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It is all very well posting an RNS refuting the claims. But there are questions to be answered and the board has an obligation to account for its actions and how this squares with operating in the interest of shareholders. It also stinks that they’ve only bothered to reply now that its been made public.

The board could (and should) show shareholders that they are aligned by:
Significant board wide share purchases
Refusing to accept any options until Nanoco is organically profitable.
Total pay freeze at board level too with a view to salary cuts in exchange for options (based on the above criteria) in the future
Providing better and more concise reasoning for the settlement

Instead, all we have, for now, is a passive aggressive retort from Nanoco. At least we know the board are still alive given their radio silence over the past few weeks…

Now Reuters. It’s ironic this is getting more publicity than the original settlement! https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/group-nanoco-shareholders-ask-top-bosses-step-down-2023-03-27/

Who can argue with the points made in the letter? There is a need for clarity and so far, we are nearly two months since the RNS with nothing by way of clarification. The accusation of insider dealing will have potentially grave consequences for the board and there is a case to answer there. Going to be an interesting few weeks and I wouldn't miss the investor call for the world.

Wandisco is a hot mess. Even as a Nanoco shareholder I can say that!

Good points Nano.

If I could just add, the reason why I hold is because I think there a potentially a few white knights on the horizon:

- the Samsung deal isn’t all it would initially seem (as steak has suggested(
- if the sensing customer is a big player a halo effect will be created
- a sensing contract also proves commercial viability
- the shadow has long been looming over the future of cadmium. Regulatory change could supercharge interest here
- Nano looks like an attractive takeover target with the legal issue put to bed

So for me there are enough dangling carrots to hold because all the above, and all will lead to asymmetric gains.

Like others I was not happy with the deal, but now isn’t the time to sell IMO.

Markets are largely a mechanism of sentiment and whilst are patents and assets are obviously worth more than the 2m, this is negated in the short term by the apparent mismatch between the board’s rhetoric and what transpired. Trust is hard earned and right now is in short supply. Until there is news that proves otherwise, or proves the commercial viability of this company, it seems perfectly logical to me that the company will continue to be valued only modestly above its cash value.

Andy, ‘be4’ you were ‘Drew’, when I last frequented this board you used to claim to be a female? Congrats on your transition.

I’m inclined to agree with Intrusive in the sense that investing hard earned in a company you have no faith in is simply nonsense. Far better to realise a loss and move on than begrudgingly hold and wring hands daily. That’s not investing. You may recall around d 29p I advised if your confidence had gone it would be wise to sell and since then the price has drifted further and way well drift a little more yet…

If one works on the assumption that it would cost nothing to obtain legal advice and pursue each enquiry to its logical co conclusion then yes, it would be an attractive prospect.
But if in order to extract value through legal pressure significant investment in or expansion of the company’s legal arm is required, you can see how this could get quite messy quite quickly.
That is why I referred to it as scraps because as a net figure, that’s exactly what it would be.

A buyout at the level won’t happen based on the share price action of the last 12 months. I do think the settlement makes Nano look attractive for a buyout and I do think that is partly why Tenner has been hammering this ‘enforceability of patents’ line. Therefore, if you buy our company and its IP you are assured of the patents you are buying. If two non core patents were sold for 10e of millions what does that make the entire portfolio worth?

I don’t rule out the possibility that it may be possible to secure more favourable licensing deals with smaller players that don’t have the means to slug it out in court. But I struggle to see how that would haul in major income streams for the company, perhaps a few million at best. Better than nothing but not transformative.

Plenty to ponder and I’m happy to hold for now.

Nano

Thanks for sharing the article.

If 90% of our market was sold for 150million then I think investing money in pursuit of the remaining 10% is futile and Tenner has his guns pointed in the wrong direction.

I hope there is more to the Samsung deal than meets the eye but if there isn’t, it’s better to be focused on sensors and new applications for the tech rather than chasing companies for scraps.

Hello all,

I guess some things never change, andybe4 still here giving it beans I see!

By my reckoning it’s been a year since I’ve last posted on this board. I steadily unwound my position in the 20s and thought I was done with this company. I was absolutely gutted by how it all went down.

However, I’ve been keeping an eye here and at 10p…I just thought that was a great re entry point and I’ve bought a few shares.

