Member Info for cyberbub

...*nothing* about latest AUM to add to the $20M figure issued by RNS a couple of months ago. £300k left in cash, another £500k capital raise expected in early 2021. Some small income shown for the last year, but 0% (??) margin - the full amount was taken up by cost of sales which is very odd - no explanation given.

Very basic results, they clearly don't want to give investors anything more than the absolute minimum information.

Yes I agree that if they publish the results tomorrow on a lame-duck half day trading then it hardly shows confidence or respect for investors.

Having said that, if the results show that AUM is continuing to increase rapidly (say to $40M?) then the likely very modest revenues for H2 will be irrelevant. Growth rate in AUM is all that matters! Oh, and returns to their life asset investors, to confirm how attractive the funds are.

What I do struggle to understand is why, when everyone and their dog are working very well from home over video calls, the company continues to claim that Covid is preventing them having meetings to close business with family offices etc? Surely that can't be any serious impediment?

I agree, don't encourage them. Some people never left childhood properly. As The Donald (himself one of those people) might say, SAD!

As far as I know the final funding package could never be realistically signed off until Q3, because we still need the permit! No funder is going to make final commititment for a lot of money until the permit (expected in Q2) is signed on the dotted line.....

So IMHO it's Q1 for ESIA approval, Q2 for full permit, Q3 to finalise funding package, Q4 to break ground.

However I would expect that we will get funding 'news' such as a Heads of Terms agreement for debt, major offtaker(s) etc, well before Q3. The company are already in discussions with funders and have been for some time.

NAI

Just look at the presentations on the EML website, it's all there

If you looks at the breakdowns he's selling the smaller funds, which must not be allowed to hold unlisted shares... However that means he still has 12M to dump by Wednesday, so the SP won't be going anywhere....

*Interestingly if he's forced to go below 50% then he will no longer control the company*

I assume Odey is selling to PIs like us!

He dropped by just over 5% on Friday... Clearly that's the 5M large trade we saw, as expected...

What I want to know is what the 1.25M trade at 2.6p was on Friday...

Hobbs you may "decline" an offer price, but remember you (and me, and any PIs) don't make that decision. One man controls TriStar and he will do what he needs to do in his own interest.

May well be Hobbs, but the point remains that they will be almost out of cash by next Xmas, and raising money as a private company is not easy. Is this Odey's opportunity to force dilution on remaining PIs, by putting in a final £250k say, which at current company valuation would give him another 10% of the company?

Or are they hoping/expecting that the 'liquidity event' will take place before they run out of cash in 2022?

PS £350k will be most of their incoming cash ($600k) used up.

Has anyone noticed that in the delisting announcement of 3 Nov they said "running costs will decrease to less than £50k p.a." but in the annual accounts released on 5 Nov they said that their costs to Dec 2021 would be £350k? Anyone got any views why the discrepancy?

Harley I have bought some last week (current average 2.5p) as it's clear that, while we shouldn't ignore the usual investing risks which still exist (execution, political, even Corona), the shares are worth many multiples of 1.5p...

The only thing making me nervous is what Odey's play is. I suspect he will take advantage of this situation to try to screw over PIs like us in some way, for his own benefit. Remember he still has a controlling interest in TriStar despite his recent sales.

You might say from 1.5p it's hard to see a downside, even if he offered PIs 10p and this was accepted, it's still a multibagger. But I'm worried that he will pull some other trick....

Maybe I'm just paranoid...

Harley64 there's no doubt that the shares are worth a lot more than 1.5p... my question is whether people buying today will see much of that gain?

Firststopthemoon, you posted:

"The offeree company must appoint a competent independent adviser whose advice on the financial terms of the offer must be made known to all the shareholders, together with the opinion of the board.
Favourable deals for selected shareholders are banned."

...that's encouraging up to a point, but what if Odey offers 2p and the Board say "Yes that's a good deal for everyone" (ie no special deals for any shareholder) - the independent reviewer might say it's daylight robbery, as could we as minority shareholders, but what could we realistically do to block it?

Maybe I'm just being too cynical! But I do think Odey, having taken a bath on his main shareholding, will work hard to do whatever makes him the most money (or at least minimises his losses) - the irritating PIs are irrelevant to him.

Odey didn't get to his current $billionaire status by being a nice guy. I'm just trying to work out his angle here....!

It's been explicitly stated in the company's recent RNSes that the Takeover Code will apply for 10 years following delisting. I've read independently that this is a standard condition of UK law, specifically to prevent companies delisting in order to enable a dirt-cheap hostile takeover.

That's all very well about the Takeover Code.

What no one has been able to clarify (as far as I know) is that given that Odey hasn't bought any shares in the last 12 months, what is the minimum price he has to offer if he wants to make a full takeover?

...must have been a sell, as it was an 'O' (ordinary) trade not a UT, and there were only a few trades below that price all day (despite the MMs' false 1p bid price). Only Odey could have sold over 5% of the company - there were no other holders above 3%. The questions are, will he have to declare it given the timescales to delisting, has he essentially sold the entire remaining holding of one of his sub-funds, and most importantly is that megadump the end of his selling? If he's no longer selling then the SP could rise rapidly back towards 4-5p next week IMO.

It's not clear who took the big buy at 2.6p either - unless it's a further Odey sale, substantially delayed?

All as clear as mud.

No advice intended etc

I think the idea that Odey would (willingly) sell down to 49% (at an enormous loss) to make it more attractive for someone else to buy out the company seems ridiculous. Why on earth would he voluntarily give up control?

On the other hand his strategy isn't very clear here. And more importantly, what are the rules forcing him to sell part of his holding (it's been stated that it's due to the delisting but I have seen no proof). Is he going to be forced to liquidate most/all of his holdings? Again surely not - he voted for delisting, so it must be in his interest/match his strategy! If votong for delisting meant he would be forced to sell most/all of his holdings, why would he have done so - he has enough money that he could have easily increased his loan to TriStar by £1M to tide them over.?

Are we in agreement at least that if Odey buys *any* shares, then because he's over 30% already, he has to launch a bid for TriStar?

And that because he hasn't bought any shares in the last 12 months, he can make that bid at whatever price he wants?

That's my understanding anyway.

People like Odey's first priority is themselves. He gave millions to the Brexit campaign and then admitted to a newspaper that he was shorting the market in the days running up to the referendum, made a 9-figure profit as I recall. I don't think skirting close to the edge of the regulations (or of normal morality) is an issue for such people.

Small PIs are just pawns in the game of how TSTR will work out in the end. The only thing we need to do is try to figure out what's going on LOL