Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
"For me the trial date and result is key - Samsung can appeal all they like but damages will just accrue and accrue and eventually they will have to pay."
Agreed, especially wrt SP movement. The jury will also play a big part, if it gets that far. The inevitable appeal will be predicated around the amount awarded (assuming one is). Samsung's probable goal in the case now, in the absence of an unlikely dismissal, will be to produce credible reasons to trim any award, for use in settlement negotiations as well as appeals.
" adamant all will come out well"
I've never said that, as you well know Velo. It is funny how people like to put words in other people's mouths as if misrepresenting others bolsters their own position - it surely has the opposite effect, as it demonstrates a lack of self-confidence and a reliance on dishonesty? I'm not considering topping up now, but fortunately I already did so earlier, fairly near the low. As I said in a post at the time, the conditions seemed ripe for a change in SP trajectory. So far, so good.
The main risk here is to do with the lack of information from the company about the court case, imo, not the issues you are focusing on. The fundamental business strategy has been successful, but IF there is a problem with the roll out of new RF products then growth prospects may be compromised by an unquantifiable amount. This uncertainty may be the most weighty factor affecting the SP. The other issues: debt, retirement of senior staff, exchange rate losses, high wages due to covid, shortage of supplies, high freight costs, chaotic government, expected cyclical downturn in semiconductors, etc, are all important, but transient issues, imo.
The fact that so many issues weighed down on the SP at once, on top of the court case, gives considerable potential for recovery, imo, providing they continue to ease.
Have developments changed your mind about this one Velo, or do you think this is just a 'dead cat bounce'? SP movement suggests the shorters got this badly wrong again, just like Lombard and others did in 2019, but time will tell. I hope some readers (if there are any) took your comments with a pinch of salt and got on board around £15, because it has been a rapid 25% gain from there, plus a decent quarterly dividend.
If order intake is sustained into Q4 and component shortages continue to ease, this should have a lot further to go, imo, (and I'm "boring boy poster of the year").
"quantum" science seems like an unfortunate name. A very tiny amount of science, a bit like homeopathy perhaps?
Comparison with VOD is misleading. Look at existing long term customer growth record and growth forecasts for Africa generally and Nigeria in particular. What do you mean by dodgy? This is backed and largely owned by the enormous Indian Airtel conglomerate, seems safe enough, proven technology and business acumen, and highly profitable.
"The HoldCo debt is substantially reduced by I assume it’s all now sitting at OpCo level…while I assume this has some benefit beyond being able to give a (potentially) misleading leverage figure for HoldCo it certainly doesn’t help the average PI assess how much debt the company actually has across all of its subsidiaries, nor indeed the cost of financing all that debt."
While some debt has been moved from the holding company to local ones, I think this is in addition to the reduction of overall debt caused by redeeming bonds, paid for out of sales of infrastructure. The strategy saves the company money, I think, by cancelling expensive US dollar debt, and by transferring OTHER debt to cheaper local interest rates.
I agree that the state of AAFs finances are somewhat difficult to assess, and many investors probably avoid them for that reason, but the underlying growth and profitability are surely clear enough.
"by far and away the worst performing stock I still hold in last 12 months."
Really? According to HL, this is up 28% over the last year. Are all your other stocks doing FAR AND AWAY better than that? Congratulations!
I think you are confusing different issues Alessandro. The finance costs are not to do with debt, but with derivatives and currency movements. If debt is your worry: "it has further derisked its balance sheet, having prepaid USD450 million in outstanding external debt to HoldCo."
