Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
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Yeah it’s insane. Gotta remember that this is very thinly held, only a fraction of the shares are free float.
I think (hope!) that’s also part of the reason why the recent AIM rout has had an outsized impact here.
21.5% spread?
Not if it’s voted against. I always use my vote.
No doubt the directors will be rewarding themselves with thousands more share options at 4p a share - disgraceful.
In that case oldbutwisa just keep buying like me.
Unless MANO need to do an equity raise or you need to cashout, what’s the issue?
.....now because by next month these will be coppers unless they steady this boat.
I think acearp was on the sauce a little too early today :-) Never seen such a pile of gibberish...
@acearp Surely, if they were manipulating the £2.8m write down against the covenants, they would have written down MORE in H2 than H1 when, as you say they had a better second half?
Perhaps you could explain your calculation of the £1m EXTRA interest, when the 2023 income statement shows £839m TOTAL finance expense?
I'm sorry, but your scattergun approach to dereamp this small cap is not going to wash with me. As Tommy says, your post is long and unclear, but in summary:
Your first three paragraphs tell us nothing we didn't already know.
The last paragraph is a confusing mess, where it's not clear whether you're talking about MANO, BUR or yourself.
You also have a history of deramping BUR (of which I am also a shareholder) in addition to a couple of other companies and funds. In fact, I cannot find one constructive post in your 'short! 20-post history. FoMo also has a history of slapping your back.
Good luck lads and whoever you both work for. Or are you the same person?
Wow there's a lot here, trying to take it all in!
Re potentially busting HSBC covenants - nobody is denying that they had a terrible year, for reasons mostly outside of their control. Doesn't the fact that they _didn't_ bust those covenants mean they played their cards well?
Why is the 2023 report "a disgrace"?
What is the issue with having Lords as non execs?
The zero-cost options vest over 3 years and are awarded pro-rated based on performance. Doesn't seem too terrible?
"The insolvency market is booming so their share price is up" this clearly isn't true, although I wish it was!
Sorry Acearp, I'm not trying to deny anything you're saying, it's just that it's a long post and it's a little unclear to me which parts should be giant red flags vs just not ideal. I'd really appreciate some clarification! Thanks :-)
Glad to see someone else doing some proper research. I too was a ticker and a FCT.
There are many IPO's such as Mano in Dec 2018 which many funds hunted and the price spiked to £5.8 in early 2019. There are four shareholders with around 60% and many micro cap funds with tiny investments. Mano usually buys a litigation case and retains the profits. Mano also funds cases and should split the proceeds with the IP firm. THe 2017 Cartel case has been revalued at £14m, up £1.2m compared to 2022 which was revalued up by £5m. The Government suspended litigation from June 2020 til ! April 22. The year was H1 slow and Mano then revalued down assets and reported a loss in H1 2023.
Mano hasan accounting policy to revalue new purchased cases on day 1 and this causes the problem as it takes a year to conclude a case and another year to get paid.If you read the 2023 Annual Report, a disgrace, they blame the write off of a lost claim of £2.8m . Included was £1.8m of profit.The details show that £2.3m was expensed in H1 and £0.5m in H2 when they had a good second half.When a claim is settled at the end of year 1, it is deemed realised revenue and not unrealised.
The amount is considered recoverable and moved to receivables. Another year and sometime they agree that the cash can be arranged over several years. There is around £7m from 2021 and another £9m which has been funded for nine years.
They market that they have security over assets not seem to finance via the HSBC facility.Had the CEO or CFO spread the £2,8m half half and not revalue the Cartel of £1.2 and £5m evenly they bust the bank covenants. HSBC charged a waiver fee and increased the interest margin from 2.9% to 3.7%. That cost £1m in extra interest charge and the RCF extended until 2025. I qualified as a Corporate Treasurer and the CEO was employed in Corporate Finance with HSBC.Both the CEO and CFO lack previous plc experience and refer to the highly skilled staff! Excluding the CEO, the other three shareholders of which one or two have over 20% could demand to appoint their own NON Exec Director. HSBC would not allow a dividend despite Mano repaying £3m of debt. In my opinion the Mano way overvalues cases and then the revenue reported falls when they adjust the revenue down. Burford Capital are better at marketing and reporting smooth results. THere are now two Lords as NON executives and one has bought 150,000 shares.The CFO has 500 shares. They have just awarded zero cost options which can be sold for cash. The insolvency market is booming so their share price is up. Litigation cases are uncertain and when the Cartel case is settled and another write down HSBC would default and game over. There is a big difference in the talk and the walk. When they overvalue cases they pay more tax and then claim it back when there is a write down.when a company fails to meet expectations and reports a loss usually a new CFO with experience is headhunted.
