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What you are all overlooking was that the raise was £2m but also they reduced their BELL holding from 15% to approx 14% at around 85p-90p so that's a further ~£1m of funds (no explanation given for the use of funds so presumably more working capital?). Arguably selling the family silver at less than half price if you believe (as I do) that BELL has a bright future at a fair value of 200p.

The point I would return to is that if they'd provided a rights issue via PrimaryBid with a bookbuild price, I genuinely believe that many shareholders would have supported this - and perhaps there wouldn't have been a need to discount as far as 25p - or even if they did, all investors would have been treated equally. The other point is that PrimaryBid charge around £100k for a raise so it's actually very competitive versus the NOMAD's fees.

I've had no reply to my email asking why all investors are not being treated fairly after writing to TEK and to its PR representative. I'm sure this share will do well and great news for all its portfolio will come.... but I think we will see rises into a wall of selling which is a big pity. I was very critical of those offloading this share but now I'm not so sure.

What do you make of the current corporate action and the potential of de-listing? Surely this is the reason that the stock has dropped from its prior 135p-140p range? Its latest trading update and ST article did nothing to move the needle here - surprisingly. Is DBAY behind this?

Yet again Private Investors get no opportunity to participate at the 25p discounted rate.

Using a platform like PrimaryBid has been raised with Clifford Gross on a number of occasions by a number of investors. It would seem private investors' concerns have been ignored - extremely disappointing.

Answering my own question this article in Mining Weekly confirms that the concentration, contaminant level and end use is actually v.good.

https://m.miningweekly.com/article/lithium-pilot-plant-in-namibia-scheduled-for-this-year-afritin-2022-05-24

Except the lithium isn't a rumour - it's a fact.

It's a baffling outcome but I can only explain it as a shake out of weak hands who bought trough to peak 6p and sold out at today's peak 7.8p level.

Does anyone have expertise around the levels of iron and contaminants and their significance? I know Lithium off takers can be particular about what they will err take.

1. Positive outlooks given for almost all holdings. Lowes, Hilton, Dominos, Universal, Howard Hughes, Chipotle, Pacific Railway
2. Fanny Mae Freddy Mac still recapitalising - will be worth a great deal once this process is complete - passage of time will yield the right outcome
3. Interest Rate Swaptions reduces YTD loss by just under half. Bill sees rate raises as a near certainty. Reward is tilted in PSH's favour.
4. Inflation Expectations remain high in Bill's opinion.
5. Tontine the "clock is ticking down" - deal must be done in next 60 days or the money will be returned to investors. This includes money provided by PSH to PSTH. It has to be a great business to go ahead - not any rubbish.
6. Sold Netflix - wrote a letter about that -we're not perfect - recognise as early as possible - saved money by exiting.
7. Bill: We will own these businesses for many years - don't look at positioning for the next 12 months - we are looking at the future stream of cashflows over long periods.

I've been doing some further analysis and judging VLG based on a study of its 2021 accounts. One element that stood out for me was how the Operating Profit differed dramatically from the "Adjusted Earnings". There are 3 parts to this: Acquisition costs, share based payments and Amortisation.
1. Amortisation assumes all its brands are worthless within 5-10 years. My personal view here is that while it is a prudent perspective but not "real". In 5 years will be no longer use mouthwash? Will the brand suddenly become worthless? (Bearing in mind ongoing VLG sales and marketing). I don't think so.
2. Acquisition costs - by definition this is non-repeatable. So fair to exclude it to look at y-o-y trends.
3. Share based payments - Warren Buffett's view is that adjusted earnings shouldn't exclude this, so I've recalculated the 2020 and 2021 adjusted earnings ***including*** this.
The results are
2020 - EPS 3.68p/share
2021 - EPS 4.5p/share
An 18.2% yoy increase. And that's in a year where lots of bad stuff happened, covid, 2020 hand gel sales not repeating in 2021 due to market saturation, ineffective China distributor).
Can we extrapolate to 2022? Absolutely. If we take the Q4 2021 run rates of the acquired businesses, new (proven) Chinese distributor achieves same as 2020 Chinese sales), apply 2021 growth rates (1.4%) even though the 2022 order book is “comfortably ahead” then I conservatively arrive at adjusted 2022 EPS at 5.2p (deducting share based payments).
Plus its cash generative, has capacity to grow without further fixed asset investment, plus has capacity to acquire. Lots of reasons why adjusted EPS 5.2p could be higher.

Simon Thompson bangs the VLG drum this evening:
https://www.investorschronicle.co.uk/ideas/2022/05/19/primed-for-bumper-profit-growth/
Boom-ba-boom-baba-boom

The brutality reaches epic proportions. I'm amazed this has reached 45% discount to reported NAV.

Foreward and forecast yield 2023 is now 5.8% and 2024 is 6.4%.

The question is do you agree with the narrative that people will "trade down" on vitamins and vapes? For me personally, I've thought for a long while and Ripoff and Barrett was ripe for disruption. Pay triple and get one for a penny - no thanks. H&B is owned by a Russian Oligarch too..... So Sealions is a very logical play - as well as the Millions and Millions in store brands too. Vaping I don't vape and never have but the trading down argument makes perfect sense to me there. As for the other stuff well batteries and lighting are pretty defensive/inelastic. Health drinks aren't exactly going out of fashion either. So I look at the track record (a great one), the brands (strong in my view), the "Moat" - the "it's not fair" customer relationships and synergies of cross selling. Management team - strong in my view. It seems this is a great port to shelter from the storm.

