The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode featuring Jeremy Skillington, CEO of Poolbeg Pharma has just been released. Listen here.
I’m clearly biased but VRS seem to be way ahead in terms of who they’re collaborating with. Pretty much all major globals work with VRS, Airbus, Rolls, AECOM, MAS and Coats, Unilever (strongly suspected from previous RNS but never named) plus others supposedly under NDA. AGM seem to be a few years behind and not working with anything like the blue chips VRS is. Of course neither is at the profit stage yet and news of a major commercial deal awaited. Though I have no shares in them I’d probably put Directa Plus next behind VRS. My only graphemes play is VRS.
Long term investor then Dale. Why not do some research in to Graphene and the position VRS are in. There’s enough volatility here to trip your 43p today or tomorrow but long term this will be many multiples of today’s price if they land a tenth of what they’re involved in.
The big rewards are for those that identify and hold for the long term not flip on 15% here and there.
As ever I think it is all about material news. Trading volume is tiny, average 400k a day in September. First two weeks of August it was 1.2m a day.
The SP will drift and bob around the 40-50p mark without it. No clear direction unless it breaks above 55p or below 35p.
FF, any new disruptive technology always takes time to start the disruption then accelerated quickly. Graphene has a fantastic future impact on many areas and sectors of business and society.
It has certainly taken longer than I hoped and NR played a part in some of the language and indications he gave - but find me a hugely successful businessman who hasn’t done the same, all want to make quick progress to their vision.
The tests for me are firstly are they making progress against their strategic plan, are they being over taken by a competitor and is the market opportunity still there?
All of these areas still show massively in VRS’s favour. The opportunity is getting bigger and bigger, VRS continue to gather collaborations with the biggest global businesses around (unheard of for a tiny AIM stock), no one is able to produce quality Graphene at scale and Governments continue to either court or support them.
ARM took 13 years to hit a billion units shipped in a year. In the next 13 it went up 20 fold. VRS has the potential to be the next ARM.
Of course we’d all like to get there now, but get there we will.
Indeed, I thought it was an obligation to provide a notice of the results announcement and it should be at least a week in advance (may be making the week bit up as not sure and can’t find an easy answer on google!)
Both I should imagine. Graphene is getting more attention every week and at some stage will hit the radar of more conservative investors, at which point I would expect sustained buying and decent momentum.
Definitely plenty going on with VRS in China as recent articles posted have proven.
Should be an exciting 6 months ahead.
Robin, yes, watched the youtube interview when it appeared on twitter.
I've got no beef with DCTA. They seem in a similar position to VRS, working hard to secure and generate material revenues via various collaborations and have graphene sales reverse the other sales declines in the last year or so. There will be plenty of room in the market for a number of quality players over the next 5-10 years, some of which will no doubt specialise in certain sectors.
All these projects take time to realise their full potential. DCTA are going through that now with their products.
Hopefully both will succeed. Both need some material contracts for commercialised products over the line rather than trials and tests.
Whilst it may take a little longer I just prefer the quality of the major global businesses that appear to want to choose VRS, such as Airbus and Rolls Royce, as well as their other clients such as AECOM, MAS and Unilever.
Yes, imagine if VRS put out the RNS that DCTA did on the Oxford highways trial, a trial where DCTA picked up all the costs involved if I remember correctly.
Also, as far as I’m aware it’s all still trials, they haven’t started covering the globe in their tarmac.
It takes time for all the players to test, trial and commercialise their product. DCTA haven’t provided any financials specifically around Graphene. They’re in a similar place to VRS, just that they aren’t a certified producer of Graphene.
elmer, I think it depends on the exact timing of the 20 day period. It's never been disclosed what the exact timings are. If it started on 1st May (and on 1st of subsequent months, a reasonably logical process) then the VWAP is 48.41p with 5 days to go. I have no idea what the actual period is and doubt they'll disclose it or the exact level of any monies received. Whichever VRS won't get £236k under the example below as there is c£20k of costs to come off the gross figure.
I'm not sure it works to try and be too exact on what monies are flowing, or when, given the real data isn't in the public domain. The cash does though provide most if not all of the monthly cash burn, so its very welcome.
I too hope China news follows soon and before 30th June. It will all help the story here.
On the accounts we know there'll be nothing in the numbers, they're backward looking and there have been no RNS of material orders. It will be all about the update on the various collaborations. I would like more on AECOM concrete, O&G as well as MAS. Any news on the bottle field test - such as whether it's underway (last update was a field test was the next step but I've no idea how long it would take to initiate such a test). I don't want any news of a collaboration failing!
All the news in terms of long term strategy has been positive over the last 6-12 months. Airbus and Rolls Royce added to AECOM and MAS that are all in the public domain is building a great client list.
Of course a material order would be best news of all.
Given it some more thought overnight. I now think the first day was 1st May. In structuring a legal agreement they have probably defined the period as the first 20 business days of each calendar month. If there aren’t 20 business days in a month then they take the first business day of the following month to get 20 (which would happen each May and Apr 2022).
This would mean May starts on 1st May and the 20th day is 1st June, June starts 2nd June and the 20th day is 29th June, July starts 1st July and 20th day is 28th July etc.
