Member Info for D-Geeman

Date of disclosure:
11 July 2022

Contact name:
Sarah Sleep

11,578,031

4.2%

Declaration now by DN. Maybe late declaration?

So could be that the earlier one today was also 'late' rather than new purchase?

Either they have a good idea of what they are doing taking a 2% stake in eve, OR, they just bet £40k on a rank outsider..

Time will tell. I feel happier too Yanis

The only reason I thought it was recent was because there was a deadline wasn't there, for people to declare if they had more than 1% of eve, and that was a couple of weeks ago. Either they've reported very late or it's a recent purchase, or, and very possibly, I have the wrong end of the stick.

Here's a copy and paste from the announcement:

' An Opening Position Disclosure by a person to whom Rule 8.3(a) applies must be made by no later than 3.30 pm (London time) on the 10th business day following the commencement of the offer period and, if appropriate, by no later than 3.30 pm (London time) on the 10th business day following the announcement in which any securities exchange offeror is first identified. Relevant persons who deal in the relevant securities of the offeree company or of a securities exchange offeror prior to the deadline for making an Opening Position Disclosure must instead make a Dealing Disclosure.Under Rule 8.3(b) of the Code, any person who is, or becomes, interested in 1% or more of any class of relevant securities of the offeree company or of any securities exchange offeror must make a Dealing Disclosure if the person deals in any relevant securities of the offeree company or of any securities exchange offeror. A Dealing Disclosure must contain details of the dealing concerned and of the person's interests and short positions in, and rights to subscribe for, any relevant securities of each of (i) the offeree company and (ii) any securities exchange offeror(s), save to the extent that these details have previously been disclosed under Rule 8. A Dealing Disclosure by a person to whom Rule 8.3(b) applies must be made by no later than 3.30 pm (London time) on the business day following the date of the relevant dealing.If two or more persons act together pursuant to an agreement or understanding, whether formal or informal, to acquire or control an interest in relevant securities of an offeree company or a securities exchange offeror, they will be deemed to be a single person for the purpose of Rule 8.3.Opening Position Disclosures must also be made by the offeree company and by any offeror and Dealing Disclosures must also be made by the offeree company, by any offeror and by any persons acting in concert with any of them (s....... '

I appreciate that wyn. I have to say that if I were not already 'in' I'd have to think pretty hard before I put anything into eve. But being a holder means I'm staying. It's not logical and is emotional, so not a good strategy.. But I can't help myself..

I am heartened by their investment. They seem to know their stuff and they like eve enough to put in £40K at this level, when they might lose all. In a sense that's a much bigger risk than me buying at 3.5p when eve were about to break-even (back in mythological times).

I expect they bought to make a quick buck rather than be part of any takeover. But the more they find out about eve they may change their stance. I assume they've been buying since the FSP was announced (so less than 1p) but who knows.

They won't know any more than us but they've made a judgement and are risking their £40k. Eve does seem fit their investment criteria. Also, maybe one of them bought an eve and like it..

They do have a lot of investments around the place so won't want to squander their hard-earned cash on a no-hoper.

(Not even tempted to put your punt / £500 in?!)

If they were negotiating to buy they wouldn't need to buy shares now, but maybe they would like some at the market price first. However I think they are are more likely to follow this pattern '5.5x avg. return on 31 profitable exits (exits with >1.0x return)' which they mention. Having bought now they must at least see the possibility of a bid coming in from elsewhere and making between' >1.0x and 5.5x avg. return on a profitable exit'.

Better today to have them buying than selling!

https://fundersclub.com/fabrice-grinda/

'FJ Labs is a seed and early stage firm founded by Fabrice Grinda and Jose Marin. Fabrice and Jose have made 178 investments. 5.5x avg. return on 31 profitable exits (exits with >1.0x return). Fabrice Grinda: entrepreneur with $300M in exits; '

'What we look for:

We invest in consumer facing businesses in ecommerce, travel and marketplaces. Of late we have also been considering mobile startups and SAAS sites targeting small businesses.

We invest in new innovative ideas in the US or copies of established ideas in large foreign markets, especially Brazil, Germany, Russia and Turkey. We expect the site to be live and the entrepreneur to grasp the unit economics of the business even if the site’s revenues are still low (e.g.; below $20k / month).'

This Fabrice?! Would be good if it is :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabrice_Grinda

Email from London Stock Exchange.

Maybe this will work?
https://www.londonstockexchange.com/news-article/market-news/form-8-3-eve-sleep-plc/15533514

Fabrice Grinda & Jose Marin - Form 8.3 - eve Sleep plc
2.2% of eve

Hi Wyn,
It's a hot afternoon!

'My thinking is if EVE are so good fundamentally as a company with good products, but poorly run then they would have been bought out by now?'

All I can say to your post is that this is the first time the FSP has been in force so makes a bit of a difference, possibly.

In the past, and when the sp was low at <.0.1p a couple of years ago, if someone had wanted to buy eve it seems that they would have had to go public with their intentions and the sp would have shot up like on CBD day. They might have felt that they were willing to pay 4p (for arguments sake) but I bet the price would have gone up much more than that on the announcement of talks. I forget details and dates but there was money in the bank then so 4p might well have been 'a free company' effectively. The sp would've been bound to go much higher. With the hike in the sp to.. 6p, 8p or 10p?, the buyer wouldn't have been interested after all.

Then when eve was doing relatively well during lockdown eve BOD would have been resistant to a low offer themselves. Why accept .. 8p when eve is on the verge of 'breakeven' and 'profit'?

