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Once again agree with FH on the valuation. The current cash position alone justifies the current price. Many investors bought in originally for the patent portfolio. The patents licensed to Samsung are described as "non core". There is a substantial IP portfolio for which no value has been allowed in the price now. I anticipate the initial reaction will have been an overreaction and we may see the 35 to 40 p price restored in the not too distant future.
However for now I must confess to disappointment with the agreement. The figures from the damages models were significantly higher even at the lower end. I do hesitate to be too critical though, we are not party to much information which BT and the team would have had to weigh.
Can't help but wish now we'd had a trial though.
On this point I do agree with FH, there will be no or no significant further display deals (unless Nanoco come up with further technical improvements beyond these patents). Samsung have the QD display market sewn up, other manufacturers buy and will continue to buy the panels from Samsung, just as LG have a near OLED display panel supply monopoly to other manufacturers.
I would hope this will be reflected in the settlement.
I find conspiracy theories just to simple to accept, but cannot otherwise fathom the number and bile of some posters who claim to have no material interest in the share now but who must spend an awful lot of time reading and posting on this board.
I still find it hard to believe anyone is deliberately trying to manipulate the share price using this board, still less that they're paid by anyone else to do so. Its just a bit far fetched, but I am struggling to find any other motive, paid or not. Can all not just wait and see, only a little more time until there should be some real news. if there's nothing new to say don't say it, please.
GW has a point on derisking, it is a valid position to adopt.
It is the timing of the bail out that puzzles. The RNS of the 9th Jan was some time ago now and we've had no news since.
I am in court almost daily dealing with juries and they can be unpredictable, but usually come to the correct decision. Still, a discount to allow for that risk might be appropriate, as might one to allow for the removal of the delay by way of appeal which would have inevitably followed, and the risk of losing an appeal.
We also have to allow for a lower damages model being used rather than what had been hoped for.
All these rightly have an effect on the share price.
But the big plus is we cannot lose now. Whatever happens we've won something. That has removed much of the actual risk of being left with a share worth what it was in 2020.
Having held for so long on a much bigger risk profile it seems daft to bail out now.
hope I will not be eating these words in a fortnight>
With respect, everyone should be prepared for disappointment, if it happens it cannot come as a surprise, but it is one of a range of possible outcomes. Some think it more likely than not and get out, others, including yours truly, think it less so and stay in. None of what we think or say will affect what actually does happen. It should not become personal, the information is so scant that either view can be honestly held.
Give lawyers a month and they'll take a month, or a day or two longer.
This board over the past three weeks has been a classic example of the battle between fear and greed. I can well understand GW selling out to avoid the risk, but while worried about falling prey to wishful thinking, tend to see the logic behind others slightly more optimistic positions, though sense tells me we've left ideas of £2+ a share well behind there is imo a reasonable chance of doubling or possibly trebling from 40p. The logic that supported the case for Nanoco before Jan 6th still holds. Had anything new cropped up which could materially affect the price we'd almost certainly have had to have been told about it. (By this I don't mean details of the negotiation etc. which are obviously confidential, but new evidence or the like which could undermine Nanoco's case or support Samsung's.)
Apologies if I'm missing the point, but isn't the distinction between an Income based and a Revenue based settlement founded on the basis of calculation, one being founded on how much Nanoco have lost by not being paid what they would have been paid had the tech been properly licenced (wherever and by whoever the actual QDs were manufactured), the other being calculated as a proportion of the money Samsung have made by using the tech? Damages based on lost licence fees are likely to result in a significantly lower figure than one based on a proportion of the additional profit Samsung have made from using the (unlicensed) tech.
Retain the cash or special dividend, (or other form of distribution)?
Obviously depends how much is left after all expenses, loans etc. have been paid, but assuming above £30 million, what would shareholders wish to see done with monies above that sort of figure? Distribute (gets my vote), extend cash runway beyond what £30 million would allow, plough all into R+D, or build a bigger manufacturing plant, etc.?
Personally if £30 million (or pick what figure you think necessary, the principle is the same) would not provide a viable business which could raise and generate money to fund expansion, research etc. I don't see £60 million doing so either. What I wouldn't want to see is a large sum retained just to preserve the runway life of a company far into the future without a saleable product and in the speculative attempt to find a customer or develop something new and marketable, especially now that their speciality product has become mainstream and every man plus his dog is jumping on the CFQD bandwagon. I bought into Nanoco as a niche tech company with protected IP in an area which looked likely to become huge, not as potential manufacturer of what will be a mass market component (CFQDs). I don't think there's any future but bankruptcy there, and to see resources frittered away trying to achieve it would be an awful waste.
Leave enough to try to achieve organic growth, but don't pitch everything on it, Nanoco haven't exactly the best record so far.
Another week gone, still no news, still much speculation and reading of meaning into the space between every word of past news. At this stage the brokers should know nothing more than what is in the public domain. In the current situation any private leak of market sensitive information to them or anyone else would be a serious rule breach.
For what its worth, which is no more and no less than anyone else's view, I'd suggest a lower end of expectations settlement could well exceed £500 million given the range of both speculative expectations broadcast previously, and of damages models, the time elapsed since the £500 estimate was first quoted, the sales since then, the worldwide rather than US only coverage and the future ever expanding use of CFQDs by Samsung.
It is hard to envisage why a result which did not provide significant net cash to Nanoco would be accepted by the company. It would mean they had run the litigation, borrowed money and spent an enormous amount of time on the dispute for effectively nothing. Having protected their IP would also mean nothing if the company improperly using it lost little if anything more than had they operated honestly from the start, and the IP owner Nanoco came away with nothing on the bottom line for all their research, trouble and expense. I accept the logic for a discount to allow for the risks inherent in litigation, the prospect of money now rather than after appeals had run their course, and if the US justice system does not add interest to damages awards which I don't know if they do (the UK system does), to allow for the ever reducing value of money. But I can see the reverse logic of the removal of the danger of an injunction seriously affecting European revenue for themselves and any other end use customers of their CFQD displays, e.g. Sony and Philips, and of a significant wilfulness increase. Both sides gain by settlement.