That’s how I’m going to track it in the absence of a schedule from VRS. Not sure if they will RNS the first payment or not. Probably more likely to update in the results RNS at start of July.
fatherelmer, I'm not sure they will calculate an absolute VWAP but just take each day's closing price and the volume for the day and average that over the 20 days. If you pop each day's numbers in to a spreadsheet and multiply to get value of the trades then add up the 20 days and divide by the 20 days volume to get the VWAP.
Also, the first payment is due around 26th May so the 20 days have already started by my calculations. The RNS said 'the Company will receive 24 monthly settlement amounts as measured....The monthly settlement amounts for the sharing agreement are structured to commence approx. 2 months following admission to trading on AIM'. This was 26th March so the settlements commence c26th May. Monthly settlement must be when they pay surely? I didn't read it as the 20 days start from 26th May with payment in June. I reckon the 20 days started from 27th April for payment 26/27 May.
So since 27 Apr I've got it at vol 3.9m, value £2.4m so VWAP 60.5p after 5 trading days.
To get the daily and historical data i use Yahoo finance website and click on historical data.
Also, they said O&G would start commercial/contract discussions in Q1. I don’t think they have ever said when they expect to conclude. If they did start straight after Christmas I would expect it to be close though. 3-6 months a decent timeframe to get a contract in place though Covid may add a delay to the norm.
Robinhood, I much prefer the VRS deal. This spans 2-300 major Chinese companies that all want to develop products using Graphene. It also includes the set up of manufacturing facilities and technology parks to concentrate and propagate Graphene innovation. I think it's on a totally different scale (but I would say that as a VRS holder and not a HAYD holder).
In the short term the HAYD deal seems to involve further investment and cost for HAYD before revenues, though they may just be re-investing the licence fee. I haven't really looked in to HAYD so I could be wide of the mark here.
Kalan, I think they had little choice but to issue an RNS given the share price movement. I’m hopeful that as they only commented on the cash position that other news isn’t far away. If other news was a month or more away then why not add a bit on progress on the key priorities.
They can’t really deny any placing if the plan is to do one as part of the China deal, albeit at a premium to current share price.
This or big news on an order will quickly reverse the drop.
riddler, what is the benchmark salary for an AIM CEO? I have no idea but £195k isn't high in my view. I see you also changed your tune on social media, so being on a social media group is wrong - that's different to 'found acting improperly'. Personally I wouldn't have joined the group if I were CEO but that is up to Neill to determine what he feels is a good way to be approachable for investors, not much different to having emails in to the CEO or chatting to institutional investors. Let's face it there are many more PIs than IIs in VRS so a case could be made that it was ok to answer appropriate questions in that forum. I repeat he didn't post anything inappropriate from everything I saw on it - which was pretty much all activity from the start.
Of course you need to keep trying this line because there is nothing to discuss on collaborations failing, companies testing and proving the graphene doesn't work etc. Nothing of any consequence has gone wrong. All is on track. News will come when it comes.
I suspect he’s gone on radio silence to concentrate on running the business rather than dealing with the rubbish posted on social media and bulletin boards by people trying to undermine a fledgling business that has the potential to transform many industries and sectors globally - and that is British. People are far too impatient for news on an hourly basis which is just not credible when you are trying to establish brand new technology to disrupt markets which no other company has done before. All official news that has come out from the company has been wholly positive. They can’t control timelines within supply chains or on contracts in other companies. We just need to be patient.
As for your other points riddler then he wasn’t acting improperly in Discord, every comment he made was totally within any listing rules and he made that very clear. Nothing improper ever happened regards news not already in the public domain.
No other company has any real Graphene sales out there as everyone is pre scale revenue at the moment. Do let me know though of any company with a client list comparable to VRS. There isn’t anyone close.
The US office isn’t dodgy. It’s a low cost entry to have someone working in the country on the key collaborations. They don’t need to replicate the UK set up in the US. Supporting with UK expertise is the best way forward.
The share option sales were to fund a school science lab and deposit for a house move. Everything Neill has is invested in VRS and if it failed he’d have nothing so I don’t blame him for sorting his house out.
As for salary, £195k for his CEO role is very low. I earn more than that as a manager in a PLC business with nothing like the pressure or responsibilities he has.
It’s only because people can’t find anything wrong with the development of the business and the progression of the technology that they resort to the dross around the edges. Material revenues will come when the projects and collaborations complete the testing, trial and contract process. All of this is on track.
Father, I wouldn’t hold your breath on ISO standards. There would need to be some concensus in what the definition is. We know there has been pressure to try and get the definition wider than 10 layers but without success. If people can’t achieve sub 10 layer they aren’t going to agree to that as the Graphene ISO standard. It seems only VRS can achieve it as all others going through the verified producer program have failed. It will continue to be confidential as companies won’t submit to it if they get publicly exposed for failing.
Whilst it remains true that performance falls away quickly above 10 layers the current problem will remain and VRS will remain the only true provider of quality Graphene. Global major corporations will only want to deal with certified product, hence for a small company VRS have an unparalleled client list.
As more trials move to commercialisation it should be fascinating to see VRS mature and accelerate away on other 2d materials like Hexotene while the others try and find a way to knock a few layers off their platelets!