Hopefully we'll get a TU early next month.
MANOs multiple has suffered terribly since the early excitement about the potential for high growth and high returns was killed off by COVID (and the large adverse judgement. And the re-valuing of ongoing cases due to the economic situation).
The questions are:
- will the high growth and high returns promises be met once all of these issues have worked their way through the system?
- will there be a steady stream of more issues like this? Is this just the nature of this business? Or have we been unlucky? (e.g. the recent PACCAR judgement - while this doesn't seem to be a massive deal for MANO, I can understand if it made investors more wary about the sector in general)
- even if MANO is due a positive rerating, because the growth story truly is there, how long will it take investors to notice?
I'm excited for the upcoming update because, as far as I can tell, this has been a period of relatively smooth sailing (at last!), and as you say the macro factors are all still in MANO's favour. So maybe - hopefully! - this will be the first step in a turning of the tide.
But there's a long way to go, and sadly it's getting harder and harder to stay optimistic about this one.
Peel Hunt's forecasts haven't changed since June. They have MANO making £8m of EBITDA in FY24 and £10m in FY25; equal to 11.8p and 15.1p of EPS. I guess most people on here would think that was cheap (I do). The problem is that there is no reason why it can't get cheaper. It can just as easily trade on 8x FY25 eps or even 7x. 7x is 105p. I'm not saying it's going there but this (160p bid) is no floor. The key will be the next change in forecasts. If they're trimmed, even a bit, it's still going down. If there's a confident reason why they can be raised, we might have seen the bottom. The interims won't be until November. I think I'm going to wait. No need to try to catch the bottom.
I wonder if anyone's selling AIM shares ahead of any (v unlikely in my view) changes to the IHT rules that removes the attraction of AIM.
It's certainly strange. It's behaving as though there is negative news to come but the outside forces still all seem pretty positive.
I think there is a bigger, macro problem: there is simply no money flowing into smaller companies so it doesn't matter how undervalued something is there is no money to push shares back to fair value. It will change at soem point but that may be some way off.
Been an awful few weeks for this one, with a big sell going through this morning at the 52-week low. Anyone know what’s going on?
...should start to kick off shortly. I expect SP over £5 within 14 months.
Someone getting out ahead of the prelim results?
Divi won't move this but the workload running at full capacity might.
GLA
...at this time. How can you lose? 6 months is all it needs.
Https://www.ft.com/content/f9fc08ab-37f9-46d3-bebf-d5961258f380
Tommy
Thank you. An accountant who read the notes and not the spiel -- mea culpa ! But do note that £4.9m exceeds 50%.
Tommy - pretty obvious FoMo is from LIT.
Fomo, from the annual report:
“ Realised revenues on completed cases were £26.8m, an increase of 76% (FY22: £15.2m) although FY23 contained an exceptionally large funded case completion of which £4.9m was recorded in realised revenue (total settlement £9.5m) – our second largest ever completed case and one where all the cash was received within just a few weeks of completing the case.”
And
“ 74% of total revenues derived from purchased cases (FY22: 93%) and 26% from funded Cases (FY22: 7%) – the large £9.5m case (£4.9m of which was Manolete's share) referred to earlier was a rare funded case.“
It’s very clear that the unusually high % of revenue from funded cases in 23 was due to this one case, and that this was realised revenue - Mano has already been paid.
I am still concerned that Note 4 shows >25% of Gross Income for FY23 is from Funded cases but there is no disclosure of the split between realised and revalued. I suspect the majority is unrealised and therefpre may be at risk and I think we need a properly structured question for the AGM.
Add to that the restated as "long term" for the "large case" from FY21 and the disclosed and repeat banking covenenant concerns and I think we really do need some further clarification asap.
On the 50% point do remember that the losing parties costs are restricted to the 50% limit which leaves any funder at significant risk of loss - that is why most law firms won't do DBA's as they are at risk of not recovering their costs.