If we believe as we have been repeatedly told that the company rather than the litigation funders decide when or at what level to settle, then in the absence of something fundamentally undermining of Nanoco's case having turned up at the last moment and having remained secret, which is intrinsically unlikely, it would make no sense at all for the company to accept a zero sum result. Nor given the time, effort, and risk that have gone into the case so far, frankly a result that did not give a significant net award after all costs including the outstanding loan had been paid.
Based on this reasoning and with the same risk as everyone, and I mean everyone without any exceptions including Edison and LOAM, etc., of being completely wrong I would still expect a result that will give Nanoco a net £300 million or thereabouts. Maybe this is wishful thinking, but some of the more pessimistic notions expressed here seem unsupported by any deeper reasoning than fear and an interpretation of various readings of the runes or interpretations of seemingly Delphic pronouncemen
It should be in that region if there were any justice, but I doubt it will be too. I fear both wishful thinking and cynical pessimism are too hard to remove from the mental equation to make any reliable guess at what the final result is going to be.
I'm going skiing for a week, hopefully there might be some actual news by the 20th.
I come back to this board after a day at work to see a raft of posts, must have been some news thinks I.
Not a bit of it. Just more speculation.
Hold firm, and please people, stop trying to ramp up or deramp down, nobody actually knows anything. There's more to learn in the tea leaves at the bottom of my mug.
We'll get the result and the explanation for why it is what it is before too long. Then is the time for recriminations, or praise, if that's your pleasure. At the moment it is hard to sift anything useful from this board, which is a change from what has been a very informative and often well reasoned discussion board.
Assuming a net award of £100 million plus, which I still think is on the cards being far lower than many of the pre RNS speculations, putting 40 or 60 million aside to pay a special dividend would assuage many shareholders immediate feelings of disappointment without affecting the immediate health of the company.
Given no actual commercial orders yet I'd be very unhappy to see all of such an award going to just keeping the company going for another 10 years in the hope of it starting to make money without any cash going to long patient shareholders.
But wisest to wait for the result before arguing about how it should be spent!
With respect to all posters, imo the RNS was written to damp down the speculation of vast multi bag profits being likely and the consequent risk of people being convinced it was now a sure thing and risking more than was prudent.
While I admire the courage of those who have gone all in, hopefully at a lower average than the current price, and wish them well, at the 70p level the share price had reached and the potential direction if buying hysteria had set in, the RNS was a responsible warning to calm things down.
That is not to say hope of a higher figure is wrong. When in situations like this it is always better to damp down expectations to avoid a storm of recrimination, and hopefully eventually come in with a figure above the reduced anticipated number.
I cannot see Nanoco engaging in mind games with Samsung by issuing an RNS. Everyone is a professional, it's just not the way things are played.
Not having a royalty payment, but rather including an element for it in the global settlement figure would seem sensible, given the difficulty in getting true and reliable figures for units sold both under their own name and to other manufacturers from Samsung.
Not having any recompense for them using the tech from now on would not seem so, unless there were some compelling reason why not that we are not aware of. There are a lot of things we don't know though, so as with every investment we have to trust the management. Up to now they've done OK.
Not to say I'm not a tad disappointed with the news we've heard so far, but having held for 10 years I'll hold on for a few more weeks. (125K @ 42p incidentally)
We wanted a settlement, to remove the danger of a loss at trial, but we didn't want a settlement because after trial we hoped the jury would land on a big number.
Jam today and the bird in the hand are other vital considerations that may push the settlement figure lower than we feel it should be, but they are essential elements in weighing up any offer.
Now I worry the deal will have put too much emphasis on certainty, not enough on true value, but at the end of the day we've trusted the management and the lawyers this far, they've performed very well, why should they disappoint now?
Still fear and greed fight out.
I would not want to put a fair value on this share now, or in 5 weeks time, save to say it looks cheap at the moment.
Screenlearner, The decisions, both on liability and on quantum of damages, are never final until all avenues of appeal have been explored, or the time limits for lodging appeal have expired, whichever is the later.
So yes, any decision in Texas this month could be overturned at a later date. But more likely would be they would form the basis of an agreed settlement once the boundaries of the ball park had been outlined by this court.
Kipling also wrote this, perhaps apposite, poem.
https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_copybook.htm
The Gods of the Copybook Headings
As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all. (and on for more verses, including)
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
Gary, you're not alone on here in having bought at the top. I was in first at 144. Now hold a six figure number, lower than yours, at around 40 to 50. Bought 10K at 10p, wish I'd been braver then but it was still among my larger holdings and the paper loss made it feel like possibly throwing good money after bad.
It has in part been this board which has informed my decisions, not necessarily the opinions expressed but rather the information and analysis. A few weeks will tell whether to thank or curse. If all goes well, as I am convinced it should but working with juries regularly know you never can be certain, then the big decision is when, or if, to sell. I'll be reluctant to part with a company that's zipped up and down my notional profit and loss sheet for over 10 years!
If anyone were thinking of a face to face debrief after the trial result, count me in. Had one on another board for a different company many years ago and it was a very interesting and enjoyable lunch.
Good point, and the ST Micro application (if Nanoco really is involved with them, and there has never been an definitive confirmation) would have a far broader range of uses than just VR. I've as big a stake here as I am comfortable with and after so many false dawns it is best just to wait for official news.