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To my mind the most important thing in this announcement is the proposed elimination of the accumulated losses. This is necessary for the headline (potential) distribution, but it also opens the door for all the other potential spin-offs and dividends. Will the court actually allow it though, isn't regarded as fiscally aggressive to smash the piggy bank of your share premium account?

SP drop is possibly because this is a strong indicator that the results will not be able to eliminate the accumulated deficit, so without this move we'd be waiting for over a year before any spin-offs were possible.

No surprises, revenue continues to climb inexorably . Healthcare down as expected, but it looks like the chips are fine, with an improving book to bill ratio "driven particularly by the demand from Semiconductor Manufacturing Equipment and Industrial Technology customers." Can see this pattern continuing all year, maybe even improving as pandemic recedes, looking good imo.

"No logic in the selling, TBH."
Not just ORPH affected, Invesco urgently offloaded valuable shares at bargain prices, presumably desperate for liquidity. I would guess Woodford invested here at around 6p, so he must be disgusted by the profligacy, especially as the price continued to rise dramatically despite the heavy selling: Invesco have surrendered millions in potential profit, while still reaping considerable uplift from his stock selection. Liquidity issues can't be ignored by retail institutions though, obviously.

Apologies, link scuppered, but it's that place where directors go to talk. Also, I'm increasingly uncertain about it's accuracy, so please take it with a large pinch of salt. They claim "15 analysts in total covering the company. The target price ranges between £25.52 and £17.5". Other sources (including lse) show generally much lower targets, so DT is either more up to date or simply wrong.

Confused about Pru's short term direction. On the one hand, another demerger snag seems very "unfortunate", with replaced directors seemingly having some cards to play. Was this avoidable? Will have to wait for further details, but it will surely incur some extra costs and delay. On the other hand, the price has now doubled since the panic last March, and the consensus target is, apparently, now north of £20:
https://www.***************************/prudential-plc-ord-5p---consensus-indicates-potential-34.0-upside/412974574

The most recent rises, I think, came from a reassessment of the value of Jackson. Once the troubled demerger has been hacked away, the balance sheet should look far more attractive, and presumably that's where the high targets come from.

They launched 18 months ago at 220p Buyerjoe. Below that seems like good value, particularly now the dividend is firmly established. Holders since launch have got 34p back in divis. Admittedly the share price is no higher, but it seems reasonable to expect the next 18 months to be better than the last. You might catch a short downturn if you are lucky, but there seems a good chance the SP will continue to be driven upwards by the yield, improving solvency, and the return to normalcy, imo. Good luck!

Oops, spotted mistakes already. A 46% decline would result in an adjusted EPS figure last year of 10.55 cents (not $8.99!).
I went wrong by using the calculated adjustment rather than subtracting it from the total (i.e. 19.54 - (19.54 x 46%) ), as well as , ya know, using dollars instead of cents.

Result of all this guff, if even accurate, is that the EPS did decline last year, but only slightly: from about 10.55 cents to 10.31
First nine months of this year we are down again though: from 8.1 to 5.5 (before exceptionals, adjusted for dilution).

Thanks Rogue,
That "weighted average no. of shares" from June 2019 plus the new shares at IPO don't match the current number of shares in issue precisely: 3,081.7M + 744,047,619 = 3,825,747,619. Todays figure is 3,758M, so we're about 68M short - lost down the back of the sofa.

I think your point about the huge increase in shares just prior to IPO is highly pertinent because the EPS comparison Freedom was making was between the two years ending April '19 and April '20, i.e. one before and one after the IPO in June 2019. So the EPS numbers ($19.54 down to $10.31) are presumably not really like-for-like. In the reported 'fundamentals' these numbers are listed as 'adjusted', leaving some room for doubt.

In that July 2019 report (for first quarter of the financial year ending April '20) it explicitly states "EPS before exceptional items was $ 2.0 cents., down 46.8% largely AS A RESULT OF AN INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF SHARES." (my caps). That explanation presumably applies to the other three quarters of last year as well, so it DOES seem to account for the apparent decline in EPS. In fact, a 46% decline due to an increase in the number of shares suggests an equivalent EPS figure for 2020 adjusted for dilution would have been about $8.99, so if this explanation is accurate, the EPS actually increased quite considerably last year in like-for-like terms, for people who only held the shares after the IPO, i.e. all of us!

