Member Info for BoringBernie

Puk plainly close his timescale carefully

The sp two years ago was ~0.6p, rose quickly to 1p, and then the overall trend has been down to ~0.35p

It was nearly 2.5 years ago when the sp was at a low and the directors bought in a placing, which was outside Puk's chosen timescale. Plainly he did that to exaggerate a point, but there's no point in saying he's wrong ( on the sp drop over 2 years ) when he's not.

BB

I agree with most of what you're saying Alf, Broadcare was non-core, so it makes sense to sell it.

I'd argue your maths is out a bit though.

On last years figures, the contribution was between 6 and 8% depending on whether you use "headline" operating profit or statutory op. profit. With companies like Mission, which is often paying for past takeovers, the truth normally lies somewhere in the middle, so I'd plump for something closer to 7% than 5%.

I've thought for a few years now that Mission is undervalued, and I still think the market hasn't caught up with that. The price paid for Broadcare also supports that, though not as strongly as your number suggest.

Anyway, I averaged up a couple of months ago, and like my previous purchases, not much has happened yet, so, until ( hopefully ) Mr Market plays catch up, I shall pocket the divis and ( again hopefully ) watch the capital appreciate.

12 month target - With the wind in the right direction ... 75 to 80p ?

BB

By-Health's a big company, and they're having a great year, but it's fairly easy to pick and choose timescales to make a point.

If I was so inclined, I could point out that it's share price is still below the peak reached in 2015, but I won't.

I'm very happy that By-Health are plainly very keen on Fruitflow, and, over time, I think they'll make a significant difference to our income from DSM, but it does make me smile when someone picks up on a positive change over a couple of years, rather than a negative change over a few years.

JSL

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Wellsite

If the pipeline turns into something which produces an income from DSM of anywhere between 500k and a million in the next year or two, then the sp should be well north of where it is now.

However, I'm failing to see the relevance of the link you've posted. The cost to bring a drug to market in the pharma area isn't really anything to do with the situation we're in. Are you sure that's the article you meant to link ?

There's a chance, probably an outside chance, that in the medium to long term Fruitflow might lead to something happening in the pharma world, but I can't see how that article bears any relation to valuing us.

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Bits

You may be right, but it's survived for a hell of a long time so far.

Part of the problem here is that we've been told about "jam tomorrow" for so long that if it actually turned up we'd all probably have a good sniff of the contents of the jam jar and get a cat to taste it first just to make sure it actually was jam and not something left behind by a dodgy Russian !

If all the talk about multiple values of the pipeline and substantial volumes related to By-Health doesn't turn up in the next year or two, then it is indeed hard to see Provexis doing anything apart from limping on or getting wound up, but, as time goes on, and the market cap slowly shrinks, then it wouldn't need much in terms of extra cashflow to actually justify the market cap.

That doesn't mean i'm chucking any more money at it until / unless we get something a bit more concrete though.

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Pumpky

I'm not sure if your 18:27 post is aimed at Alf or myself, but ...

I knew next to nothing about Buck when I first invested, but when I re-invested whenever it was, and topped up last year, I knew all about his failings and invested despite him being on the board. As far as the interface with DSM is concerned, pretty much all the work has been done, so he can do no harm there.

I'd wager our agreements with By-Health are pretty much led by DSM, so he can't do much harm there.

In the short to medium term, my only concern with him is his involvement with FF+.
Longer term, when it comes to renogiating the AA with DSM ( due to end in 2022 I think ? ), I really don't want him involved. But, to be totally honest, I doubt I'll be a shareholder in four years time, so I'm not going to get stressed about that.

BB

From https://www.provexis.org/fruitflow/

"Fruitflow® was launched in Europe in November 2010 at the Health Ingredients Europe Conference in Madrid, where it was awarded the overall award for ‘Most Innovative Health Ingredient’ and won the best innovation in the ‘HEART HEALTH’ category."

From https://www.hollandandbarrett.com/shop/product/provexis-fruitflow-omega-3-capsules-60018340

"HEALTHY HEART: Fruitflow® + Omega 3 is 100% natural and clinically proven to maintain healthy blood flow and help maintain a HEALTHY HEART, by harnessing precious extracts from the jelly around the seeds of tomatoes. It is combined with fish oils which are concentrated for potency and naturally sourced from Omega-3 rich wild ocean fish."

From https://www.fruitflowplus.com/

"supports healthy blood flow and normal HEART function"

Sometimes peoples overwhelming desire to only see good things about companies they're invested in can lead to making daft statements and could even potentially limit the ability to make profits out of their investments

Not that I'm desperately arsed about how H&B's search engine works, but Fruitflow+ plainly is a heart product.

BB

I think Sphinx is spot on when he talks about the new advisor coming in and making sure everything is squeaky clean.

