Member Info for archways

I couldn't access this chat board on Friday, so I e-mailed LSE at 9.42am and Craig replied at 9.46 saying "We are aware that there are issues on the website and the development team are doing everything they can to get it resolved as quickly as possible".

I wrote again at 4.25pm asking whether he had any idea when the problem would be solved, but didn't receive a reply. However I was able to access the board yesterday morning and I was disappointed to find that many people had been able to post on Friday without any problem.

Was I the only one who was temporarily unable to access this board?

No. On 8th July his holding was down to 19.78%. He must let us know within two or three days of his holding becoming less than 19%. I suspect that he is chipping or hacking away at trying to offload a sizeable number of shares to an institution, and that the share price will remain weak until his holding is less than 5%.

None of this affects the potential for one or more of Arix's investments to develop a valuable drug. Let us hope that our patience will be rewarded. I am not going to average down until the Woodford situation has been resolved.

Hi - I am pleased to see that ChippyHackee has some company at last. In Beatrix Potter's tale that mischievous chipmunk had run away from his wife and was camping out in a tree! I hope that that was not the reason for the poster choosing that pseudonym.

I invested in Arix almost exactly a year ago at 178p following a write-up in the Mail on Sunday. I recognised that this is a long term investment and I have been happy with the increases in net asset value resulting from flotations in the USA. I was considering averaging recently but was put off when I discovered from an RNS that Woodford owned about a quarter of the company, and I am now going to wait until he has managed to sell the vast majority of that holding.

It is interesting to see that the share price went up mid-morning and that this was followed by two "sales" - perhaps they were actually two cheap purchases. Anyway it is good to see some action and some chat.

Myosotis at 8.19 - my concerns only arose when I read the RNS on the 28th June. Why did it say that dealings were expected to commence on the 1st July when I don't think that there were any circumstances whereby those new shares could have been dealt in on that day? Why didn't it say that it was expected that permission would be granted for dealings to commence at any time on or after 1st July? In other words the shares could be dealt in once the milestones had been achieved and the shares had been awarded to the beneficiaries, the date of which is uncertain.

Secondly, how could I have queried the number of shares at the AGM when we didn't know until the 28th June that 11,549,444 new shares were to be awarded to the EBT?

Myosotis at 19.52 - 11,549,444 is a very precise figure. I asked for a split between Executive Directors, Persons Discharging Managerial Responsibilities and Other Employees, expecting to hear that the Other Employees figure was 8,149,350, but Tristan Pottas said that he was unable to give me a split of the total. I want to know why. If they don't know then I would like to know how have they arrived at that very precise figure.

I accept that "dealings" is a standard phrase that applies to any new shares that are admitted to the market, but an RNS should be accurate and not misleading. It seems to me that the use of the word "expected" is inaccurate and misleading if there is absolutely no way that dealings in those shares could have been expected to commence on 1st July. I have asked Tristan Pottas if there is any way that dealings in those new shares could have commenced on that day.

Call me pedantic if you like, but as shareholders (a) we should be given the facts and (b) we should not be misled.

Poortiming at 08.15 - In the RNS on 28th June it was reported that 11,549,444 new shares had been awarded to the Employee Benefit Trust, and that accounts for the increase in the issued share capital.

On the following day I asked whether any posters could work out how that number of shares (11,549,444) had been arrived at, and if anyone knew how it was that dealings were expected to commence on 1st July, but no one replied so I sent an e-mail to Sirius. I said that I could not find anything in the Remuneration Committee Report for 2018 that would explain the issue of these new shares, and the word expected implies to me that there was a very good chance that dealings would commence on 1st July, but I couldn't envisage any circumstance whereby the Trustees of the EBT could deal in those shares until one or more milestones have been achieved some years hence. Tristan Pottas replied politely a few days ago but didn't give me the answers that I requested, so I e-mailed him again yesterday.

Some posters appear to be confused about p/e ratio.

A p/e ratio is the relationship between the market capitalisation of the company (total number of ordinary shares multiplied by the current share price) and the profit after tax. The figure of profit after tax is the amount available to either pay dividends or plough back into reserves. We do not know what the rate of Corporation Tax is going to be in future, but if it is say 20% and Sirius makes a profit before tax of £1 Billion then the profit after tax would be £800 Million. If there are 10 Billion ordinary shares in issue the earnings would be 8p per share. If the market feels that a p/e ratio of 8 is appropriate for Sirius at that time then the share price would be 64p.

