Member Info for CJohnSpain

Hello again, Isobyios,

To my mind, the two drug licences are the most likely to bring some positive return for Craven House.

I've read several research papers about Temodex. It looks a mildly effective, well-tolerated drug for extending the lifespan of brain tumour patients by an average of several months, which is quite significant given how short their expected lifespan is.

Let's take the CEO's assumptions at face value. I'm assuming the 500m euros figure refers to annual gross revenue? (Would you mind reading the original again and checking what that 500m figure referes to.)
Overall profit margins are usually pretty high for such drugs; so let's say an overall profit margin of 33%. Or around 166m euros per year. Of which, CRV's 7.475% comes to around 12.5m euros per year.

Obviously, if this does happen, it will make a mockery of CRV's current share price.

However, having invested in several bio-tech companies, caution is required. Most drugs, even those like Temodex, which have already been proven to be effective, do not make it, for one of myriad reasons.

So I remain of the view that Temodex is a long shot: i.e. low probability of success. But it could come good. It IS promising.

Finally, it's worth noting that owning a drug licence has nothing to do with the supposed focus of Craven house, which is on web-based businesses.

I don't mind at all; it's a positive development., in my view, given how poor some of the web-based ideas have been.

Hi Iosbyios,

Always good to hear your opinions and thank you for your many recent news based posts.

The 20k unique users per months comes from the Craven Full Year Results, which were published on the 29th November.

You can read the results at the Craven Capital website.

Here's the relevant quote:, "Rosedog is the owner of TV Zinos (www.tvzinos.com), a website which offers a number of free-to-view television channels. TV Zinos has organically grown its new-use base to over c.20,000 unique users per month. It is therefore anticipated that advertising revenue will begin to be generated in 2023. The domain will continue to be run with very low overheads."

20k unique users is only about 700 people per day......

I forgot to reiterate that whilst Honeydog owns 25% of the licence to Temodex; CRV only holds its customary minority stake - 29.9% - in Honeydog.

So CRV holds 7.475% of the Temodex licence.

The other risk investors must try to estimate is whether any marked increase or crystallisation in asset value will be reflected in the share price.

Risk: CRV could run out of money., if CRIH can't cover CRV's debt.

I rate this as a very low risk for this year, however.

It seems to me that what I've described in part 1 of Valuation is a collection of long or very long shots. If any one come good, the current valuation of CRV will look a steal.

Current market value of 0.3m sterling at a price of 7p per share.

Yet CRV's holding in Stormfjord is valued at $1.2m+, if those buying in to the two funding rounds have made cogent decisions. Yet the underlying product seems economcally unviable to me.

Magazinos.com is due to fund raise shortly: My feeling is that this will value CRV's holding in the domain at a higher valuation than our 300 k market cap. Again to my mind the underlying product is economically unviable.

-The two medical licences may well come good. If they do, CRV's share i may be worth a few hundred K in each.

-TV Zinos no value in my view. Pitiful user figures.

- Bio-Vitos: if they do finally get sales/distributor agreements in place for their supplements - Omega oils and Collagen products, CRV's holding here may be worth more than 300K.

So all in all, the current share price seems to me to be too low.

1. The four remaining Swedish investee companies remain pre-revenue.

I was pretty surprised by this. As I assumed Bio-Vitos would already be flogging its numerous brands of Omega Oils via Amazon. Apparently, however, it's still searching for third party distributors/vendors. Amazon connection fallen through? (The same goes for the iron supplement used by heart patients.)

2. The Company has a growing debt of $1.237m (about $300k more than last year.) The debt is to Craven industrial Holdings. It pays 5%. (I assume that's part of the assets of Craven North America?) The $300k figure probably gives a realistic view of Craven Capital's running costs. So for the moment, CRIH provides a lifeline to CRV. How long can that go on? A few years, I'd guess. So CRV is a going concern.

The Report includes the claim that the two entities do not exert undue influence one over the other, in spite of MP being the main director of both. What's clear is that Craven Capital would not find it easy to raise debt from non-related parties.

3. Honeydog owns 25% of the licence of Temodex. This brain tumour drug is close to completing all clinical trials before marketing and sales.

