Member Info for BoringBernie

The Interims won't come out next week.

Tuesday 21st is the date for your calendar for the Interims.

XPub

As Gixer says, that was about FF as an ingredient rather than FF+.

If memory serves me right ( though it might have been a rival product ? ) I think we did some work on the shelf life of FF+ a few years ago which resulted in updated labels being stuck over the original date ? It's by no means impossible we could do something similar with the July 24 batch, I suspect though, given the likely small volume of July 24, if needs be it'll be more cost effective to sell it off at, say, £10 a packet as low shelf life stock and move on to a new batch.

fwiw - my gut reaction is that the main driver of the shelf life for FF+ will be the fish oils rather than the WSTC, but that is just guesswork.

Hopefully we won't be left with too much stock that we either have to write off or sell at a large discount.

Given our total inventory of both FF and FF+ was ~145k at the end of Sept 2023 we can't be far off the end of the July 24 FF+ stock, so even if we had to write it off it'd be in the 10's of k

BB

Gixer

This isn't an excuse for them, but, as we've previously discussed, Provexis isn't even mentioned on the Venturing site as a company they hold ( https://www.venturing.dsm.com/en_us/portfolio.html )

Also DSM-BV has a lot of fingers in a lot of pies. Even when you strip out the wholly owned subsiduaries and majority owned companies, there's an awful lot of dribs and drabs of holdings documented in https://www.dsm.com/content/dam/dsm/corporate/en_US/documents/list-of-equity-interests-DSM-BV_16042024.pdf . Chances are, until they recently got involved because of the FF purchase, DSM Venturing had pretty taken their eye off the ball wrt Provexis.

We're plainly more than a bog standard supplier to DSM, but equally plainly, our relationship isn't as strong as it was under the AA.

Alf

No-one's saying it would be advantageous if they sold out, but it wouldn't be the end of the world. Angle, all be it from a smaller base, sold up and barely anyone noticed or cared.

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Gixer

I'm not totally sure about this, but I suspect an RNS with a TR-1 for DSM-V going above 7% might not be needed because the RNS for the purchase of FF from DSM had already informed the market of that.

I can't think of any reasonable explanation as to why we weren't properly informed about DSM-V going below 6% though. The same RNS told us they had, but didn't say WHEN, which is part of the mandatory reporting.

The lack of what I'd consider proper reporting is bloody annoying, but, given it's DSM-V, who I don't believe care much about Provexis any more, it could be worse. I'm ambivalent about DSM-V's position as a shareholder and, if they end up exiting completely, wouldn't see that as a negative.

BB

Not a massive surprise to see them pull out.

Because of the drop in IP's share price their existing offer was, on paper, broadly similar to IP's so they probably felt DS Smith's board preferred the tie up with IP and it would take quite an increase in their offer to get DS Smith's board blessing.

Shame, but there you go.

WestOfEngland

Partly because of the lack of coverage and the controlling family stake Goodwin's always been a nightmare to value ( I've been in to a greater or lesser extent for ~ 20 years ), though the family's stake allows them to take a very long term view !

I don't think we're currently overvalued ... I'm assuming eps for this FY will be ~250p which, at the current share price of £63 will put us on a pe of ~25. With growth at 20% that's a PEG of ~1.25. If growth continues at ~20% that's not cheap, but it's not obviously expensive either.

It is putting a lot of faith in continuing high growth though. If that growth drops to ( say ) 15% then it starts to look a bit different.

Are we on the brink of sustained medium term ( 3 to 5 years ) growth 9f ~20% per annum ? Maybe. If we are then I can see a share price of £80 to £90 in the next 18 months. We'll know better when this years results come out along with, more importantly, details of the outlook for 24/25.

Until then, for me, it's about risk management of my meagre wad !

It'll be nice if it does carry on rising, but at £60 the yield is dropping to roughly 2% and the sp is putting a lot of faith in earnings continuing to rise which is making me a bit nervous so I've reduced a bit.

The spread is tighter than it appears btw, the price I got for selling a few was in the £59's so the guess that sites make on whether trades are buys or sells isn't very accurate on GDWN.

Unless the sp rises to really silly heights, I'll keep most of the rest of my holding, but will likely reduce a bit more if it keeps creeping up.