Using Dadean's 20.34 post as an example he/she is multiplying £2 Billion ebitda by a p/e of 12 and arriving at a market capitalisation of 24 Billion and therefore a share price of £2.40 if there are 10 Billion ordinary shares in issue, but ebitda means earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation. The profit after interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation is going to be much less than £2 Billion. One must only apply a p/e ratio to earnings after tax etc.

Apologies to those who think that I am trying to teach my grandmother to suck eggs!

While I was typing that message LSE have realised their error, and the values are correct now.

Can someone please tell LSE that Sirius's current price is around 15p, not £15. 3,000 shares at 15p = £450, not £45,000.

The RNS refers to page 75 of the 2018 Annual Report and Accounts. That page refers to the Long-term Incentive Plan (LTIP) whereby ordinary shares can be granted to the Executive Directors, but the grants will only vest when five million tons of polyhalite have been shipped to customers (100% if this is achieved by 31.12.24, 75% by 31.3.25 etc etc down to 20% if not achieved until after 31.12.2025), and in any case will not be released to the Executive Directors before five years from now (June 2024).

Page 79 of the 2018 Annual Report and Accounts states that employees can benefit from LTIP awards, and the RNS shows that Nicholas King, J.T. Starzecki and Simon Carter have also been granted awards.

The RNS states that 11,549,444 new ordinary shares have been awarded to the Employee Benefit Trust (EBT); application has been made for the shares to be listed; and it is expected that dealings are expected to commence at 8am on Monday.

How has that number of shares been arrived at, and why can dealings commence on Monday when the shares cannot be transferred to the beneficiaries before June 2024?

onefineday - if Barclays have stated that you have been allocated 0.413 excess shares for every share held, that is incorrect - it should say 41.3% of the number of excess shares applied for (not 41.3% of the number of shares held).

Myosotis - yes, I have been credited with 41.3036% of my application. I was promised last week that they would let me know when they were about to decide the allocation. Out of the blue yesterday morning at 8.16 they sent a message telling me that they couldn't yet forecast when the allocation would be decided. I haven't heard anything since - so much for promises!!

I wonder how long we must wait for the unused cash to be made available to us.

poortiming - please look at Fred16's post at 10.40 today.

I hadn't noticed that Charles Stanley had allocated excess shares amounting to 19.87% of the investor's shareholding whereas Halifax had allocated 48.55% of the excess shares applied for. It therefore seems that the basis of allocation is down to the individual broker.

Fwiw, and as someone who doesn't yet know how many he will be allocated, I would have thought that the fairer basis is to allocate pro rata to the number of excess shares applied for - the more new money a shareholder is prepared to invest in Sirius the more excess shares he should receive - the result should not be skewed by the number of shares owned before the open offer. Of two shareholders with 100,000 shares one might have put up cash for 50,000 shares, the other for 30,000 shares. Why should both be allocated the same number of shares?

When I saw (was it on Thursday?) that Halifax had credited excess shares to their clients' accounts I phoned Barclays to see when we would learn how many we were getting. I was told that someone else had just raised the same query (probably Myosotis judging by the timing of his post), and I was promised that they would phone me and send an e-mail as soon as they could forecast when we would be learning our fate. If I am at home at that time I will pass the information on to you straight away.

It doesn't seem right to me that some nominees learned how many excess shares they were receiving a week or more before others. I would have expected that all of the applications for excess shares (whether certificated or not) would have been added up by the Registrars as soon as the open offer closed, and an announcement would have been made that every applicant for excess shares would be receiving x% of their application. Instead some have received say 20%, some 80%, and some don't yet know how many they will receive.

I wonder whether the Financial Conduct Authority should have a look at whatever procedure has been used, and pronounce whether it has been fair to all parties.

My 1/22 shares have now been credited to me, but there is still no news on the allotment of excess shares.

I do not yet know how many "excess" shares I am receiving, nor have the 1/22 shares been credited to my account. Does anyone using Barclays know how many they are receiving?

Pease ignore that final They.

Kapersky 14.59. I have already applied for the basic offer and excess shares for my ISA, so I have checked my ISA records and I agree that they now show "This product is no longer eligible in ISA". I have already advised posters that I have complained about the wording "Maximum Application for excess shares 0%" (or words to that effect), so I have phoned Barclays again.

They confirm that I can ignore those words - the shares will be credited to my ISA - so I have made an official complaint about two instances of incorrect or misleading wording in relation to this open offer. I am promised that action will be taken to try to avoid such errors in future corporate actions.

They

thebottomline 10.27 - all of my Sirius shares are held by Barclays Smart Investor in an ISA, and they have not prevented me from applying for the open offer plus additional shares using cash held in that ISA. Provided that you have enough cash in your ISA they should not be preventing you from applying for shares to be put into that ISA.