4. TV Zinos anticipate advertising revenue beginning 2023. They now have 20k unique users per month.

Let's put it another way: hardly anyone uses TV Zinos. Any advertising revenue will be miniscule until there are magnitudes more users. I can't see that happening.

5. Garimon:

- Magazinos: plans for a fund-raising early 2022 were postponed because its servers are in the Ukraine. The servers are being re-located and fund-raising will follow.

-Onebas: post-year end this was transferred into a separate entity called Stormfjord Ltd. Funds were then raised in which Craven Capital was not involved (for obvious reasons: there's no spare cash.) These put an implied value of $5m on Stormfjord. Craven hold 26.2% of Stormfjord. ((So worth $1.3m.))

All shareholders should remember that this is still a public company. Being unquoted doesn't change that.

Public companies have to fulfil many legal obligations in the way they operate and report, though less than an AIM listed company, of course.

I understand and share the frustration of other shareholders in view of the some of the decisions made. But everyone should be clear: CRIH still exists; the auditors signed off on the accounts and will have done some due diligence on their accuracy. So shareholders should make an effort to engage with the company. And understand that it's a going concern.

Of course, this works both ways. It's a great pity that the Company - i.e. the two remaining directors don't seem to get the benefits that flow from keeping shareholders updated. One problem that makes that task more complicated is that the filed shareholder register is hopelessly out-of-date. I didn't find either my own or the holdings of various other shareholders whom I either know or know of.

Hello, fellow holders,

I've dredged through publicly available information on CRIH.

Unfortunately, they are now reporting with notable delays. So the most recent report has a balance sheet date end May 2021.

I'm giving a review based solely on the small limited amount of information available in the said report.

DLC Holdings: at balance sheet date valued at $2.9m US. The SP was 8 Canadian cents per share. (Currently 10 cents per share.)

Qeton written down to zero: no reason or details given. But we knew this was in difficulties with COVID complicating the economic connection with Angola.

Craven House Angola: still valued at $600k. Asset is a loan. Nothing else, I believe.

Craven House North America: valued about $2.7m. No details as to the various assets this is made up of.

Kwikbuild: about $626k. Ditto.

There was a modest profit of just over $1m.

Don't get too excited! This is entirely down to DLC's quote being higher at 31st May 2021 than a year earlier. As a spoiler, I can tell you all now that DLC was quoting at 5.5 cents end May 2022. (So there'll be a loss in the next accounts. Meanwhile, I repeat that DLC is currently at 10 cents per share.)

A huge buzz is one thing: revenue is another.

Currently, there's zero revenue: and I don't see that the proposed business model is viable.

Spotify: $10.76bn revenue.

Onebas: zero revenue and highly unlikely to generate much revenue given it's business model.

Onebas worth around zero.

It's very hard to see how this venture is commercially viable.

Hello Steve 1848,

CIH filed results in July with the Irish financial authorities. So it still exists, but is on a very delayed reporting rhythm, so there may be nothing new to learn.

I'll try to update with anything learned shortly.

it's up to us as shareholders to track down information and keep an eye on what's happening.

Remember CIH is a public company and should be fulfilling minimum standards of service to its shareholders. Unfortunately, by being inaccessible, it seriously annoys its minority shareholders, which is short-sighted.

I see my last line of part 2 was cut by the posting limit.

MP hasn't ruled out company buy backs at CIH. But has no current plans for such action.

One of CRV's investee companies could well come good. Bio-Vitos seems the most promising, but after the meeting I have an open mind about Magazinos and TV Zinos. They are long shots, but not hopeless cases.

I should note that I have a negligible interest in CRV, currently, as I sold all my shares in 2021 to set against capital gains and later only bought back some.

CRAVEN INDUSTRIAL HOLDINGS

One of the reasons given for de-listing was that this would free up CIH from restrictive AIM regulations on corporate actions. As yet there have been no such actions. COVID is the declared reason for this, with management time dedicated to crisis management and defending existing assets.

I imagine another is lack of funds for potential acquisitions. The device of issuing shares at $10 per pop is difficult when shares are at 25 cents; so any potential acquisition would be highly dilutive or require very costly debt.

I asked why any acquiree had ever accepted the currency of CRV shares at prices well beyond current market value. MP said that the vast majority of acquirees WOULDN’T accept such shares. So deals were only done with those that would – effectively a minority amongst the distressed sellers that CRV sought out.

