Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
I'm not. I'm looking forward to some positive HY results end of next week and a bit of a rebound. There's definitely some selling going on but there is also some buying, just not enough currently to fully counter the selling.
Alpha presenting at a Financial Services Virtual Investor Conference on Thursday to try and drum up some interest over in the States: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2023/09/18/2744785/0/en/Financial-Services-Virtual-Investor-Conference-Agenda-Announced-for-September-21st.html
Good call - just gone back to re-read it myself :)
Another good source of info to remind us all what we're invested in here are the Allenby broker notes: https://www.allenbycapital.com/client/alpha-growth-plc/. I'd draw particular attention to their 2023 estimates in the more recent note which should give us a great indication of what to expect in a few weeks time.
“You won't be able to sell your shares, which is why people are selling at a big loss now while they can.”
That’s not how a delisting works. If the company was being taken private, all shareholders would be offered the same opportunity to sell their shares for the offer price, which is always at a premium to the market price at the time of the offer. The bidder needs to attract enough acceptances to make it unconditional so has to make the deal sweet enough.
Definitely email IR. The lack of even a cursory operational update this year is quite frankly astounding for a publicly listed company.
I can only assume it's a deliberate ploy, perhaps to supress the share price and ensure the 187.5m outstanding 3p warrants aren't exercised and expire in December. If the company have decided they don't need the additional funds then that tactic avoids a fair amount of dilution and they might have concluded that short term pain is worth it for the long term gain.
Definitely looking forward to the HY results at the end of September - both for the figures themselves but also for what else they say or don't say. If they don't take the opportunity to talk the company up and do the regulatory minimum then IMO they're purposefully looking to suppress the share price.
I see what look like trade "corrections" are back with previous trades being cancelled and then replaced. Last time we saw this there was background buying going on and we eventually saw some large trades go through. Wouldn't be surprised if this was the case again given the share price is where it is.
Board updated at the AGM that BOAGF AUM is now around $48m. The interval fund AAACX's AUM is publicly reported (on a daily basis I think) so I don't see any dangers re: the fund size. Also worth remembering that revenue from the fund is now only 10% of the groups total revenue following the two large insurance acquisitions. Like you say, HY results due end of September and expecting them to show a healthy profit.
Don't see these going much lower and already seeing buys coming in, though they are being reported as sells.
Strong buy at this level.
Next scheduled major milestone we'll see will be the HY23 results which will land in September. As per Financial Statements Note 15 in last years FY22 results gives us a strong indication: "Had both AILAC and Havelet been owned throughout the year revenues of the Group would have increased by £1,920,919 and profits by £686,886." From memory the company received AILAC revenues from August onwards so the £1.9m figure equates to the first 7 months of the year. Add in PLAC revenue and we should see HY revenue of £2.7m-3m and Pre-Tax Profit of £300K+. That will give a lot of people confidence that the company is making good progress.
Of course as always we might see an acquisition RNS at any time. I'm still intrigued by the strangely specific comment about acquisitions in the Allenby initiation note - "These typically consist of operations, some of which are substantial (up to c US$1bn assets) but no longer regarded as core to their growth strategies." An acquisition of that magnitude would certainly move us on.
Hopefully the reports of its death are greatly exaggerated. Of course the current share price is a disappointment for all investors though.
Following the AGM my hopes for the sequence of events here are:
- Strong profits this year including full year revenues from both acquisitions. We'll see the half year results at the end of September so that will give the market some more concrete numbers to gauge the company's progress by which might resurrect some interest in the company.
- I expect an institution or family office or two or three to take substantial holdings in the next 12 months
- 2B achieved in the next 12-18 months
- A buyout for several times current share price in 2-3 years.
(cont.)
the boards focus remains on growing the business and the company eventually becoming a takeover target and it sounded like the 2b plan was definitely still on track to be achieved by 2025 at the latest. back of *** packet assuming similar profitability as the current insurance/fund mix i make $2b aum to be worth maybe £15m-18m revenue. £7m profit. if dilution broadly continues as it has been a pe of 12 and a 30% takeover premium would put a target price of 12p-20p depending on what cost of sales and opex ended up looking like. i'd be happy with that, especially if it comes sooner than later. have added 2m more over the past few weeks at 2.1-2.2p and now a few shares under 3%/tr1. happy to hold for 12p-20p in the next couple of years.
