Member Info for 1pencil

AZ very upbeat, sounds as though they have the China thing contained and accounted for.

https://www.cityam.com/astrazeneca-revenue-surges-amid-chinese-import-tax-allegations/

HK quote up around 3% but London out of sync..

Feb 3rd

'The US-Canada tariffs caused a significant downturn in dairy markets on February 3, resulting in plummeting prices for cheese, butter, and dry whey at the CME, compounding challenges for farmers already facing high feed costs for corn and soybeans.

Given the volatility, dairy farmers should consider proactive strategies, such as securing feed prices and discussing forward contracts with co-ops, to protect narrowing margins. With key dates for USDA reports and trade decisions approaching, monitoring market developments is essential to staying ahead of further fluctuations. Maintaining a close watch on expenses is crucial as milk prices remain unpredictable, affecting the farms’ financial health.'

Good overview from Joshua, on the whey protein side currently waiting for various companies/journalists to reply but 2025 has some encouraging signs already.

Waiting to see also how the new tariffs pan out for whey prices, early indications are a possible US oversupply due to the increased cost of exporting, coupled with the new plant coming online in March.

CME April contact is showing over 5% yoy reduction, no idea if that is attributable to the above or not.

Its a fairly complex commodity compared to say butter as it needs to be balanced with the production of cheese, for example China are big consumers of US whey but per person consume very little cheese, hence the reason why a lot is imported.

Joshua's comments on the boards decision to hold prices steady seems to make sense, if you can hold onto to your customer base or increase it during volatile times it should lead to better overall customer retention, Matt refers to this on the investor call briefly.

Trump is getting a fair bit of push back already, implementing tariffs on medicine could be a step too far at least for the moment.

If anything the rabbit feels like a bit of a safe haven, lets get the sale finalised now Chinese New Year hols over - what about posting some questions at the upcoming EGM, out of place probably wouldn't get a hearing ?

Agree on the pound, S4 feels like a good hedge with all that's going on at the moment.

From the link posted over weekend, wild card:

'Advertising holding companies like WPP, Publicis Groupe, and Stagwell typically do at least half a dozen investments or acquisitions in a given year.'

Media agency giant Horizon is on the hunt for acquisitions as advertising M&A heats up

https://www.businessinsider.com/horizon-media-plans-acquisition-spree-influencer-marketing-retail-tech-2025-1

Trump tariffs start today but I can't see any direct reference to pharma, only an indication as below.

'He also threatened to impose import taxes on pharmaceuticals used by Americans, something that could immediately negate years-long efforts to lower drug prices by multiple presidential administrations.'

'Trump also told reporters he would enact tariffs on semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, steel, aluminum, oil and gas at some point in the future, though he did not elaborate on when those would begin or how much he plans to tariff.'

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-tariffs-mexico-canada-b2690086.html

If Frasers are still active we may get a TR1 with 5% being so close, thereafter I think each 1% is voluntary until 10%, need to check.

Poker, you are quoting my post out of context, read the whole thing again as I am inferring companies outside of the tech sector.

For background, I built 1st, 2nd and 3rd line operational teams for several FTSE companies , you only have to mention 'IP address' and watch the CEO glaze over..

You can't do everything sitting in your underpants on the sofa, sometimes real world experience is needed..

..lol

If anyone has worked in the tech sector interfacing between 'techies' and board members you know just how difficult it can be, the two just don't get along full stop -

Ai is going to be the exact same thing, it needs tech minded folk to exploit its full potential which is where S4/Monks come in with an established digital only background, Ai must be an absolute gift to them as other businesses scramble to understand what the hype is about.

tbh, surprised no one has made a move sooner to bring them in house, £200m mcap is buttons to most companies in this space..

Ai is nothing short of mind blowing in terms of potential, one of the most impressive integrations is Google's Gemini with Adobe Premier, seamless and a fantastic tool.

That said, it still needs a 'creative' as its a tool lacking the ability to understand subtle nuances of marketing and advertising, it will speed workflows up no end for companies like S4 and probably reduce headcount leading to better productivity, all good stuff.

Volatility seems to have eased now Vanguard have upped sticks, hope they do the same on THG as better to have steady long term holders imo, can't spot any changes for Third Ave, Patient Cap and Pipeline in Q4, steady as she goes !

In terms of whey processing plants coming on-stream, not an easy topic to research but this site has some good info.

€94 million to boost dairy in Brazil

https://www.dairyglobal.net/industry-and-markets/market-trends/e94-million-to-boost-dairy-in-brazil/

Does anyone know the major differences between these two contracts, one is European the other US I think.

Matt during the investor call mentioned prices dropping towards the end of the year, this is reflected certainly in the dry whey futures quote but not in the whey powder.

Whey Powder European Feb '19 (W5G19)

https://www.barchart.com/futures/quotes/W5G19/futures-prices

Dry Whey Feb '25 (DGG25)

https://www.barchart.com/futures/quotes/DG*0/futures-prices

Both of these quote are for the raw form of whey which then needs processing into sweet whey or isolate, processing plants were also mentioned on the call and may part explain the difference above if one is more processed than the other.

We could do with an activist investors, someone to come onboard and shake things up a bit.

Smiths shares soar as engineer ditches two divisions amid investor pressure

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-14345549/

Roger, just looked again, RNS came out after hours hence today's move..

HH, you're one step ahead, will take a look over weekend, cheers

Just had a quick look at Discord, seems okay but no free text search.

Is there anything similar to above without setting up a forum from scratch?

P.S whats up with Asos ?

Interesting take on things Jatw re going private.

There has to be reason to remain listed, no new shareholders have joined the register for quite some time, years and they are unlikely to need cash anytime soon.

Major holders cant be pleased at the performance, we have to hope they push for change, dividends, share buy backs to keep the hedgies at bay.

Another ECB rate cut, US GDP slower than expected gives a bit more wiggle room for the fed.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/30/gdp-q4-2024-.html

Whats everyone's thoughts on this type of forum, posting shareholder lists has always been problematic due to low formatting, plus no editing facility makes it even harder.

The big thing for me is no search function which makes finding anything more than a few days old impossible, both the search and editing are functions I have mentioned to the help desk sometime ago.

Would there be demand for an information based forum, facts figures, whey research that sort of thing, not just for THG but whatever companies are of interest.

Starting a thread on 'Whey processing' then having to switch to thread view and save it as bookmark, too awkward.

We dropped periodically under £500m which may have been a threshold for Vanguard, similar to S4, the amounts combined with Frasers initial stake would not be far off the TR1 declaration.

If it was one sale had to be US/overseas based as no TR1 confirming the sale of 3%.

I've put together a share register following our conversation re Mike Ashley, just checking entries.