The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode featuring Jeremy Skillington, CEO of Poolbeg Pharma has just been released. Listen here.
For what it is worth, I think the recent Chair investment is a very smart move by Eileen and now confirms to me that at some point in the future this share will gain traction, possibly Kutzz you might well be right, this was the catalyst needed to dispel any doubt and bring in new investors.
I personally think at this stage this news is just as good if not even better than a JV. They really do seem to be strategically thinking about maximising on long term value.
As I had said in previous postings, they appeared to lack the skills of raising money, but Eileen has clearly shown that this is no longer going to be an issue and is quite happy to put in her own money to get the project where it needs to be, before the big guns arrive.
Continued salary sacrifices by the entire board especially at this stage, also shows that everyone involved is committed to the project.
2023 could well be the year that Oriole really makes significant progress, very exciting to now sit back and watch further developments.
Interesting email.
I remember listening to Tim on his interviews in 2021 and I bought into this company with confidence of investing in the company and the CEO. He presented himself well, and I believed in what he was advising.
Kutzz, I don’t disagree with your comments and I know from my communications that the board are as frustrated with the market cap as we are.
Personally, I think they will turn this around and I have no doubt in my mind that the CLP licence held, will at some point be recognised by the market. My harsh comments the other day were intended to sharpen the minds of the Board, they need a rocket up their rear, as I am aware they read the comments. It’s not good enough to just plod along, now is the time to deliver. With the price of gold and the state of the markets, this is the time to agree the deal and push on, as I said before, I believe this will transform the fortunes for the Company, long term holders, the Board and Cameroon.
The CEO needs to have a plan, and when that is not working, needs to evaluate and adjust. I think for Tim this is a personal mission, he will do whatever he can to make this work, not only for financial reasons, but for personal pride.
One thing is for sure, if anyone is shorting this share, at some point in the future they will get badly burnt, that I am confident of.
Lets see what happens over the coming weeks.
Hi Kutzz, 0.0035
There are no skills required to lose vast sums of money.
There are plenty of hard working people out there who earn a sixth of Tim’s salary.
Burying your head in the sand and hoping the market will change and help funding, is damn right ignorance .
Tim said that the previous Senala deal was signed on the day he arrived and he had no control over this awful deal. You would of thought knowing this, he would of made sure the deal needed for Cameroon would of been carefully planned and executed, not letting history repeat itself.
I intend to attend the AGM on June 8th and one thing I can promise the board, is a very unpleasant meeting, if you can’t sort out this mess before then. There are no excuses for incompetence at the highest level. I will be drilling down with a list of questions which will probably humiliate the board and show the situation is self inflicted and could of been avoided.
You have had 5 years to turn the company around. Securing the licences on the CLP was excellent, but this was only part of what was needed. You don’t undertake this kind of project on a wing and a prayer. There is too much at stake. Running away now is not an option, we are all in too deep and have invested a lot of time and money.
You need to deliver
If you cannot perform this task, then I would suggest that you pay back all of the money that you have taken under false pretences over the last 5 years, give up your shares and move over so someone else who is hungry, keen to achieve results, is giving the driving seat.
My business had good and bad times, in bad times you do not suck out money on expensive salaries! I had periods when I did not draw any money at all, knowing when the good times returned there would be an opportunity to remunerate myself. You don’t suck the life out of the business when it can’t afford it, that is gross negligence and verging on the line of criminal.
Great posts from Hawaii and Kutzz.
I am a long term investor, holding just over 28,000,000 shares. It has been a long and painful 2 years and I agree with Kutzz, that I had a lot of faith in Tim, but this has almost gone now. I am a patient person, but it gets to the point that when you look back and review the situation we are in, it has been self-inflicted! When I review the summary given by Hawaii, which is really helpful, thank you for doing this, it really concentrates your mind on why we find ourselves in this situation.
I used to own and run a multimillion pound company, and I can tell you, business is not straight forward and many obstacles come up when running a company, the skills of a strong reliable senior management team, is to concentrate on their core strengths, and what it appears from my observation, is the company lacks anyone with the skill to raise money successfully! Before going down this journey, you write a business plan, and have options available, contingencies if your first method of raising finance does not work.
