Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
A lot of tea leaf reading about the meaning or intent of issuing the German proceedings now, all perfectly OK with me, everyone's thoughts are interesting and valuable.For what its worth my interpretation is that:
a. it is intended to show that Nanoco is serious about getting full value for its patents, and has the support of its financial backers. i.e. this case is not going away, Nanoco is more terrier than minnow.
b. it is timed so that following a win in Texas Nanoco could straight away, without delay, use this as a springboard for an injunction in Germany. A positive result in the US would be very persuasive in the German court, showing the claim to be seriously well founded. The pain for S could not then be postponed by simply appealing the US result.
c. it shows the support of the financial backers is solid and they are there for the long game, not just a quick profit in the US.
d. it pressures Samsung to start thinking seriously now at a senior level about where they take the case, what the landscape could look like after September.
Now whether S will seek to settle before the US trial who knows. There are often several offers made before an acceptable one, and we will know nothing of the process until agreement is reached, if it ever is. My own feeling is they will run the US trial, if they win few jurisdictions will impose an injunction, Nanoco's backers may lose faith in the case and drop out, and the legal manager in charge at S has a positive career affecting result on his CV. If they lose that is when they come to the table to negotiate seriously, and in the meantime seek to postpone any injunction on the basis that settlement talks are ongoing.
Feeks, just checked the internet, https://www.txcourts.gov/about-texas-courts/juror-information/basics-of-the-texas-judicial-system/. In Texas it appears civil juries can reach their decision by a majority of 10:2
Troublesome: "We're going to trial" actually means "we're going to trial ...... unless something unexpected, like an offer that is too good to refuse, happens to change that". Nothing is ever written in stone, the words are simply a statement of the current position and reflect his determination to see it through to a proper conclusion.
Would you pay to takeover a company whose principal asset, its IP, was being seriously questioned in court and PTAB proceedings by one of the biggest players in the market, who you might assume knew what they were talking about?
Samsung thought they could pick up the tech for nowt.
Feeks, thanks for this, I completely agree with your sensible analysis and your lawyer friend's experiences tally with mine. No lawyer is ever closed to the possibility of settlement, nor is any level headed litigant. It just needs the right offer to be forthcoming. Though I would be mildly surprised if such an offer did materialise in this case!
There may be cause for optimism, but its a very dangerous state to get into. I'm just optimistic enough not to sell out, but pessimistic enough to lose the odd bit of sleep now and then!
Hawi, interesting calculations. A P/E of 20 would not be unreasonable, should Nanoco become a profitable organic business with revenues in that region, which is a fairly modest figure, the costs in attaining that revenue would be relatively small. Most spending would likely be R+D to maintain their position. It could be an income (dividend) generating stock, but not many tech companies achieve this.
There are other possible outcomes. Plummet, rise and plummet, takeover/merger, all speculation, interesting in idle moments.
I do agree on the SP trajectory both on a win or a loss. On a win, the danger of selling into the spike is selling before it exceeds the actual value of the company. There may well be a special dividend, in fact should the amount of cash greatly exceed that required to run and grow the company to the point where it is self financing (£15 million?) it would be the duty of the directors to return a large part to the shareholders rather than simply have it sitting in the bank. To use it to run a loss making business longer would not be proper.
But these are chickens, they're not hatched yet. A loss will bring a plummet in the SP, to single figures imo.
Though he might not be popular I must agree with NW's last post. 45 to 50 pence a share is about right at the moment since nothing at all is certain, but the prospects of something turning out well are good. But they are still chances not certainties.
As for the share price on a win, $600 million seems a reasonable expectation for past US sales, take off 25% for the funder's share, convert to Sterling, gives a figure around £360 million. Divide by shares in issue, just over £1 a share. Add sales in rest of the world, add prospect of future licence fee income, include the value of the organic business now the company is financially sound, a reasonably conservative estimate imo would be around £2 to £2.50 on value.
If anyone thinks this reasoning deeply flawed please say so. But it is just an educated guess really. Depends on where the market sees the company going in the future and how many institutions/people want a part of it.
amerloue
Will Nanoco receive orders from Samsung if it wins at trial as suggested?
Rather will Samsung not continue to produce its own QDs, but pay a licence fee for the privilege of using Nanoco's patented tech to do so? Commercial orders for Warrington production are likely to come from elsewhere and are entirely separate from S's use of the technology.
Thanks, I too have been in since then and experienced the raised hopes repeatedly dashed, hence my almost disbelief that they may actually, finally, manage to sell their product. You may well be right about Samsung's malign influence, I hadn't considered that.
Fulfilling the first such order would do wonders for their credibility, both with investors and potential customers.
amerloque, well said, Sony's top of the range TV uses the Samsung QD panel. Should the case go Nanoco's way to continue to supply Sony Samsung will have to resolve supply/production of QDs with Nanoco. Otherwise Samsung Display's reputation as a reliable supplier to other big players is severely damaged.
I'd endorse Feeks last post. The arguments may be simpler now, but trial is always an uncertain business. It is always possible for something to crop up, something go wrong, a witness use a turn of phrase which resonates with the judge or jury, a point which everyone assumed peripheral suddenly takes a central role etc. These dangers are greater when there is a jury of laypeople deciding issues. You never know completely which way they will jump, what's going on in their heads, what prejudices they may have brought with them into the jury box. One strong character can sway the others. Even the best case can falter unexpectedly.
This is what persuades parties with strong cases to settle before trial, and those with deep pockets to carry on regardless in the Mickawberish hope that "something will turn up". Occasionally it does.
My point is don't count these chickens just yet, though I must confess I'm thinking of unbalancing my portfolio even more by buying yet more Nanoco today. Reasonably rather than wishfully I cannot see them going anywhere but up after the last pretrial issue decision(touch wood).
amerloque, I'm not calling anyone "illiterate", there should be no place for insults or abuse on these boards, but the use of the term guilty in civil proceedings such as this is incorrect. That journalists use a word is no indication they are using it correctly, they can be very loose with words. Guilt is a specific legal concept and generally restricted to the criminal courts. Civil courts do not find defendant's guilty, they find them liable. That's what we want here. The world is full of people guilty of all sorts of gross criminal conduct, Samsung would not fall into the top category even if prosecuted for their crimes. They do however owe us significant damages, hopefully at the top of the scale, for the disgraceful way they have wronged the company we are invested in. That is what the case is seeking to establish, not "guilt".
In some circumstances a person could be guilty of a crime and liable in a civil suit for the same conduct (where that constitutes both a crime and a civil wrong), sometimes they might be one but not the other. To use the terms loosely and interchangeably destroys precision, can confuse, and devalues the language.
Unless one knows an awful lot more of what lies behind the statistics the numbers are not particularly useful. For instance if the courts in question are routinely filled with grossly over optimistic claims of which a high proportion fail the general success/failure rate statistic is irrelevant to a well founded case. The stats have been distorted by the poor cases. Its a little like saying in an open steeplechase that 60% of horses fall before the finish. If you put your money on a proper steeplechaser rather than one of the 65% of the field gymkhana ponies the only meaning of the stat is that your chances of finishing are good!
We're backing a proper thoroughbred in this contest against a horse from a stable (Samsung) that will run anything with at least two and a half legs and one eye.
I do find them interesting though, so thanks for posting.
Do we know what this matter related to, the potential size of the claim and the figure settled for? Other than being an IP dispute and involving one of Nanoco's chief competitors does it have relevance to the Nanoco v Samsung case?