https://www.lse.co.uk/news/AAF/top-news-airtel-africa-interim-profit-drops-as-finance-costs-grow-tzz9t45l1d8vkl9.html
Presumably this is aimed at Samsung's panel supply business? The backers are pulling no punches. Nano were once on the ropes, taking punishment like Ali with his rope-a-dope tactic, but they have emerged swinging, going for the knockout
Settlement discussions were entirely logical, but some seemed overly certain about things we didn't know about. Speculation is interesting if people give their reasoning, but a little humility should be mandatory. Those crowing about being right (so far) could benefit from a little too. I think Samsung bosses make decisions using a different cultural context to us, and also seem to have demonstrated criminal and gambling tendencies in some previous cases, but in reality I simply don't know why they do the things they do, and sometimes wonder if they do themselves
Correction- although the case was brought in California, Comet are a Swiss company specialising in Radio Frequency and X-ray power products. It is unclear where the employees were based.
https://www.comet-group.com/
Although the $40m court loss and associated costs are probably already reflected in the share price, uncertainty remains on any future implications wrt product offerings and development
Maybe old news to some, but this article has some extra details about the case which I haven't heard from XPP or anywhere else:
https://www.jurist.org/news/2022/03/jury-awards-semiconductor-manufacturer-40m-in-trade-secrets-case-against-rival/
It appears that XPP hired employees who brought trade secrets with them from US rivals Comet. Comet originally sued the ex-employees in 2018, but subsequently dropped that action and sued XPP instead. The jury awarded $20m compensation on 2 of 4 trade secrets. The other $20m is punitive damages.
XPP are officially "considering" their next action, but it's unclear what options are available to them.
"XP Power declared a quarterly dividend of 21.0 pence per share, unchanged from a year ago."
https://www.lse.co.uk/news/XPP/xp-power-maintains-dividend-as-revenue-and-sales-grow-in-third-quarter-cp4e5fslm6lz643.html
Personal insults Velo? What an honour, but it's against the board rules and rather tiresome, so please desist, me old fruit. I have no objection to views other than my own, didn't you notice that I welcomed yours? Perhaps you just didn't read what I wrote carefully enough: it was the condescending "you lot" that I actually objected to.
The share price may actually be close to the bottom. The economy, politics and war are part of the downturn. XPP are forecast to see an upturn next year by some analysts, due to an easing of component shortages and a strong order book. If that transpires, the change in UK government and a more sustainable economic policy could provide the basis for a turning point in the trajectory of the SP. If they can put the court case behind them and return to growth, the SP could potentially recover quickly, and it has fallen a long way.
They also need to recover faith in the management. The court case was an annoying surprise because management failed to make adequate provision for it, and seemed to think it was impossible they could lose. Perhaps there is a case for clawing back their generous bonuses, which seem based on an inaccurate calculation of "success" which involved appropriating someone elses technology?
Why is NGR1616 so proud of his "cracker" question?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O__sLviHY44
Samsung's jailbird CEO singing, Gangnam style:
"Oh, that ain't workin', that's the way you do it
Get your money for nothin', get your dots for free"
Questions based on false assumptions suggest people have not actually read the article Nanonano linked to. It mentions "lead free" QDs, there is no reference to CFQDs whatsoever. Furthermore, it says "research and development specialists can now access two of its Quantum Dot (QD) products", which is obviously not the same thing as production at scale, and therefore not comparable to Nanoco's process.
Because no-one was interested Velo, yourself included: hardly a prolific contributor here, are you? Your alarmist views on the share are more misleading than illuminating, imo, and you seem to have gone out of your way to disparage and exaggerate the situation. It is amusing that you make condescending "you lot" remarks, because if you had bothered to look even slightly, you would quickly notice that hardly anyone ever comments here. So welcome to the board!
Court has now confirmed it's decision. XP still denies stealing the tech, but it couldn't convince the court. As Beddard said "the court case raises questions about the company’s ethics and culture " and the continued denial seems to demonstrate a culture which has not changed. The $40m hit can and is being absorbed, but the underlying problem seems to remain?
So 16 days past the expected trial date, and no settlement. Those who claimed settlement was logically inevitable, confidently quoting court statistics as evidence, will presumably have had to revise their opinions sharply in the light of events. Isn't a settlement now less likely, as all the drivers for it have essentially been exhausted? It looks like yet another buying opportunity may be developing ahead of trial date confirmation.