Member Info for D-Geeman

We have very little idea of the sales at the moment and for the last few months. Nor do we know the bank balance. Have they paid C4 up front for a year's sponsorship? No idea..
The C4 sponsorship does explain the slight increase in TP reviews which is good.

'as derisory 3.6p' But that was before the sales flopped..

TP suggests a tiny increase atm but we haven't had review number as low as this since before the pandemic. Things have changed. Like the value of a car before a crash and then after a crash.

'at what price per share to buy EVE out 1-2p can't see it being much more' probably very true Soton. Like on eBay though, once somebody bids 1p then the other rival bids 2p and so on. We need two bidders who think they have a vision for eve and then they have to fight for it. But unlike eBay they are not going to let their emotion make them pay too much.

It's a shame that we are in this position, hoping for a few pence per share so that we've only lost half our money and not all of it.

Dontgive, the turnaround was going to show its merits but eve have said in the RNS that the landscape has completely changed now. Not eve's fault but they wouldn't have gone for FSP if they were definitely on the way to becoming sustainably profitable unless you mean 'as part of a bigger group'.

Thanks wyn, that does echo with what CC said, about marketing costs being high to begin with and then reducing as the brand matures. We are supposed to be getting to the point that the costs are lower and the business becomes profitable. Maybe that could be a silver lining in the FSP; anyone who takes eve on now faces lower marketing costs as the heavy lifting has been paid for. Better to buy eve than begin from scratch with a new brand. And an existing brand (Nectar; Simba; Emma) could just increase their market share knowing the marketing cost inside out.

At least this makes 7am's exciting.

Some good posts on the other share regarding 'MTD', 'DE' and 'Fib' etc; almost makes me think it might just work.. I need one of them to work.

Wyn, what do you think it is that allows emma to claim a healthy profit and yet eve haven't cracked it, despite no debt (or interest payments). It puzzles me.

Dontgive, if wyn wrote that he isn't invested but would be loading up if he had the spare cash; that eve was a great company just waiting to succeed, you would be recommending his posts. I don't see why he can't comment especially as it is sensible to be fully aware of the risks here. If anything, it's useful to go back to wyn with sensible argument – if there are such arguments – just to settle your mind that you believe in the investment you've made.

I dare say that, even now, if one of us discovered the 'killer argument' for investing in eve, wyn would be back in.

You really do have to let CC and the team run the company as they see fit or sell your stake. We are small shareholders. Octopus, Channel 4 and Paul Pindar might have a chance to influence events but you and I don't.

Brook and Wilde
( https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/11513891/filing-history )
are a private company and joined the fray around the time eve was showing just what a tough market the mattress in a box market is, as described here https://www.ft.com/content/987338f6-e8e2-11e8-885c-e64da4c0f981

yet Brook and Wilde went ahead anyway.

So why do new companies keep entering the market? In theory I think the large mark-up makes mattresses look a profitable item to sell.

Brook and Wilde / eve sleep 'better together'?

They have previously said that they are always considering the best channels for all their products so I can’t imagine that they haven’t thought of DFS and sleep away. Argos seems appropriate but I’m not sure a furniture store is.

Regarding the FSP I can’t imagine anyone goes for it unless they need to and the fact that some FSPs are successfully completed suggest that is a chance of a buyer in our case. I’m just not at all confident. They say that in the RNS so it’s hardly revolutionary thought.

My main worry with the Sleepaway is other people copying it.

I am in too deep I'm afraid. Profit was nearly there for eve.. Then Ukraine etc.

Some of the bed-in-a-box companies do make a profit and with fairly similar business models compared to eve. I don't see it as being impossible to make it work. Just pretty darn tricky.

The Sleep Away sales are accelerating, at Argos anyway. They sell more Sleep Aways than pillows or standard mattresses (if you can believe their little pop-up signs that say '5 people have bought since your last visit'; 'popular, 7 people have put in their basket in the last 24 hrs' etc.

Even if not enough to 'save' eve as it is the Sleep Away must make it look attractive as a product that already exists. If someone were selling Sleep Away in the States, that would be something. I know it isn't rocket science but they have captured something and the design and development costs have been paid for. It probably isn't unique or patentable but why reinvent the wheel if you can buy the company that came up with a good one, for 3p or 4p a share.

I'm not so – completely – sure Soton. Could the Sleep Away, which is selling lots and which others don't have, make a difference?

https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/04/19/how-apple-went-from-bust-to-five-million-colorful-imacs-sold

Hi Wyn,

That makes perfect sense and after setbacks with other companies in my PF I am prepared to believe the worst. I have considered selling up at a huge loss and putting all into angle with its FDA approval. There've been a column of companies that've failed to deliver for me and the common factor is 'loss making' (but potentially very profitable). The profits seem to be elusive, and becoming more so.

But dontgive has noticed eve catching Nectar up on TP, though actually that's not at all because eve are doing particularly well with review numbers; must be something more to do with Nectar's figures in fact. Here is the comparison for website activity:
https://www.similarweb.com/website/nectarsleep.co.uk/vs/evesleep.co.uk/#ranking against eve.

