Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
I was really gunning for settlement pre trial at one point. I’m much more agnostic now.
Pre trail settlement will be nice as a bird in the hand etc.
But if we get a good win and big damages in Texas, all of a sudden the Overton Window shifts into a completely different league in terms of settlement figures that Samsung will need to be tabling much bigger offers to be taken seriously and avoid injunctions.
Of course the usual caveats in terms of there being a risk of losing in court etc etc. but I do think either route (pre vs post trial settlement) has it’s advantages
Well, it’s time for Samsung to cross the river now. Will they pay the ferry man and settle, or try and swim across?
All got very exciting all of a sudden.
Had to have a chuckle to myself at the court jester halfpenny who sold down a couple of days ago. Great timing mate!
Amazing RNS. Merry Christmas everyone!
Ah fair enough I shall defer to your better judgment in that case!
Well it was originally due for launch in 2022 so realistically we would’ve had visibility on that well before now. Factoring in time to actually manufacture scale up for launch etc we would have had actual orders, let alone visibility some while back I would have thought. The obvious caveat to that is if those in the supply line have for known that delay was likely for a while. But based on original timelines, like I say, it doesn’t marry.
There was a fair bit of reading the tea leaves in terms of the potential application that the STM order might be linked to. To me, the timelines for the VR headset didn’t marry in terms of order visibility vs when the product was originally planned to go to market.
Best to wait for guidance from the company I reckon.
Eccles I think it was that Samsung agreed to be bound by the PTAB decision for the purpose of the trial?
All depends on how they’ve been briefed from the judge. Counsel on both sides will probably be privy to much more than we are and part of that could be ‘we don’t have a formal listing yet but there’s a high chance that…’
FWIW I agree December is unlikely.
Wishing. Hawi. You pair of legends. At the coal face doing the research!
Hello all,
In this down period I’ve been using some of the calcs provided by the excellent special situation investment article to better understand the risks and opportunities around the litigation (link here):
https://www.specialsituationinvestments.com/2022/09/nano-patent-litigation-multibagger-upside/
I think we are all aware of the risk of an outright loss in court, although it’s fair to say that this remains a rather remote possibility.
A more likely scenario, however, is the concept of low damages. You can imagine a scenario in which ‘little minnow Nanoco would be grateful just to get a 100mil or so’ in the eyes of the jury. I must admit that this has caused me a little bit of concern. All this waiting and shouldering all that risk for what would be quite a limited upside should low damages be awarded.
And so my attention turned to the moves in Germany (and now China) and how all that fits into the wider narrative. It seems quite clear to me that Nanoco (and, it’s important to reiterate, their legal backers too) will not stop pursuing Samsung until there is a settlement, and this is why Germany is the lynch pin in this whole narrative. A positive ruling there, an injunction, and we will be dictating terms of the settlement. And believe me, with injunctions on the line, especially factoring in Samsung’s clear ‘all in’ on Qdot display, Samsung will want to get settlement done. Injunctions put those negotiations firmly in Nano’s court.
So whilst it would be great to have a high dollar value damages ruling in Texas, I don’t think a low damages amount should necessarily be construed as a negative signal to investors. It’s quite clear the long term goal is a settlement and an ongoing licence arrangement. For me, so long as the case in Texas goes in our favour, anything else in terms of high damages/multipliers etc is just a bonus. The real value driver will be the chapters that follow, the mounting pressure and, crucially, injunctions.
Patience is all that’s required and I’m happy to hold as long as it takes for above narrative to unfold.
I’d be interested to hear other’s thoughts. Thanks all.
Good to see the glacier is back up and running with a fresh docket haha. Wonder why it took over 2 weeks to rule on though? All very odd.
I wouldn’t read too much into it (would love to be wrong!) but it could simply be one momentum trading algo selling to another. The volumes are healthy but not huge. From a technical standpoint 33.5p was oversold so this could be viewed as a correction to the upside.
Not this again…please
2 mil shares changed hands so far today. Let’s hope things could be heating up. I think we are primed for news on the litigation front. Fingers crossed.
To me the SP seems to have spiked when confidence/perceived momentum in the court case has been high. Given it was at 37p after PTAB and things elsewhere have since strengthened, current SP looks a bit oversold. That said, I get that the mysteries of court allocation dates has caused some frustration and hence we are where we are. I think the market attaches very little value to organic growth at the minute, understandable given the previous disappointments. But it will certainly be welcome in terms of giving the SP a bit more backbone. As with any loss making company, lean periods in terms of news almost always lead to a bleeding SP.
Let’s hope the next couple of weeks gives us a court date!
Katstrangler, it’s ironic you call long term investing, driven by narratives that are years in the making as ‘gambling’, yet go on to espouse the virtues of jumping on ‘bagging opps’ (by which you can only mean stocks for which volatility is currently huge, or mining/oil stocks waiting on drill results) as if that were not an even worse form of gambling!
You’re right, traders have exited for now, but I think you’re pitching your tent in the wrong field if you think that many of us PIs are suddenly going to get FOMO and start getting swept up by the LSE pump and dump hype squad.
My guess is their funds are taking a pounding given the general market conditions, by selling here they are crystallising some profits to boost quarterly figures. It happens often and buying and selling is more often than not about appeasing paymasters with eternal growth rather than it being a reflection of their actual thoughts on a stock.
Interesting perspective Intrusive. I definitely see the sale process in 2019 as you describe but the 2018 NDA seems to favour Samsung and is water tight. What’s your analysis of the 2018 NDA in terms of it favouring Nanoco? Thanks in advance
Thank you Morbox. Having read the docket it is clear that Samsung clearly saw where all this was headed by enshrining a clause within the NDA protected them from it being used in future patent litigation. Sounds like a pretty tried and tested stunt for them and if there is any nativity, it was in 2018 when that clause was allowed to pass in the NDA and was signed off by the Nanoco legals.
Even so, the final passage is very encouraging. Gilstrap will allow the jury to decide what Samsung meant by ‘pioneering’ ‘foundational’ and ‘leading edge’ technology when it first made overtures to buy Nanoco in 2019. That will be very persuasive to a jury.
It’s crazy to think only a couple of years ago Samsung could’ve bought Nano for 60 odd million. Their greed got the better of them. Let’s hope they have to pay a heavy price for such horrid behaviour.
Not showing here for some reason:
https://www.londonstockexchange.com/stock/NANO/nanoco-group-plc/analysis
New target of 70p for full option grant. The cynic in me says that’s too low given the unique journey of this company. It’s not going to be your typical growth trajectory one would’ve thought.