The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode featuring Jeremy Skillington, CEO of Poolbeg Pharma has just been released. Listen here.
Well they're certainly a lot better than the RTHM IR. Emailed last Friday and got a decent response today (though obviously not just doing what I'd wanted!!). In short I suggested that they should 1. Re start the buy back. 2. Add further funds of c$10m to replace the money spent on the ex CEO shares to provide confidence to the market. 3. Put out a trading update at the AGM rather than in July. Their response was as follows:
Firstly, thank you for attending the investor roadshow, increasing transparency and investor engagement is a key priority for Taptica moving forward.
The buyback recommenced on Wedneday following the settlement of shares from the share sale you mention above. There has been no change to the buy back announced in April for an aggregate purchase price of up to $15 million. Any changes to Taptica’s buyback strategy would be announced to all shareholders simultaneously via RNS. The Board will continue to assess how best to use the Company's existing cash resources to increase shareholder value, which may include future distributions of cash or further share buy backs.
We note your suggestion regarding a potential AGM statement. However, a later update means that the company will have had more time to integrate RhythmOne into the business allowing management to provide more visibility on the future of the combined business. The company and its advisers are currently considering when the best time is to update the market.
Hopefully they'll continue to respond to enquiries from PIs.
Don’t think you’ll go far wrong guys with those buys. Feels like we need the aecom news now with a material order in the message. I’m pretty sure the broker note is tied to this too as without sizeable order it’s too easy to dismiss the story on all LOI/MOU and no revenues. Investors Chron this week shows how lazy many are in comment and analysis. VRS seem to be the clear leader and the one to back. I get regularly amazed at the myriad of applications of Graphene. It’s going to be a huge force in many many future developments. I’ve gone from 27k shares at the start of the year to just under 250k so looking forward to news arriving!!!
13th June Biffa. You’d think it would be a good time for a trading update. At the roadshow they did say they would release an H1 update early July though!
Isn’t that the second tranche of buy back shares? 944k was the conditional part?
You don’t even see that on mobile rusty. Just peace and calm. On the buy back I’d much sooner they spent the money buying all the shares back from the ex CEO than have an overhang for 6 months as they exit in pieces. You can’t control when someone wants to sell up so better to face in to it. I thingk its highly likely they’ll add $10m to the buy back programme before we get to the AGM. Finally I see Sizmek going bust a good thing. Even though the key assets have now been bought this is still too crowded an industry and more need to fail or be acquired. Just hope Tap isn’t one to fail! At least as others go bust I won’t see Stt posting relentless doom and gloom repeatedly.
Agree max, I added 15k shares today too
Quite bmac. I think they could well add funds equivalent to what they spent today. $25m total buyback would still be about the equivalent of the net cash they had from R1, so they still wouldn’t have touched the previous TAP cash pile. They have plenty of headroom.
and of course any dividend costs 4.81% less tomorrow in cash terms than it did before the buyback started
So I make it that they have bought back 4.81% of the shares in total so far. From the last AGM they have a mandate to buy up to 10% I think. They could therefore increase the buy back spend above the $15m (by roughly a further $15m) prior to June and then get a mandate to buy a further 10% back if they wanted to.
I was slightly surprised by the talk of buy backs / cash returned in the RNS. It could be that Tosca (if they did buy) wanted assurances that TAP didn't sit on their cash or make further acquisitions in the near term. They could well have bought at £1.40 and asked the BoD to consider a special dividend to get some of the cash back!
They did say in the RNS yesterday that they would use funds from the buy back but who knows to what degree. I'd like them to purchase a material amount and increase the size of the buy back at the same time as $15m was a relatively small amount vs their net cash.
Whilst another distraction for the team, once the placing is out of the way i'll be much happier that the ex CEO is totally out of the picture. Also prefer to see them tackle it head on like this than have a massive stock overhang sat there for 6 months or more as they sell out in small chunks.
Will be interesting how many of this placing are bought by the company under the buy back. Should indicate level of institutional demand. No doubt Tosca will have some but could easily see 2m bought back here
They said early July is when they would provide guidance on H1. I’m hoping they may bring it forward a bit to the AGM and make a statement then. There was a view that FinnCap May issue a revised note in a few weeks once the management have had a good look through the numbers.
Upthejunction, I think you need to work on your maths, if most of their business is tied for 3-5 years and they win 35m of business in a year and they do that each year they’d have 105m vs 80m today. If they win 80m a year as you suggest they would have 240m of annual revenues or 400m if everything was 5 years. If all was 3 years they need to win 27m each year to standstill. Don’t get me wrong, there are still plenty of risks here but your investments will be more at risk if you don’t improve your maths.
https://adage.com/article/agency-news/publicis-groupe-acquires-epsilon-395-billion-deal/2164571
Agree with you both. It does seem stronger in the afternoon. I used to think it was as day traders selling in the morning and buying back in the afternoon but that theory seems more unlikely of late as the share price hasn’t done much at all. I can’t really complain as I too have topped up at 120 and 124 over the last couple of weeks. Think it will come down to the RNS with material order before we get a step change from current range. I expect new all time highs from there on.
May struggle on the buy back today as I don’t think they can pay over 1.82 today, being 105% of the 5 day average close.