Member Info for BoringBernie

"... and they said give us a 20% discount ." Indeed, that's how the market works. The MM's played the game a bit by walking it down to just above the placing price. Some saw only negatives in the placing and threw their toys out of the pram on the internet, others used a bit of nouse, put emotions to one side and took a risk. Plainly it could all unravel and we could end up close to 45p again, but you have to expect large fluctuations on many AIM stocks. BB

Routey-baby , you little ray of sunshine ! Come on, we didn't need an Open Offer. The sp was within a gnats whisker of the placing price so those that fancied topping up at that price, did so. I'll not lie, before the RNS, I was concerned about the sp dropping and would have sold if we'd got an RNS saying that Downing had been a seller ( I'm not bothered about DSM or Harpin. If they sell, it won't mean much to me ). But instead, we get told that Moonie has convinced some city boys to fork up a couple of million to fund further expansion. Maybe he's hoodwinked them, but I reckon he's shown them his business plan explaining how he'll move from revenue growth to actually making a profit and they liked what they saw. It was oversubscribed you know, so he's doing something right. SiS isn't Provexis, it's much easier to understand and not reliant on research uncovering a money spinner so I'm following where I think the smart money is. At the moment you could probably value the company at anywhere between 40 and 80p. If it gets close to 80p I'll take some profits. If it dives off a cliff, well, I don't do locked in. Why don't you hop on board and have a little fun ? Mind you, it could get sticky when the Annual Report is issued. Losses excl. exceptionals are likely to be between 500 and 900k which might well spook people, which could well be a buying opportunity. Oh, that 2 million deal. I got nowhere with that so, you're right, I guess I'll never know. BB

Haha, in which case, I'm Deluded of Lancashire. It might take a few years but I'm betting we'll see this over a pound. BB

Possibility of strike action in the UK business seems to have hit sentiment ? Personally I don't think the two sides are very far apart and the strike ballot is now closed so we should find out what happens next fairly soon. http://www.unitetheunion.org/news/unite-opens-ballot-for-strike-action-for-corrugated-packaging-industry/ BB

.. little company Goodwin is. Today's IMS showed growth in the region of 20% in the first 3/4's of the fin. year and gave us the wonderful words "... and the trading situation remains buoyant." We're so far under the radar even Jange was stopped posting here ! Knock twice if there's anyone there :) BB

Largest shareholder rather than majority !! I doubt this will make much difference to the sp, it's taken them three months to move from 17 to 18% so they're plainly happy to pick up shares slowky, at the right price. It's nice to see a VC outfit content to take a long-term view on a company rather than just looking to make a quick Buck :) BB

Market size for SiS is a puny 1200 shares, so that's the max no. of shares the MM's are obliged to give you a quote on. You could keep trying reducing downwards to that number till you get a firm quote BB

I know, I know. I'm conceding on this one, you were right and I was wrong. I really ought to try and kick Cenkos but I feel I'd be flogging a dead horse so I'm just writing it off to experience. BB

Alf - The trade was marked "ordinary" as opposed "transfer between MM's" so, theoretically at least, it was a PI or an II. Even if it was MM to MM, mm's should declare above 10%. Still, AIM and all that. Gixer - It's normally 2+1 days ( 2 for the shareholder to tell the company, 1 for the company to tell the market ). I think it's 4+1 for some ( all ? ) non-UK holders, but I'm not sure about that and have looked at the T&D rules before in that area and wasn't really any the wiser. I did wonder about the Kiwis, but discounted it on the grounds that they're presumably a "related party" and might be looked on as PDMR's ? Though again, I'm not at all sure about the rules in that area. It pains me to say it but Route1 may well be right. Perhaps we'll never know ? It's academic now because I now have to foot the food & bar bill for the next meeting of the Central Lancs Provexis and Ex-Provexis shareholders, which I'm a bit miffed about tbh. BB

Hmm, fair play to you. I have a wager on with someone that we'll see a holdings RNS by the end of today and it's not looking good. *shakes fist at shareholder or someone at Cenkos / Sis BB

Route1 I do hope it's tomorrow, or at least soon. It would cause me great mental anguish to have to admit that you were right :) BB

Re "as for the 2 million trade you might never find out who bought or sold ." Haha, priceless analysis there, not ! BB

Alf Re "and still no explanation of why over 2 million shares changed hands in one hit yesterday." I hesitate to say this but, based on 2 days to get the info to the company and 1 day for the company to publish then I'm putting Friday 6th forward as a likely day for a holdings RNS ? You know my thoughts on profits and revenue, lets not go down that route again. Cashflow is a bit of a concern though. Businesses need investment, but it would be nice to see something approaching positive cashflow over the busier half of the year. On the assumption that the 2 million was a buy ( and I'll be gobsmacked if it's a sell ) I'm still holding some here for the long term. Moon has one, possibly two large investors watching him closely. I think they'l keep him in line. BB

"but the low bottom line figure will leave some unimpressed I'm sure." You're right, it did. I'd hoped for an underlying profit of 300 to 400k fo H1 so 20k is disappointing. BB

Alf You're right of course. It was always referred to as a couch when I was growing up and the hallway was a lobby. I've plainly deserted my roots and turned into a middle-class ****. Ah well, at least I didn't call it a settee. The next few days should be interesting. I wouldn't be totally surprised to see a placing tomorrow !! BB

Ooh err missus, that is a big one. One thing's for sure, one way or t'other, we'll see a holdings RNS for that. Maybe Alf's found a couple of million down the back of the sofa ;) BB

I should add that 2% of the UK market will be an overestimate. Given that the total value is retail we're probably closer to 1% ? Same could be said for Asia. If, in five years time, Asia is putting 10 million through our books for revenue then that'll still do nicely thank you BB

Total sports nutrition in the UK in 2012, according to http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/uk-sports-nutrition-market-led-000000082.html was £260 million Our revenue last year was ~5.5 million, or about 2%. We're a niche provider in sports nutrition and historically that niche has involved supplying serious endurance athletes. I'd say the plan is to move more mainstream, but not so mainstream that you alienate your core, loyal user base, so I doubt SiS will ever be totally mainstream. My "wet finger in the air" estimate is that aiming for 5% of the UK market is realistic. We'll be starting from pretty much a standing start in Australasia so getting it up to ( say ) 2% in 3 to 5 years would be a massive achievement. I'd be more than happy with 0.5% tbh, which would give an Australiasian revenue of 30,500 * .24 * .5 / 100 = 36.6 million USD or ~ £20 million ( please check my maths ) Costs are a mixture of fixed and output dependent, you can get a decent idea of what they are from the last full set of Provexis results ( http://www.provexis.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Provexis-plc-annual-report-31-Mar-13.pdf ) In the short term, there's plenty of room for expansion in Nelson. If Asia was to take off then I'm sure they'd start manufacturing over there to supply that part of the world. BB

gaj I sold out @ ~90p but bought back in a few weeks ago in the ( low ? ) 60's. I think of SiS as a medium term investment. It's a sound business and should do well long term. i've got some reservations about how the business is run ( the usual AIM gripes about rewards for the BoD being based on fairly easy targets) but overall, I'm happy to give it time. BB

H1 They've told us to expect a loss for the Full Year so I'd expect "underlying op. profits"for the full year to be something like 300 or 400k but with a pre-tax loss. There's a fair amount of guesswork in that. It should be clearer once we've had the Interims.