It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone on here, or any of the other boards, that Buck has a history of failures behind him, that info has been on companies house for years, and has been discussed on the boards previously. All directors of his age will have some failures behind them, but Buck has more than his fair share. As I've said before, he's, at best, nothing special and, in an ideal world he wouldn't be on the board, but DSM and, to a lesser extent, Ford are pretty much running the show, so we're likely stuck with him until he retires.

Ford seems half decent without being the genius that Alf thinks he is, and DSM have lots of good reasons for wanting Fruitflow to succeed, so I'm not overly concerned that we have someone on the board who I'd rather wasn't.

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Pukkers

Re "Cut and paste"

Actually, all the RNS said was that "...all resolutions were duly passed." The cut and paste job ( updated to included info from the Annual report" just sits under "Notes for Editors" so isn't part ofthe official RNS. As Alf says, that's fairly standard practice, esp. with smaller companies, so no-one should think there was any new info in it.

Presumably there's a direct link between "substantial volumes" for By-Health and " total projected annual sales value of the prospective sales pipeline", but it's going to be a while ( probably over a year ) before we get anything firmed up on that.

In the meantime, in a couple of months, we'll get some more flesh on the bones of the "Strong start to the 2018/19 financial year, with first quarter revenues ahead of first half revenues in 2017/18." statement and see if H1 as a whole reflects Q1, which could well depend on how much the "marketing support" received in Q1 was.

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Pumpky

I suspect you already know, and Alf will correct me if I'm wrong, but Alf is presumably relaying info he got from a phone call with Ian Ford whereby Ian told Alf about this presentation.

Assuming that's the case, then there's nothing wrong with companies giving such presentations to invited investors / potential investors, they're quite common and, on the main market you quite often see an ( Reach ) RNS saying something like "We will be holding a presentation on <date> to analysts and our larger shareholders where we will present the board's vision of the future. No new, market sensitive nformation will be discussed at this meeting"

Why the board chose not to mention that a presentation was made to investors who took up the placing in the RNS for the placing, only they know. fwiw, I think they meant no harm, but communication skills aren't their forte, and havn't been since Moon left ( who, for all his faults, understood the need to communicate ).

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Orangetree

I'm, at least, in partial agreement with your views on Bellway, but a very quick look at your posting history suggests that all you are really interested in, is driving traffic to your own site, something which may well break the t's and c's you sugned up to when registering here.

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Pumpky

Cost to us is roughly £5 a packet ( possibly less on a bigger order from our supplier ).

Plainly I don't know what we're either directly ( or indirectly ) selling FF+ to H&B at, but my guess is £7 to £8, so I'd be very surprised if H&B aren't making something like a couple of quid per packet at £9.50 a shot.

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Alf

To be honest, I don't think there was anything significant in the report that I didn't understand.

Would I have liked more detail on some things ? Well, yes, but given the detail isn't in the report then, almost by definition, Ian won't be able to give me it. That's not his fault, it's just the way that information has to be disseminated. If Kievsky and yourself got some helpful answers to your queries to explain stuff, then that's great, and it's great that Ian takes the time to do so, but the questions I'd have liked to ask were :-

1. You say Q1 revenues ( including marketing support ) are more than H1 in the year just closed. Can you tell me what the amount received for marketing support was in Q1 ?

2. You say the value of the pipeline is a substantial multiple of existing annual sales. Can you :-

a) Put lower and upper bounds on what you consider to be substantial
b) Tell me what the probabalised value of the pipeline is and
c ) What the expected phasing of the pipeline is likely to be split across say :- Next six months, next twelve months and next twenty four months

The company could, if they'd so desired, have included the answer to (1) in the Annual report, but they chose not to. It's possible they're waiting until they've got all the numbers in for H1 and they'll update the market some time this month if like for like revenue in H1 increase by ( say ) 25%. But, as it stands, for all we know, the marketing support might be 60k, which means the LFL revenue could be 65, which would be only marginally better than half the 2017/18 H1 revenue of 124k

A certain degree of cynicism is needed when reading the reports of almost all companies, especially those who are making a loss or who have fallen on hard times. After all, cast your mind back 12 months or to the previous annual report which stated "Further year on year sales growth has been realised in the quarter to June 2017.". Come the Interims, revenue increased from 123 to 124k, so I'm happy to wait for the next set of Interims ( or a trading update with numbers in it ) to come out before getting too excited about that one.

As for (2), he can't give me, or anyone else, that info. It'd be useful to have, but it's unlikely to ever be divulged , and I understand the reasons why DSM wouldn't want that info sharing in any more detail than has already been quoted. but that does mean that it's essentially fluff, spin or wonderful depending on your level of / lack of cynicism.