Bob appears to have failed tremendously in looking after the companies finances! Just looking after the money coming in is very simple, keeping costs low is not rocket science and this is not what a Finance Director is there for. You can employ someone on a quarter of his salary to undertake this task. Claiming back money for assets that are due, is also straight forward, whilst it is a very difficult and frustrating task, it does not warrant paying Bob all of the money he has been paid, especially when the results are non-existent to date.
Tim is obviously an optimist, but not sure he is a realist, especially when using other peoples money.
In my opinion, if the company had used other avenues to raise money along the way and not just rely on diluting shares and raising money and pitiful low levels, we would not be in this situation. It is clear to me the CLP package is not the item in question here, the results always deliver, thankfully, it is cash.
I would like to see the BOD now quickly and successfully sort out a JV. If Tim is not able to fulfil this task, what the hell has he been doing for the last 30 years. I bought into this company for a variety of reasons, one of them being confident that Tim was well connected and at the right time would pull off a cracking deal, that most other people would fail to do. Its your time Tim, head down, and fight for our future, like your life was dependent on the results. If you fail, I believe you will never be able to continue working in this industry. You have a golden opportunity (apologies for the phrase), to pull off a deal that will transform Cameroon and the fortunes for many people.
second post to follow
Her holding was sizeable in comparison to any of the other management team.
I don’t disagree that she was not up to the job, and was totally focused on opening new stores, spent too much money in the wrong places, instead of diversifying and increasing the online sales. She seemed to last a long time for a poor quality CEO. What was the rest of the Board doing, whilst the ship was sinking? If this was the case, why did Moody not do anything about it, he just sat there for over a year. He arrived in October 2018 and waited until June 2020. Why not act in 2019?
This demonstrates with a poor CEO, they still managed to generate sh.t loads of money, just imagine the potential with a brilliant CEO.
The dividends awarded were also high, had they kept some of this back, they would have had more money in the war chest.
I have been in and out of Card since March 2020.
I have profited and lost selling Card over the last year. I am still in profit but exited this week.
I have followed this share regularly for the last year and whilst I believe the Company was and could potentially be a really good profit generating machine, paying good dividends as in the past, the current Management, primarily the Executive Chairman Moody, has shown his true colours. I invest in companies and the management team, but until Moody is removed from the Company, I am reluctant to reinvest.
As an ex owner of a private multi million pound company, Moody’s grip of the situation, is absolutely p.ss poor. It has come clear to me that he manipulated a situation where the previous CEO was removed from the company, in order for him to facilitate his own personal gain. If Hubbard was so poor, why not eject her before the pandemic! He used the pandemic to remove her. She owned a lot of shares and it was always in her interest to deliver to shareholders, being a sizeable one herself.
From what I can see Moody has never invested his own money. He has had the last year to pick up a bargain, unless he knows something the market have not yet been told about. He then went about awarding himself a circa additional 180K remuneration , to find a new CEO and baby sit the company, whilst this was being done. It took him 6 months and then found our new CEO, which to be honest I am not inspired by. The RNS that was released before the end of the year introducing him, what absolutely sh.te. Why tell the market that he was at Clinton Cards before they closed it down! What sort of message are you trying to tell the market! If this is the best Moody could do with so much skill out in the market, how hard did he look!
It is ridiculous to think that Moonpig recently launched at over a billion + and Card which turns over double and produced profits up until this year, which were consistent and sizeable, are worth less than a tenth of Moonpig!
I’m afraid if CARD had the right management team, this last year could have been so different. I understand that the loyal customer data base like to shop in store and this will return. But in the meantime, go out and aggressively capture the online card market, and take down your competition ie Moonpig and the others. They are a vertically integrated company, producing their own merchandise at a fraction of the cost to their competitors. It does not take an Einstein to realise that with a little bit of effort, Card could of made huge inroads to this market, and then retained their existing clients, plus the third party deals, once business returns to normal.
Moody needs to go, he needs to be sacked and return his remuneration received. He is not worthy of the position. The new CEO needs to be replaced before he even starts, unless he has been brought in to close it down.
I like the company, I can see potential, but with
Continued
With regards to Coronavirus Corporate Finance Facility, they did not need it at the time and asking for it now, without a CEO in place and our Chancellor has spent 400 billion pounds, it not a great time to then ask for the money.
If the company survived 2020, why would one thing it will go bust in 2021, I would of thought this would have been a much greater risk in 2020 than in 2021. Shops will reopen and trade will start to come back. This has been proved already after the last 2 lockdowns.