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Gixer

We only had 145k's worth of inventory ( both FF+ and FF ) left at the end of Sept 2023. It seems unlikely to me that that stock would have taken us through to the end of the FY so I think we'll probably have bought more stock of FF from DSM between Oct 2023 and Feb 2024 ... which would have reduced our cash position.

It's possible our cash position is still healthy, but I doubt very much we're saving it for a big order.

BB

Https://www.ii.co.uk/analysis-commentary/stockwatch-what-would-us-takeover-mean-income-share-ii531236 works for anyone not having an ii account.

A quick skim through the Finals suggests to me that getting the accounts signed off as a Going Concern was a bit tight, so that's a relief. Renegogiating the debt was crucial going forward so, overall, unlike like what I thought a few months ago, it doesn't look like a Rights Issue will be needed to repair the Balance Sheet.

Overall, it's obviously been a bit s h one t here recently, but it does look a lot more hopeful going forward.

Gixer

Fair point on the 6% threshold. It sounds like DSM Venturing have, at some time in the last years or months crossed the 6% threshold without realising and have failed to notify the market.

I guess, in theory, they could have crossed 6% very recently and you have a certain amount of time to notify, but that seems very unlikely.

It doesn't make any difference where in the world you are, you have to notify every time you cross a threshold, and the threshold is each 1% above 5%.

No big deal really, in theory the FCA might people over the knuckles for not disclosing properly, but it's hardly up there with what Ken Morrison didn't do ! ( google it if interested )

As an aside, I never really understood how the disclosure rules worked when holders were diluted under a % threshold. I always thought they should declare that, bur I don't remember DSM ( or anyone else for that matter ) formally declaring that ... it just changes on the Provexis website.

Anyway, I digress, as far as I'm concerned the only important thing to take from all that is that DSM-V plainly aren't joined at the hip to their shares and have sold some in the past, quite possibly the recent past.

Gixer

If memory serves me right the "Major Shareholders" page was updated on the 8th March to reflect the change in "not in public hands" info.

So, at that point, the only info ( well, formal info, it's possible, but unlikely he knew different ) Ford had on DSM Venturing's holding was their last holdings RNS. They dropped to 143 million back in 2010 ( or thereabouts ) btw. My guess though is they started to unwind their position some time since the AA ended but havn't gone through 6% so didn't need to inform the market.

Incidentally, as far as I can see, and I may have missed it, DSM Venturing no longer list Provexis as part of their portfolio, not even under Legacy at https://www.venturing.dsm.com/en_us/portfolio.html and havn't done for a bit now.

BB

Alf

Re evidence of drip feeding shares ... 2 points

1. I said "if they're so inclined", so was stating it as a possibility, not a fact, but ...

2. Yes, there is evidence of it. Take a look at the major shareholders part of provexis.org which currently, based on info from the 8th March states DSM Venturing hold 143,769,230 shares. Today's RNS has them, pre the issue of new shares at 130,923,358. So, since they last declared they've sold just under 13 million shares.

Their ffs

*hangs head in shame

Also, if they're so inclined, DSM can instruct someone to drip feed there shares into to the market as and when they think the price is right, so they're happy too ( and Kev can buy them, which'll make him happy too ! ).

Credit ( pun intended ) where it's due, that's a decent way of solving the cash flow issue and doesn't fundamentally change the value of the company because we've directly swapped equity for stock of the same value.

With Lucas having been a whisker under 10% I wonder if he passed on the opportunity to increase because, under the AIM rules, going over 10% would see him treated as a related party ?

BB

The £15m trade was the end of day auction rather than a single trade, so I wouldn't read too much into that.

There were some chunky trades declared after the close though, just not quite THAT chunky !

Sounds like they're no longer treating DSM Venturing as "not in public hands", so basically saying that DSM are no longer treated as being a related party.

So the shareholdings havn't changed, but how they're treated has.

Fwiw - which, given my not brilliant grasp of accountancy, isn't much, as far as the Profit and Loss goes, I expected the royalties to be treated as a selling expense

Given they only increased from ~20k last year to ~30k this year, I'm hoping I was wrong and the royalties are being treated as part of the cost of goods.

BB