Some good discussion at the AGM and also some robust questioning from shareholders around sentiment and communications.
The full board were present this time with Gobind, Jason, Neil and also Mark T from IR in the room. All three answered questions and spoke passionately about the progress they are making. The Board also spoke about the additions to the team in the past 12 months with Chad focussing on streamlining the funds business and establishing relationships with RIA in the US to market the interval fund. They highlighted the positive news of Dan Gray taking stock in the ALGW group as a whole rather than just PLAC. He's clearly a global leader in the insurance market which is reflected in his position as a Blackrock Operating Partner and I'm sure they'll be using his contacts and knowledge to accelerate.
Allenby were in the room and made a really positive contribution initially giving a general update on macro and market sentiment and also an indication of the status of some of the discussions that are in-flight with potential new investors.
It was put to the Board that shareholder sentiment had probably never been lower. Part of the Boards response was interesting as they said that from their perspective sentiment was wider than just shareholders and actually within the insurance / funds markets the company is starting to get noticed and is well thought of. They said that they are increasingly being approached by 3rd parties looking to collaborate on different ideas.
It was clear from those discussions and discussions around comms that the Boards current view is that their priority should be on growing the business. They feel that no amount of communication/PR from them on its own would lead to a significant re-rate and instead they would rather focus on growing the business and allow the market to catch-up in its own time. I don't fully agree with this "Field of Dreams" approach but equally if, as expected, the company posts a very strong profit in the HY and FY results this year I do think that the market will definitely take note. The company definitely also feel that keeping a lower profile is helping them when it comes to achieving competitively priced acquisitions and they are nervous about oversharing and tipping off potential competitors.
There was a discussion around profitability and the ability of the company to self-fund further acquisitions. The Board confirmed that the company is profit making, the balance sheet is strong and that they expected to be able to fund acquisitions of the size and scale of the last couple of insurance ones using the revenue coming into the company or by leveraging the balance sheet. They confirmed there is no reliance on the 3p Warrants and there are no plans for any other kind of raises.
(cont.)
Operational funding or funding of acquisitions?
Broker note has £6m revenue estimated and a £700K EBITDA so I don't see any significant risks here re: operational funding.
For acquisitions they've said a couple of times that the assets they've been acquiring are viewed as non-core by the sellers which is making the purchase price fairly insignificant. Broker note says "ALGW seeks to acquire regulated legacy businesses and portfolios, that it expects to secure without a need for significant cash up front. Its strategy is designed to generate accretive earnings growth without material dilution." There's also still the 3p warrants in play too if the company decided it needed a larger amount of cash quickly for a much larger ($1b+ AUM) acquisition.
TBH the funding situation is probably the companies strongest asset IMO. The reduced potential for dilution is what's attracted me and kept me interested here.
Pretty consistent buying volume this week. Given Dan Gray just took his 5% of Northstar in ALGW group shares at 2.6p and Jason Sutherland took shares for services provided at 2.45p its not surprising people are taking the opportunity to acquire below their prices. Not often PIs get the opportunity to buy cheaper than members of a companies board.
Dan now has exposure to the performance of the full group of companies and not just Northstar. He would only do this if he was going to make significant gains by doing so. Given he is a very smart and capable individual who founded Northstar and is currently an executive partner of a major global asset manager this seems like a smart move. The company can benefit from his contacts and experience to take ALGW to the next level and the fact he is being compensated in shares is very positive.
I was poking around on LinkedIn earlier in the week and noticed Jason has left his CEO role at DRB Capital and is full-time with Alpha. Given he was with DRB for about 9.5 years it looks like good news he's doubling down here.
The spread is starting to tick up but still below Dan and Jasons prices. We just need some newsflow and deal progress and these low prices will be gone.
Q&A video next week then:
https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/1015692/alpha-growth-consolidation-a-great-endorsement-1015692.html
Looks like it will be the Friday, 16th June for the AGM if my broker is correct. Expecting to see confirmation from the company this coming week along with the publishing timeline for the Shareholder Q&A video.
Still perplexed by the lack of general shareholder comms and updates this year. I suspect these have paused as the company has been working on something big as hinted at in the Broker Note. Hopefully we’ll know what it is sooner rather than later and that it benefits shareholders in the near term as well as the company.