move away from commission only and employ direct. This will give them far greater control and the sales people will only have one company to sell.
I am no different to anyone else and am p****d off with the lack of sales and the price we find ourselves at. However, surely the only way is up from here in both sales and price.
Cat, an excellent post.
There is no doubt that RR knows the strategy of commission only did not work and is being changed. The orders are working their way through and will land soon.
Everything else we will have to wait for
Its difficult to put a positive spin on yesterday's abysmal TU so I won't try!
With Michael Walters throwing in the towel and the SP back at the level it was at on June 15, the question is whether to stick or twist. Is the SP going to 3p? Will they need another CR in 3-4 months? Will they be able to get more financing from shell shocked investors? Tbh I don't know the answers to these questions . I still doubt whether VDTK will be able to succeed with it's current operational structure and suspect they will get bought out by a strategic partner at some point. So in some sense any investment in VDTK at this point is a punt based on the premise that things can't get any worse! Well I guess they could get worse - the Paragraf JDP could get mothballed. Tge CEO could resign. A major customer like SAF z****stsn could go bust and VDTK might not get paid. So yes there are still huge risks in investing in VDTK before they have announced a major order and got the money in the bank.
All of this having been said VDTK are in a better place than they were 12 months ago;
1 Stronger balance sheet: £1.7m net cash v £200k net debt at 1H20. No longer paying 20% IR on loans.
2. Institutional investors inc Unicorn AM hold more than 6% of VDTK's equity.
3. Extensive distributor network established Inc tie up with industry specialists like AF Global
4. Improved operational structure with production glitches ironed out at their Lainate fab.
5. Technology validated via SAF ****stsn follow up order.
6. Follow up order potential from Intergroup Mining in Australia (1MW) and BTMNs in Chile (150kw)
7. Multiple deals being pursued, some of which may come to fruition once customers stop delaying orders. It appears that VDTK are being asked to bid on more contracts in target mkts than was the case 12 months ago.
None of the above is enough to guarantee that VDTK will succeed. However, they are moving in the right direction even if a huge amount remains to be done and significant challenges remain before their technology is widely adopted. At the end of the day, you pays your money and takes your chances. It could be a roller coaster ride!