The business appears to be convinced shops are the way forward. Whilst they are using third party retailers and online, they still believe their customer base wants to buy cards from their shops. The truth is, if we did not have covid, they would have plodded on, so there might be something to be said for sticking with the shops as the main offering.
Whilst the online market has thrived (Amazon and others), I believe it has peaked much earlier than it would of, retail shops will recover when people are allowed to return to normal shopping habits. I accept it will decline over the years, but humans need interaction and sitting at home buying online has its limits. It will be interesting to see what happens in the years to come.
DYOR.
Good luck to all holders.
Some really good posts today with valuable input and personal opinions, which I really enjoy reading, thank you to everyone. I have been invested in this share since March 2020. I have bought and sold the dips, and have had times where I cut part of my holding at a loss and others at a profit.
I believe the share price will undoubtedly fall over the coming days and possibly weeks, I would not be surprised if we see 30 pence and a bit below at some point, as the market appears to manipulate this share, when sentiment is low, just look back and you will see this for yourself. It can fluctuate on some days within circa 5 pence and sometimes more, for no real reason. Last year in June/July it was held at 50 – 51 pence for weeks, as a large order was being filled. Someone had confidence even at 50 pence!
My personal opinion is that long term, this will recover. It has always been profitable and has paid out healthy dividends. I posted back on January 6th how I see things.
I do question our Chairman Moody though. I feel he has been handsomely rewarded during this crisis, threw Hubbard out, making her the fall guy, when to be honest he should have made that decision before June 2020. The bad management I believe is his responsibility. He should have stepped in and stopped Hubbard increasing the opening of new shops back in 2019, but did not!
If I was on the Board, I would have questioned his increase in pay and his remuneration altogether. If he was confident in his own ability to turn things around, (whilst they await a new CEO), he should of forgone all remuneration and received payment in additional shares. That way he had to deliver on results and I believe this would have sharpened his mindset. 6 months to find a new CEO and 9 months for a new CEO to start from when the old one departed! Who are you trying to kid. If anyone is incompetent it is Moody!
That being said, I think it is a robust business and once trading conditions return to ‘normal’, this company will continue to generate profits. The dividends will be lower, as they will need to reduce debts, which as one poster has already highlighted, could easily have been significantly reduced, if they had not paid out so much to share holders over the last few years!
10m loss is considerably low, in comparison to the profits they generate year on year. The losses are not from their own fault and when the government ties your hands and legs behind your back (lockdowns), with no planning as our PM is making decisions based on how popular his decisions will be, which he then U-turns on, it makes it very hard for businesses to plan.
Dobbers, I confirm I am not invest 01 in disguise, I do hold and my posts were my genuine opinion. I believe that Card will see better times in the future, with a new CEO making the right changes going forward.
It won't be plain sailing and tough decisions will need to be taken, but the new CEO has a good solid company to work with.
Well said Grimrip44.
Dfslicker, a blood bath would be if the sales price dropped to late 20's, early 30's, a drop to early 40's is not an issue and is in line with what I would of expected. I would prefer to see it rising into the 50's, but this will only happen after July 28th and 30th after we have received updates from the board.
If you don't have anything constructive to say, please disappear.
At least Pokerchips has given a constructive reply to my early post, which I respect.
What you need to decide in your mind is why you bought the shares in the first place!
I have reviewed the numbers and I am very comfortable that they are a solid company for their size with healthy profits.
This year their sales will be lower, but they have put provisions in place to allow for this and with the Furlough reclaim, 1 year of no business rates and government grants, I don’t think their margins will be affected too much.
As for posters like dfslicker (and others), you are a doom and gloom merchant. I have looked at some of your postings for this share and others, you are a predator. If you thought card was a lost cause, you would not be hovering around trying to encourage existing holders to sell. If you were as clever as you made out to be, you would of made your money years ago and moved on, the fact you are still here, says it all.
Anyone reviewing this board and commenting has an interest, if you didn't why bother posting, there would be no benefit!
Shares go up and down, it is a fact of how the market works, I am looking forward to hearing the updates on July 28th.
My feeling is this company has room to grow and over the next year we will see a positive change. With a new CEO coming in, you will be surprised what can be achieved. Sales price is reflecting current situation as things stand today, after July 28th and as revenue return, the sales price will reflect this as well.
DYOR, good luck to all.