Please correct any mistakes or false assumptions I have made, keen to get to the bottom of this.

Trading update due on Tuesday. Edison have forecast an EPS decline this year, offset by lower taxes. They see last years exceptional performance as difficult to match, but do see underlying growth continuing, with elevating EPS returning next year. Berenberg envisage further progress right away, driven by the upswinging semiconductor cycle and industrial recovery.

After a few weeks of decline from a mountainous peak, I'm hoping the Q1 update backs Berenburg's bullish bravado begetting bags of buoyancy and branding Edison as bearish bumba claats.

The range of possible positive outcomes is huge, with the additional complication of the backers and Mintz taking some (unspecified but limited) portion. Confirming the patents alone would boost the SP, any monetary award on top of that would go straight to the bottom line, like a flood in a desert, presumably making the SP balloon proportionately.

That's only IF we win, of course, and WHEN Samsung obey the court (Kaist had to go to court twice before they actually obtained redress, despite a clear win first time, something I hope the judge remembers and resents).

Thanks Rogue. For some reason, I still can't find that 3758151504 figure in the RNS you referenced (Q1 26/7/19). I've tried various search terms, including that specific number. I'm sure you are right though, so it looks like the decline in EPS isn't down to dilution at all then.

Love how they always come up with the charity donation claim, as if that has any relevance to the issue whatsoever.

Let's see - bonus, massive incentive payment (i.e. another bonus on top of the bonus because a bonus alone apparently isn't enough of an incentive), quarter million pounds for luxury travel AND an 8.4 per cent increase in basic salary. Yes, that's eight point four extra on a basic salary already approaching a million. Perhaps he should donate money to the remuneration committee instead?

"M&G’s yield is so high because parts of its business are valued so cheaply"
https://www.investorschronicle.co.uk/news/2021/03/09/m-g-sla-a-tale-of-two-dividends/

Looks like insurers generally have a tailwind because their solvency ratios are improving:
https://www.lse.co.uk/news/PRU/live-markets-insurers-take-a-look-at-solvency-ratios-iuw9euqh9vz9z6q.html

By my calculations (based on RNSs) Sage have so far bought back a total of 9,216,365 shares at a cost of about £55M, with an average price of £5.958. It's about 0.85% of the total shares in issue. The programme started 4th March and is ongoing.

Not sure what you mean Fish. Presumably you are talking about automatic reinvestment through a DRIP scheme? If you don't reinvest the dividends they stay within your ISA as cash, unless you specifically request a withdrawal.

" I think it’s worth taking a step back with ORPH, in order to see where we fit within the UK and Global strategy, in the testing and development of new vaccines."

Listening on the radio this morning to one of the guys from the Welcome-Sanger genomic monitoring team who detected the Kent variation in November. Genomic surveillance is yet another area where UK is showing world leadership, and those guys are heroes. Not specific to ORPH, but an important part of the emerging virology infrastructure.

Well done Mary, good to hear. I've been looking at the share buy-backs reported in RNSs - they did some last year and they fizzled out after about 5 RNSs. Not sure if this was because they stopped buying, or just stopped reporting! Anyway this year they have really been going for it, all through March, and it seems to be having an effect.

Just joking about the disposal, it's just the latest in a string of them and was expected. Hopefully we can target growth elsewhere in the emerging post-pandemic landscape.

Today brokers Citigroup switched advice from neutral to "buy" (bit late!) and ramped their target from 619 to 770. Always amusing how they can justify such drastic changes with a straight face, but what a lovely shiny new target (@:

Shares issued at IPO was 744047619. Shares in issue now is 3758M. Approx. 5-fold increase. Grateful if anyone could fill out this picture and join the dots to give a heads up on the mechanics of this, and how to interpret it as an investor.

Assword - that story is from 2 years ago, when Renalytix was spun out from EKF onto the AIM market. Shares in the new company were distributed amongst EKF shareholders and were worth about £29M at the time of that article. Since then Renalytix has been listed on Nasdaq and is now valued at about $928M (£673M).

CF advised us to look at this as "kind of our ambition"
https://www.investorschronicle.co.uk/shares/2019/03/14/ekf-benefits-from-spin-out/