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Was it Oracle spending his profit buying everyone drinks after buying back his shares at 27p ?
Hopefully he is busy with SBRY this week !

Silver
Where do you get the NAV from ?
According to Morningstar at todays price of 26.63 it is at a value of 82% to book, which to me indicated a nav of 32.48p.
I must confess to having bought some today, not because of the very modest discount to book but because as a trade I suspect there is some upside after Woodford sold, however the Barnett stock will surely put a cap on the price until that too is cleared ?If one or two of their apparently inadequate/ineffective execurive directors went I would be more confident.
They have a few stocks which could do rather well in their portfolio but their client care is poor, from the point of view of investors into their funds, which does not augur well for repeat business and they seem to have a difficulty with selling through IFA's, who are huge in VCT market and pretty hefty in Mercia's EIS market.

Gents, not trying to be totally negative but bear in mind Barnett still has, according to the FT stats on their website, 88.67 million shares or 29.23%, which is larger than Woodfords holding at its peak. How safe is Barnett's job with his serial appearances at or very near the bottom of almost every performance chart ? Surely if he goes his huge % will be sold swiftly, if he clings on like he has been he could well be instructed to dispose of it.
Thus any pick up in price could be short lived.
A plus point is that the "Holy Trinity" of Woodford, Barnett & Searle (who was Chair of MERC till recently) as well as still being Chair of what was called until yesterday Woodford Patient Capital Trust has now been well & truly broken, but what we should consider is how capable the MERC board is to ;

1) Have 2 "associated" shareholders owning over 50% &
2) Have a Chair they shared with one of those shareholders

Whichever way the board try to dress this up is no more than putting lipstick on a pig.
Once 1 or 2 of the exec directors go (soon hopefully), I think we can then look for some real improvement.

Mick-b
A great post.
I have been posting here that there is something that the BoD appear not to be telling us about , why were they so keen on selling so much below what the shares had been valued at only months earlier ?
That is a big question and something they have never explained.
Why not is what I wonder ? There HAS to be a reason.....

Rivaldo
Not looking so rosy now, is it ?
What went wrong ?

Oracle
If you really think they will go to 27p why did you not impart this esteemed knowledge on us all when they were 130p ?
Or were you perhaps thinking then that they would go up to 270p ?
Kindly enlighten us.

Taversham
Pre bid levels were £30, yes they collapsed due to "unexpected figures" but this whole exercise has been a farce.
Posters here some months ago were gaily predicting a bid at close to £30, don't know what they were smoking but it must have been pretty good.
I maintain that there is something we do not know about here, no BoD normally tries a fire sale if there is no fire, simple as that.
It could, of course, be that they are just incompetent, but something tells me it is not as simple as that

I should correct my post of Aug re Woodford will be forced to take a lower price for his rump stock, it will now be Blackstone and they will not care what price they dump this piece at, they just want out & take their fees.
A flawed business model if ever one exists, Woodford & Barnett holding +/- 50% between them, what was the Mercia board thinking of to take backing from 2 people in that size ?

Rev
Thoughts from your congregation ;
You may be correct re the divi, but they have plenty of underperforming properties which they could dispose of, but never seem to, which would be cash positive.
I am pleased to see there is now a staff training budget, very badly needed IMO, we know there is waffle in a statement when R.F. highlights an increase of 0.1%, give us all a break please, that is less than a rounding entry !
Looking on the bright side it could be because R.F. now has an effective Chair breathing right down his Gregory ?

Trent
Sounds like we are equally blessed !

Going down in line With Hargreaves Lansdowne I guess?
IMHO they are 2 very different beasts, HL is tarred with Woodford & Bell could gain market share as a result ?

Wonderful, we hear you !
Please tell us though, shares down from £30 to just over £8, where is the bid ?
If no bid (and it'salready late), where do the shares go?
Not near £30 I'm sure !

Another day, another dollar is the saying but despite all the expectation on this site we are still waiting to be told if anyone wants to bid for us !
This time last year we were £30, now we are £8 with a board who put us up for sale and each month the price seems to slip inexorably lower.

Nimrod
It so often happens this way in October, traditionally a difficult month for investors, but I agree with you, after such a steep rise this is the time to sit on your hands and wait for the dust to settle before going "bottom fishing".

Rev
You are correct when you say any bad news sends the SP down further, perhaps you need to review your blessings as the more you bless Mars the lower they go !!!
I'm with you, a sitter for an overseas company to take on, wipe out the debt and then the earnings would really be accretive.
Pigs & fly come to mind though....

Greg
I understand what you say, but if all is really well with the company why on earth would you try to sell it with a sp of £8 whenn 11 months ago it was £30 ?
Is that logical?
Or are they hiding something in the accounts?

TVR
If only we knew eh ?
As you see from my posts I've been a cynic all along on this proposal, I seriously doubt the board's reason for looking for a buyer, if you have a business which is in a growth sector you do not go offering it to someone else do you ?
My comment earlier of turkeys not voting for Christmas is still relevant, I fear, unless & until we receive a sensible update from our esteemed BoD, who have presided over a share price drop from £30 to £8 in just 11 months.
Never mind though, they have a plan.....

PYU
You make very reasonable points, if we do suffer Corbyn many things could happen, not the least of which could be a "haircut" of larger personal bank accounts (think Greece, it has happened!). The one point I would differ on is that the loss of tax free divis could impact the resale value of VCT's as it is the major reason anybody would buy them on the secondary market.
I would suggest that the largest buyers on the secondary market, by far, are the companies themselves buying them in to control the discount.
I think you are correct to be cautious, but in the scenario you paint, what is safe ?

I understand your fears but I would suggest that it would be very difficult to retrospectively change the tax status, but with Corbyn one can never say never.
I suspect that if there were to be an election current open offer vct's would issue the shares on the day of the election so they definitely came under the current rules.
Also I would think it is more likely that McDonnell will think of stopping new payments into ISA's (many more of them) and vct's do create jobs by funding smaller companies. I am not totally sanguine about the situation though, as the current nonsense in Parliament displays on a daily basis, but do bear in mind that there was a thorough review by the treasury about 3 years ago comparing EIS & VCT's which culminated in the new rules

Sailor
Good post but sadly no RNS this morning concerning the sale process.
Good news, like results, normally comes out quicker than bad news. I apologise for my cynicism about the board but I've yet to see anything to come from them which makes me change my mind yet.