Now people can negotiate a price withhold disclosing their interest and without having to buy a single share.

If the potential buyer already has a team in place that could run eve, already has an office available, eve would perhaps immediately turn a profit on the fewer sales that are currently being made. The buyer might even think that they could do better than CC with the combined bulk of eve together with what they already do.

I don't think anyone will buy eve out of some sort of emotional attachment but they might see that eve is close enough to profit if you strip out enough of the management costs that'd be duplicated. My worry is that eve go into administration first and we shareholders get nothing. As I said earlier, there are arguments against that too – fingers crossed.

If eve can convincingly argue that they can limp along without going bust (and into admin) then that's quite a spur to someone who wants to own the company to get cracking and buying eve now rather than waiting indefinitely for the husk of what's left in a year or two (so 'buy now', make the cuts immediately; get near-profitable or even profitable fairly soon, V's wait a year or two and forego a couple of years' profits. Buying out of admin gets rid of warranty liabilities but that's a double edged sword too with the repetitional damage, and how many longer-term warranty claims are there? We read of a few on TP but many are rejected as normal what and tear).

'Any companies which are smaller than eve will likely be struggling more than eve right now'.

Assuming it's actually possible to make a profit with this business model (which is what several companies claim though they are private and we can't know exactly how profitable) there must be a reason for eve faltering. It must be scale as the profitable companies are bigger – and sell more goodies. Any one companies which are smaller than eve will likely be struggling more than eve right now.

So would the rival profitable companies prefer eve to fail 'full-stop'; for eve go into admin and then buy eve out of admin for a knock down price and maybe lose tax benefits; buy now while eve is still functioning well and beat the competition / retain tax benefits if they buy eve outright.

Because of new and successful product (such as Sleep Away) I suspect the choice is the second or third as there is value in the products. Eve is also the 5th most recognisable name in bed-in-a-box mattresses (or of *all* mattresses companies?) and it's cost £m's to get there. Why not harness all that previous spending for a fraction of the cost rather than start afresh and go though all the pain again (and probably more £m's)?

The big cost-cuts can only be made in a merger or takeover situation. New investment alone won't allow the office to be jettisoned along with the senior management whereas a takeover would (even if it's the eve management and office that stays which is unlikely but possible if the merger was with a similar sized company). And new investment is unlikely to see the business sense in more money 'down the drain' before future profits arrive (if ever).

Comes down to (and we've known this for a while) whether there might be a queue of suitors or just one slightly half-hearted one. As part of a bigger portfolio eve should be in a similar position to the profitable private companies such as emma; why wouldn't they? I do doubt that their mattresses cost fundamentally more to produce once part of a bigger outfit. Eve can't really be *that different* can they?

(More or less the same as Jive Turkey but will post anyway, now I've written it)

Mr A asks 'Why do you think – Major surgery within 21 days prior to Cycle 1, Day 1 (excluding biopsies) or anticipates the need for major surgery during study treatment – are explicitly excluded'.

Could it simply be that people who've had major surgery (all surgery, even minor surgery, carries a risk of death) might not survive the ordeal of the Op anyway and it would be a waste of somewhat precious resources testing on them, or a death would not help the research one jot, or even reflecting negatively on the trial's outcome?

Also, if they took an unexpected turn for the worse but survive, who knows what other drugs might be used to treat their condition – and just continuing with AVA6K in a trial might be a bit tricky to justify if people were 'touch and go' for a while.

From AVA6k POV you want stable people who don't have too many complications, harsh though that might sound.

Hi Dontgive,

I'm not getting anywhere with looking in Belgium. Maybe it's tricky to search from the UK. evesleep.be doesn't work. I've also searched with keywords matelas and belgique which should trigger something but doesn't. You know more than me about Belgium.

This did pop up. This link (if it works) is the En translation of a french site
https://www-quelmatelas-fr.translate.goog/eve-matelas-et-ses-accessoires?_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc

Regarding the FSP we have been thinking that a bigger company would be the best bet as a buyer. Maybe a company of similar size (and similar financial position) to eve might work too if half the total costs of both companies could be saved by only having one office and one team of people. Eve could even be the bigger partner and it might just work.

'Current trading seems a lot better with TP reviews numbers increasing faster'.

I don't think that's true. Looking back to June 2020, the last 4 moths have been the worst by a margin. Last month did go up but still only in relation to the very poor month before.

When things were going well eve was getting a running average above 3000 reviews annually. Now eve are back to 2,500 / 2,600 and the running average will drop as good months of 2021 are replaced by months of 120,130 and occasionally 170 reviews.

If every month were 170 (last month's improved month on 118 in May; 123 in April) then the yearly running total would be 2040. That's a drop of 30%.

If the new average is 120 reviews per month then we drop to 1440 annually. That's 50% – or less – of reviews when times were at their peak (peak, but still not profitable).

I think that the previous predictions, when they were made, were perfectly likely to have been accurate but then circumstances changed, more or less completely. You could argue that the war was akin to the main warehouse of a company burning down; how can you plan for that? In the case of a warehouse, even with insurance, there'd be a repetitional hit and customers would go elsewhere but with a war, there's nothing much you can do.

In hindsight they could / should have kept more cash in the bank, or raised earlier (maybe) when things were going well in lockdown, but if we had hindsight as a gift we'd all be multi-billionaires.

You have to trust the BOD, or sell now – I think :)