There are other mattress companies which have lower profiles than eve and Nectar, lower TP review numbers and lower website visits. If anything, they must be in worse positions.

Surely Nectar would love to 'take out' eve and roughly double their make share. Or someone else might like to do the same. And if another competitor company were to slip up badly then eve's market share might increase as a result. Slightly straw-clutching arguments I know but who'd have guessed, in January 2019 that eve was only a few months ago from an RNS saying that their sales were ahead of expectations. Stranger things HAVE happened.

Dontgive, I have been looking back to see what the revenue was when we were getting TP review s equivalent to the numbers now, but it's not so easy. One thing they did mention in 2019 was that the eve brand was then the 5th most recognised mattress brand in the UK. I found this so it's probably still 5th:

https://www.slumbersearch.com/uk/top-5-mattresses-for-sleep-quality

So there must be some value in the eve brand name alone. It's a decent share of the market and I bet a competitor would love to have the eve share of the market for their own.

Yesterday afternoon I mentioned here that I have a bit 4D pharma and at that point the shares were suspended, waiting for imminent news. They announced in the evening that a $13m loan had been called in immediately as 4D were in breach of a covenant, 4D didn't have the cash, so the people who are owed the money called in the administrators. So from 16p per share to probably zero, with no real warning.

Read the posts on LSE as some have lost a packet, money they can't afford to lose.

I only mention it because people on the 4D BB ask why the management didn't do something earlier, to raise cash when they could have done, etc. Yes it might have been painful and a dilution but the alternative has been that people have lost almost everything now unless some of the value comes out of admin later.

I only lost £1k. At yesterday's price I lost £300, maybe less. On top of my loss with eve and others, it a pain. But it's also a lesson (I could have top sliced at 140p a while back) and I've learned that it's better for management to take action in good time. Maybe CC is having the FSP now while there's still enough cash for a while, and a reasonable chance of a sale. I don't really try to second guess her as she's the CEO and I'm not (presumably she has more talent for running a company than me, and better advisors than me, and she has much more info than me.

Wild tiger, you had a gamble and it sounds like it paid off. Presumably you wish the rest of us GL?

Yanis, you are down more than me, which doesn't help either of us.. If I sold I wouldn't buy back either. It's a sign that neither of us see eve doing well, or that we see more potential elsewhere. But I will hang on as it would just be so bl** dy typical that the moment I'd sell there'd be an RNS to say someone wants to buy, turn it into a massive sleep brand. Eve have dropped 10% on, on balance, not that much of a sell-off today. It could go the other way if there's good news. If there is good news though I certainly will sell a good portion, and thank my lucky stars. I'd keep some though.

Dontgive, she did give as much reassurance as she could in that email to you.

Trouble with reassurance is it's never enough; hard facts are what she is unable to give atm, under the FSP. I'm down a lot; trying not to worry when there's little I can do but sell and crystallise my loss and then miss out on any subsequent lift in the SP.

The facts that we know are that eve WAS heading to break-even / profit (before the retail market completely changed in a very short time). If you accept they weren't trying to mislead, and profit was close, then there's at least a chance that someone else with very deep pockets might see the potential and take eve on board, and make cuts where there's duplication. Until someone makes an offer and we get to vote it seem there's nothing more that she is willing to add. Even if she said now that there's a potential buyer, what if the buyer then falls away. It just leaves the sp open to massive swings.

Yanis, had you sold for 1.05p would you buy back now?

Unless there is something in the background I'm surprised the afternoon 'buys' haven't lifted the sp back to where it started the day.

I hadn't noticed the price increases but the £197 for sleep away made me think they are prepared to charge more where they can. Not everyone would go to Argos so they almost have 'dual' pricing for different markets. Was the same with the pillows which used to be on eBay; new but a lot cheaper, for ebayers. (One eBay customer gave a negative review for his cheap eve pillow. He could hardly write coherently but complained as he'd thought it was a fake copy he'd ordered and by the time he realised it was real 'eve' quality the offer was over and he couldn't buy a second one!)

I would hope to get some out, on a spike. But a spike now might only be what the price was a week ago.

On the face of it we've had an 11% drop on a sale of maybe 1m shares. Played in reverse we'd get a spike.

If someone were to be selling on a leak that would be different. Unless CC is very discreet, people working in the eve office will be able to tell her mood. They'll be looking for signs too, how secure their jobs are, even their Wednesday breakfasts (which I don't actually begrudge!).

The main problem is Ukraine and the various crises. Even if we had briefly posted a profit 6 months ago, revenue would have dropped off the cliff anyway, on Putin's war's arrival. The profit would have caused a spike allowing some of us to get out with a profit but would we have taken it? I might not. I'd still be where I am now.

My 4D pharma shares are suspended this afternoon. I'm well down there too. Hopefully something will come off, one day!