We touched briefly on the Angolan businesses. Qeton’s turnover has collapsed with imports to Angola falling dramatically, in line with the shutdown of Angola’s economy. The loan to the Angolan mobile company has been written down; given capital controls, CIH’s loan funds couldn’t be repatriated anyway. Any write-ups in these businesses depends on Angola’s economy and currency recovering.

IIU, medical insurance to travellers. As can be imagined, this business took an almost terminal hit from COVID. However, it slashed costs to the bone and found a new market focusing on the few categories of vital travellers who’ve gone on moving throughout COVID – diplomatic, medical staff etc. I believe MP said that they are currently modestly profitable. So this is a rare success story.

I forgot to ask about DLC holdings.

OVERALL STRATEGY

Mark Pajak’s aim, he said, is to hand on a successful investment house to his children. We can translate that as MP taking an exceptionally long-term view. This, in my opinion, is in part, a response to things not going well over the last few years. But it’s also, in part, a reflection of CRV’s explicitly declared deep value philosophy.

MP sees his role as maximising asset value. Anything that gets in the way of that is dispensable: that includes the expense of a listing or marketing the company, but also the expense of paying himself a salary or management fees.

He believes his significant holding in both CIH and CRV aligns his interests with minority shareholders. This, in my view, is only partly true: most minority shareholders would clearly beneift from liquidity. He rejected my suggestion of a listing on a more junior market – NEXT – as unnecessary cost.

The matched bargain facility works like this. MP matches the names and prices of buyers and sellers and puts them in contact with each other. Transactions are then carried out through respective brokers. Grawostac pointed out that shareholders had no way of knowing prices or whether there were any deals at all. MP didn’t see this as problematic.

He hasn’t ruled out share buy backs, but there

Thank you for your collective patience. I second Grawostac’s view that this was a productive meeting. Nothing market-sensitive was revealed, but I got a better overall sense of where these companies are headed.

CRAVEN CAPITAL
M Pajak rejected my feeling that there’s negligible value in Garimon (Magazinos) and Rosedog (TV Zinos) and that they should be written down, as onebas has been written down.

He pointed out that, contrary to my argument, there IS a demand for free back magazines and page views are growing. Likewise free television IS in demand in various developing countries where many are too poor to afford what relatively affluent Westerners see as cheap satellite/ cable packages. There is also significant use in the US. (Amongst the less well-off?)

These two businesses are currently loss-making, but the only costs are the wages of the two or three software developers at each. They have no current need to raise more cash. (But this can’t be far off?)

Potential revenue will come from add-ons, once viewers have caught the habit of going to the sites, and from advertising.

So the model is low-cost, low-risk.

Bio-Vitos (formerly YRRO ltd): the skin supplements/omega oil business is commoditised. There are multiple cheap suppliers on Amazon. So competition is principally a matter of moving up Amazon listings.
Costs here are greater, with staff working on logisitcs and on-line marketing. Still loss-making.
MP rejected my idea that there might be any premium brand value in the Norwegian omega oil connection.

Medical licences: Bio-Vitos with Inofer and Honeydog with 25% of the entity that holds the licence to Temodex. These are early stage and in the latter case, pending further research by the company that owns Temodex. So low costs here too.

CRV is a significant minority shareholder in the above companies, but have no executive role. M Pajak has no speciality in any of these areas. He is consulted, but doesn’t seek to influence decisions.

He believes current book values are acceptable. This implies that the current share price is very under-valued.

Hi Grawostac,

I'm currently confined to my man cave upstairs in the attic where I plan my investment coups, having tested positive for COVID about 2 hours ago. My significant others are downstairs doubtless whooping it up now the boss cat is out of the way.

I look forward to meeting up.

Till later.

My e-mail is chrismoreland2@yahoo.co.uk.

As I'm going to attend the AGM on the 21st, along with Grawostac, are there any questions anybody would like me to put to the directors?

Hello Grawostac,

So I've booked my ticket to Gatwick. And am going to accompany you to the AGM.

I'm going to get in contact with the Company to check the address.

Are you a member at ADVFN? if so, give me your handle there and we can exchange private messages, then e-mails. I'm CJohn over at ADVFN.

If not, I'll put my e-mail on here.

Look forward to meeting up

CJohn