Member Info for BoringBernie

I'm going for [5], mainly because loads of companies take longer to do things than planned, and Provexis is no different in that.

BB

This morning's news ( increased offer ) was a pleasant surprise. It seems unlikely that it'll be trumped, but I'll probably let it run it's course and hold till it's all done and dusted.

Haha, I don't think I'd last more than a few weeks Alf !

Shame it didn't work out, nice guy. Looks like I'll be visiting some Championship grounds next year. Overall though, we're a very good example of how not to run a company :(

Back on-topic ...

Ford & O'Kennedy both have options which are exercisable now at prices mostly ranging from 0.3 to 0.55p. I guess, from the fact that neither have chosen to exercise ( and sell ) any of these yet is a plus ?

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Pumps

I doubt there'd be any major restrictions on selling all at once. Typical criteria would be :-

eps ( based on either operating profit or PBT )
Absolute Revenue
Revenue growth
Profit growth
Market cap

Might be a question someone could ask at an AGM, but, given the number of years it is since a board member exercised any options I won't be reading anything into it.

Plainly if a board member does exercise any significant options to cash in, I'd be following suit !

Pumps

They do ...

"These Options have an exercise price of 0.83 pence"

Sphinx

From the interims :-

"Based on its current level of cash it is expected that the Group will therefore need to raise further equity finance, or potentially new loan finance, in the coming months ..."

So, as Alf and yourself have said, it doesn't have to be in January.

Given our cash burn rate, I'd say February is the most likely time. If we don't manage to arrange something without going to the market and need a placing then I'd guess it'll be early February ( to allow time to put everything in place ).

If they are going to raise money on the market, I hope they use Primary Bid or similar to allow anyone to help fund it ( though I'm not sure if we still have an association with PB ? ).

Yea, the business has recovered very nicely from the lows of COVID. I guess the big question is can it grow, or will we return to the fairly stable ( earnings wise ) business we were pre-COVID, all be it at a higher level than the roughly 16 eps than we were ?

I think there's more growth to come, but wouldn't be averse to taking some profits if the sp breeched 250p in 2023.

BB

Re Malhotra Alf

I suggest you read a critique of his views at

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-aseem-malhotra-lecture-isnt-what-you-think-it-is/

Obviously there's a possibility, all be it small, that he's right, but the vast majority of the scientific community believe he's wrong.

If we accept the science behind Fruitflow, perhaps we should accept the science behind the things Malhotra is arguing against as well ?

BB

I know 4 people who take Fruitflow daily. They've all had COVID at least once.

Incidentally, it's thought that of the 10 to 15% of the UK population that have never had COVID :-

A bit less than half of them have had it, but were asymptomatic so didn't know.

Most of the rest of them are assumed to have some immunity from, presumably, other , non COVID-19, Coronavirus infections.

Could Fruitflow help prevent infections in some way, or at least mean asymptomatic infection is more likely if you're taking Fruitflow ? Stranger things have happened, but you'd need a big retrospective study on it to throw any light on it.

If anyone's serious about it, I'd suggest taking it up with Ian Ford. After all, he has a list of regular subscribers ...

BB

Not sure it helps, but according to https://www.chictr.org.cn/hvshowproject.aspx?id=43245 the study execute end time was November 2020.

As far as I can remember, there's been very little detail given by Provexis on the exact details of the ByHealth studies so it's hard to say if this is one of the remaining ones or not. If I had to guess, I'd say it is, but wtfdIk ?

Net cash of 24 million compared to a market cap of roughly 90 million is pretty impressive. Admittedly the divis will reduce the cash position, but it's still pretty good.

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Gixer

Tis semantics, but I didn't say you did, I was just pointing out the, surely various reasons, that it's pretty darned unlikely !

Come 2023, DSM will primarly be a customer. In the short to medium term ( two or three years maybe ? ) , that'll be good for us, in that it gives us a real chance of moving into profitability.