I’m surprised that one year on, the late stage respiratory market remains largely untapped. Synairgen fell foul of poor trial design and a great deal of naivety around SOC. it’s my conviction this drug is not a dud but the margins for error are wafer thin and we were just, by a whisker, the wrong side of that.

At this price the only real threat is a fund raise, and I don’t think that’s imminent. I’ll be honest this is a pint, but it seems to me that Syairgen’s race isn’t run just yet, and the asymmetry in terms of upside is hugely attractive at this price.

GLA

Steak, I've done a little bit of digging around this and found this good article here which backs up your point. It's a long read, but worth it for any investors here I'd argue:

https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5046&context=wlr

The long and the short of it is that secrets are common practice within settlements and much like an iceberg, that which is publicly known rarely, if ever, encompasses it all.

I am not necessarily bullish on there being any more to this deal than meets the eye, the settlement RNS seems to really go to pains to point out this is the be all and end all in terms of our dealings with Samsung, but am comfortable with holding here in the current vacuum. As Nassim Taleb said, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Nanoco BB twilight zone instruction manual:
1) begin something approaching sensible debate
2) burnt posters bay for Tenner’s blood
3) Giga wades in to slam all the clueless imbeciles who apparently know nothing about anything - ironic given the amount of time he dedicates to them.
4) debate then becomes a personal, bile filled slanging match

Rinse and repeat, Ad nauseam.

Baronet, the concept of BT resigning off the back of this settlement is simply nonsense. He wasn’t acting alone. You can be sure that every move he made, especially the decision to settle, would have been with the board’s blessing.

Now it remains to be seen exactly why the board thought the settlement suitable. And I don’t think it is particularly useful to guess as to why until further detail is known IMO.

I suppose the natural counter argument is that the cash settlement makes Nanoco robust in a way it has never been before. No threat of dilution, no more making tough decisions about which limb to chop off to get cash burn under wraps, for the next 2 maybe 3 decades. If you are prepared to hold and wait it out then it stands to reason that opportunities will come along and underpin the company organically. It’s just a matter of patience.

A lot of mud slinging going Tenner’s way but I’m reminded of Nietzsche’s wise words ‘don’t mistake the unintelligible for the unintelligent’. In other words, whilst, right now, we don’t know why the settlement was as it was, that doesn’t mean there wasn’t a good reason for it. It’s too premature to be calling for Tenner’s head, I don’t think we even know the half of it TBH.

I’m off too. Still holding with a great deal of interest. Plenty of irons in the fire for this company and I shall reserve judgment for a few months yet. Hopefully be back in brighter times but this bickering and point scoring is just getting pointless.

Not sure I agree with you on that point FH. I think there’s a certain irony at work: whilst Samsung have got away with a slapped wrist, I think nano’s logic is that now Samsung have settled, and with the IP validated, it does give them cash and leverage to go after others in pursuit of fair value licensing agreements elsewhere. Samsung could afford to slug it out endlessly, I’m not sure others would be so well geared to do so. I don’t think Nano would need to go to the lengths they went to with Samsung in pursuit of licensing deals and the threat of litigation would be a major warning shot for smaller less cash rich infringers.
So whilst we didn’t get fair value out of Samsung, we may well get some revenue streams from CFQD licensing agreements from smaller infringing parties.
I’m not setting too much by it because we don’t know how many companies Nano have their sights on, if any, but it’s an intriguing concept for sure.

I think the Runcorn facility will have a part to play in supplying product to more niche customers and end products.
However, I've always round the round the clock production figure a bit of a ramp from the company. Any serious volume of production will likely be on the basis of a licence agreement, rather than it being from the turbines of Runcorn.
It'll be intriguing to know who Nano have in their sights in terms of other infringing parties, and what their plan of action is for them, that could in itself bring in quite a nice revenue stream.

It won’t get to 36p on fresh air. It’ll be news that drives us there and by that point LTHs may have brightened their views on it all since then. I accept, too, that there will be some who will be just looking for an exit.

I see this as anything but boring. This is where BT and the team earn their crust. What is all this working capital to be invested on? How will a production contract impact a modestly valued company with limited cash burn? Will the end user, rumoured to be apple, create a halo effect? Things could turn around quite quickly when you think about it.

My gut instinct was that it was a bad deal, but my gut also told me that Tenner seemed to have the company’s interests at heart when I first invested. Both of those gut instinct can’t be right haha so I wait and see which it was. I owe my investment that much at least.