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Alf

To what end ?

I've spoken to Ian a few times over the years, and I quite like the bloke, he seems pretty straight. But, as FD of a quoted company, part of his remit is to be as positive as he can be without actually lying. I dare say he could explain in some detail the problems they've ( DSM ) had with getting FF to market, but, unless ways have been identified to fix those problems, then it's all a bit academic.

Another part of Ian's job is to ensure we have the finances in place to keep on trading, so, in years gone by, we had the EFF, and now we have the ( roughly ) annual placings to ensure the books get signed off by the auditors. Neither are ideal, but they've kept the company solvent, so beggars can't be choosers. Hopefully they'll either need to raise less next year, or there'll be something more concrete to raise funds against.

In the same way that he can't say anything price sensitive at an AGM, he can't say anything similar on the phone or in person, so, apart from hearing his positive spin on the situation, talking to him again one to one, wouldn't change my views on the situation. Sooner or later, to really appeal to investors, the company has to deliver financially, and if we're being brutally honest, the BoD have very little control over that. What's that old saying about Actions speaking louder than Words ?

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Sphinx

Re "upside".

Yea, I agree there's a decent chance of being upside from where we are. If I didn't think that, then I'd sell up, but you're kind of implying there's some sort of conspiracy going to to make things look worse than they are, and, though that's always a possibility, I don't think it's very likely. The market cap is where it is because, so far, Fruitflow hasn't generated a lot of cash for us from the AA, so we've been burning cash at the rate of 350 to 450k for the last few years.

Until that changes, or we get some news which means there's a high possibility of it changing in the near future, then, barring the odd flurry here and there, there's not likely to be much interest in the company.

The Interim Report's due out in less than three months, so we'll have some idea as to what's happening then.

Cash flow out ( excluding tax credit ) was 208k last year, 201k the year before and 220k the year before that. All other things being equal, which they probably won't be, if that drops to better than 150k, then we'll probably have turned a corner, otherwise we'll still be in a "jam tomorrow" kind of situation

BB

Sphinx

In just over three years, since July 2015, 388 million shares will soon have been issued via placings and Primary bid, which is ~19.5% of the company.

Over that time, the only holdings RNS we've seen where someone's gone over a threshold was for McKeeve, who then subsequently dropped below 3%. Also over that time, DSM Venturing were diluted below 8% and Rising Stars were diluted below 3%, which suggests the take up is from people who either havn't crossed the 3% threshold, or don't have to declare their holdings

fwiw - I think it's likely that a reasonably large % of the shares issued via the placings have been placed, via Cenkos, to one or more of our market makers, who are smart enough to make money on them ( partly through covering previous short selling ). Market makers don't have to declare any position below 10%, so they can, quite legally, operate under the radar.

As far as I know, it's perfectly OK for any RNS which has mentioned "new and existing investors" to include Market Makers under the heading of "existing investors". If that's what's happened, and it keeps the company going until it's profitable ( or at least gives it the chance to be become profitable ), then I'm fine with that, but it'd be a bit naive to think there's a pool of HNWIs who, on their own, are keeping the company going. I don't doubt there will be some of those individuals taking up shares in the various placings, but I doubt they're taking up all the shares in the placings.

BB

KJM is spot on, it's half price ( 9.97 )on their website as well.

https://www.hollandandbarrett.com/shop/product/provexis-fruitflow-omega-3-capsules-60018340

BB

Old news CB

See http://www.ii.co.uk/discussion/t/provexis/1142546/41?u=boring_bernie

Presumably the web site is wrong, about the AGM, which is poor, but the chances are the AGM will take place in October after the legally required 21 days notice is given.

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Alf

Yea, I get your point

It was updating on articles from a few years ago such as http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-24607698, so it shouldn't have come as a surprise to any holder or anyone who'd done some decent research.

Plainly GPBack sees it as a negative, each to their own.

Personally I see it as a positive, all be it one with caveats attached to it ( cost and knowledge mainly ).

Some people will read the article and come to the conclusion they need to do next to nothing in terms of primary prevention, but they're not our / DSM's target market. The main target market is still the worried well. In time, if more BP trials are carried out, that might change, but, for the moment our market is the health conscious part of the world's population with a decent disposable income.

BB

This isn't new news.

For the last couple of years the official guidelines in the States is now not to recommend aspirin for primary prevention unless the patient's risk factors for CVD are higher than average. Rather than that meaning Fruitflow has no market, it's been seen as an opportunity by DSM to sell Fruitflow as a safe alternative to people who might have in the past, taken aspirin.

Plainly the cost of Fruitflow and a lack of knowledge of it's existence among the public restrict the market for FF, but to say the study referred to might destroy the business case for Fruitflow and Provexis is a bit odd.

BB