There's lots of institutions invested here so I guess these large sales driving the price down are one of those repositioning? More fool them I say. Fill yer boots coz it's Supremely cheap.

GLA

Just adding to the list of "Buy Rating" Centamin is a 9/9 on Investors Chronicle's Alpha report. They examine various metrics EPS, growth and so on so bit of a surprise to see it there but a very credible recommendation.

********** redacted by LSE was meant to read S-h-a-rE p....r....o.....p.....h....e....t...s

I've noticed ************* has the knives out for Ben Turney referring to him as flip flop. They have knives out for lots of companies and often are advocating a short position..... at times with good reason. I don't know what their beef is nor what on earth the footwear reference is to do with. The news flow, the need for new sources of commodities and the multiple shots at goal are all positives. Remember Shorts have to cover their position which means every short is a future long.

GLA

Hi Rivaldo, really pleased with the results - and they were exactly along the lines of the trading update. Singer are also bullish in their update this morning and see an 85% upside from here.

The attraction here (apart from the obvious value) is its defensiveness. Even though it's growing, the business is quite defensive: The products are fairly impervious to the challenges of inflation (inelastic demand) - I mean do you even know how much a bottle of mouthwash is? Most people don't I would think. Let alone the price of some of the more esoteric treatments. If people need them they just buy them - simple as that.

GLA

The negativity around IPO really surprises me. It's cash rich and a number of its holdings could be the next ONT. And yes ONT has fallen in the general negative biotech market, but look at the company's recent updates:

Last Friday:
https://www.ipgroupplc.com/media/portfolio-news/2022/2022-05-13
And prior to this in April with Genomics England:
https://www.genomicsengland.co.uk/initiatives/100000-genomes-project
This technology is world class and when you consider it's growing fast, has a cash pile of ~£500m is not that far away from EBITDA break even (they could achieve that in 2022 or worst 2023 by curtailing R&D)
This is the recent ONT presentation on their 2021 performance. When you strip out covid testing then you are still seeing rapid growth, and forecast continued growth.
https://nanoporetech.com/sites/default/files/s3/investors/reports/ONT%20FY21%20Results%20Presentation%20FINAL%2022-3-22.pdf

And that's just one holding. Then you have numerous Cleantech and Deeptech investments, plus other Lifesciences like Artios.

And it's not just pie in the sky hope for the future either. It's 2021 results were Profit *AFTER* tax of £449m. Today the market cap of IPO is £832m. So it's trading on a 2021 PE of 1.85. Where it pays a dvidend is cash rich and is at a discount to its NAV which in itself is book value so conservative.

Like I said at the start - the negativity surprises me. Time will tell.

GLA

One of the inflection points came sooner that I expected! In my posting last week I complained that the presentation was "numbers light". I've now had a chance to study the numbers and drew a number of interesting conclusions:
1. The NAV is higher than the market price. So NSCI trades on a 5% discount to NAV.
2. The fair value (i.e. the Venture Capital Association assessment methodology) put the discount at 45% (as at 31/12/21)
3. The AuM with 15%-20% profit share of outperformance above 10% could be worth a lot if there are any serious outperformers.
4. Many if not all of the stakes appear to be convertible loans. This means that if the investee does badly NSCI is ahead of other investors plus earns interest from that investee. If they do well then the loan (and interest) can be converted to equity. Looking at the fine print there's an intelligence to how these have been structured.
5. There's a lot of technical signals (e.g. RSI) pointing towards a reversion to the mean of Biotech. It should be remembered that while Biotech is risky, healthcare is not - it's defensive. If a treatment can get to a successful phase 2 outcome it is then possible to sell it at an uplifted value (without having to fully commercialise it yourself).
6. Liquidity - assuming the business had to batten down the hatches it has liquid resources to survive 4 years with zero cash realisations. This is through a mixture of cash £2.7m and liquid investments £6m.

In conclusion I feel happier having read through their results and my earlier concern at how those results were presented has reduced. Understanding the statutory loss and adjusted profit gain was comforting and the analyst expectations of £1.50-£1.80 seem reasonable as we see further positive news flow.

GLA

Max, It's sickening to get so so so close back in the days of Arian and in 2016 then they firesale San Jose mine to Quintana. Look at it today: AISC $14/Ag Ounce. And Production 2022 5.2m Oz. So that's generating over $35m gross profit in a year. $35m was the firesale price.
https://fortunasilver.com/corporate-presentation/
https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/125198/arian-silver-looks-to-life-after-san-jose-125198.html

Hopefully UFO can avoid history repeating. It's been a long wait.

The latest NAV update to £11.40 and news around the Fertiliser investment tempted me back in here. The discount of 41% remains very large and the continued buy backs should eventually dent this. To be fair the uplift of NAV has widened the discount so I expect the market will eventually realise and catch up.

Dartron, ah spotted it yes they do - as a non-current asset.
Good news however:
"As of March 31, 2022, the fair value of the investment in bitcoin was $365.5 million based on observable market prices which is $216.5 million in excess of the Company's carrying value of $149.0 million."

So at today's $30k per Bitcoin price the fair value of the investment is now around $240m - so they have $90m of unrealised profit they can't recognise until they sell those Bitcoins.

If Bitcoin were to drop below $20k (and they don't offload their Bitcoins before then!) then they would need to recognise a loss.

At today's prices TSL holding in SQ is worth $46m or £37m. Plus the TSL £2.5m distribution (cash) puts the market cap at a 37.1% discount to NAV. So 33p fair value if you believe Square will remain at $75/share. Or 63p if you see recovery to $150/share.