But, if they thought FF sales were going to accelerate massively over that timescale, they'd have fought hard to keep the AA going so they had a decent slice of the pie. Maybe they did fight hard, but IF was driving a real hard bargain, maybe not ?

But, either way, none of that ties in with them having a place on the board as a NED.

Obviously now I've typed all that we'll get an RNS next week to prove I'm wrong which says someone from DSM is joining the board !

BB

Gixer - why would DSM put forward someone else as a NED ?

They've, all but, walked away from Fruitflow having failed to agree a meaningful partnership with Provexis which takes them beyond the existing AA. They probably have something in the order of 1.5 million Euros worth of stock left and have an agreement in place with us, at least in principle, to get that off their books as well. 1.5 million is small fry to them.

Put simply, the business entity that is DSM doesn't think it's a good use of their capital to continue investing in Fruitflow, so it would make no sense to have one of their people take over as a NED.

Obviously DSM Venturing still have an interest, so maybe they'll put someone forward ? But I suspect they'd be happy to arrange a transfer of their shares to any interested party as and when it's convenient and there's interest from someone.

BB

Total revenue for 2021/22 will be 426k, down roughly 80k from 2020/21's revenue (505k), but up ~80k from the 2019/20 figure ( 348k ).

If you were so inclined, you could estimate FF+O3 sales for the year by guessing the revenue split ( AA against FF+ ), but, realistically, based on that two year growth rate, however the FF+ figures are calculated and splIt between direct sales and distributir sales is purely of academic interest.

To be fair, it is quiet though !

BB

*note to self, don't try to use less than and greater than signs on here to embrace text !

Final try ...

Replace

If the "friendly" was holding shares

with

If the "friendly" was a Market Maker holding shares

Gah, i missed some text our

should be

Gixer

If the "friendly" was holding shares from a placing then, so long as they're below 10%, they don't need to declare.

Would it be accurate to refer to a Market Maker as an investor in the placing RNS ? Probably not, but the RNS is just making a "thanks for your support" statement to the investors that did.

I wouldn't rule out a Market Maker taking up a fair percentage of the placing, but it'd be risky for them to take that level of a small AIM company.

BB

1pencil

Davey and NoS are the same person. Davey used to post on ADVFN as Davey Cafe Racer but had a run in with someone a few years ago, so started posting as Nerd Of Steel over there.

I don't know he's taken offence, the above is common knowledge, but we all have days when we're a bit ratty, maybe Davey / Nerd just had one of those days ?

That update was a bit of an "ouch" moment. I was expecting some pressures on costs but, I must admit, 3 million is more than I thought. Ah well, brown smelly stuff happens sometimes.

BB

fwiw  - some further thoughts on the financial implications of, effectively, allowing the AA to lapse ...

For the last FY, our share of the profits was 358k, up from 235k the year previously.

For H1 of the FY 2021/2022, our share was 135k, down from 172k

Total revenue for the full FY 2021/22 was 426k, down from 505k. I would guess that most of the drop was down to a drop in the profit share from DSM, so our share of the AA might be somewhere between 250k and 300k ?

Plainly we don't know what the profit split is, but, if, for example, it was 50/50, then, all other things being equal, once the AA came to an end, we'd be looking at an extra 250 to 300k coming through to our bottom line. But all things aren't equal because we know we'll be paying a royalty to DSM based on sales / gross margin ( reducing in years 2 to 4 ), so, we should, hopefully, be pushing close to break even in calendar year 2023 ?

To add something on what Bella mentioned. We'll be responsible for maintaining the inventory on Fruitflow as an ingredient, which, while not directly affecting profitability, could, depending on how often manufacturing runs are made, give us cashflow issues. If we can manage that cashflow within our existing net cash ( roughly 900k as of end March 2022 ? ) and / or borrow against expected cashflow, then there's no need for another placing. To be honest, given what we know now, I think the million previously raised was at least partially raised for the scenario now unfolding

BB