focusIR May 2024 Investor Webinar: Blue Whale, Kavango, Taseko Mines & CQS Natural Resources. Catch up with the webinar here.
Don’t forget my Christmas card though 🤣
Holiday all booked but 4 weeks tomorrow until I travel to Mexico.
Personally, I do not care that much whatever anyone thinks of my postings whether bizarre or not. We are all entitled to post bullish or bearish in a public bulletin board whether invested or not.
I no longer post on my investments here on LSE as there are enough bullish people about but sit and listen to the bearish views in case I have missed something. I do occasionally post on my trading pot but feel the bearish views will continue. Since the ipo where over 96% has already been lost by the current CEO from the placing at 8p, I feel the bearish views from many have proved they are correct and will continue to be correct.
I need something to occupy my time while I am researching elsewhere and quietly investing on other stocks. It keeps an old man happy
If you do not try and predict the future financial year well actually the current financial year, why do you invest?
I wouldn’t even consider an investment unless I had a profit/oss forecast for the next 12 months and also, which is the most important, a cashflow forecast.
My figures are pretty accurate based on the info provided thus far, so I am very confused about your comments - not what I would expect from an investor, may be a short term trader but definitely not an investor. It is clear you have never owned or run a business as the most important objective of a company owner is the cashflow. Without cashflow your business cannot run.
If Toop are still running, I’ll be here and suspect Miss G & ERV1 will also be here.
This is the easiest company to forecast being a service provider rather than guesswork required for Resources stocks like oil & gas or mining.
One thing you have made clear from your comments, you do not seem to have a clue about the research and knowledge required to invest so I’ll take your posts as twaddle. But you keep looking at a £10m deal though. But if they got a wholesale deal for £10m, they would still be losing money with a GP of £1m and cost of sales of £9m, so may be you think a bit more before typing away.
Part 2
Going by our agreed Sept 18 expectations and then add on the new business this year
Revenue was at £1.7m
Add wholesale 2018/19 £800k
Add retail 2018/19 £812k
Total Revenue £3.312m
Cost of Sales £1.45m
Cost of add wholesale £720k
Cost of add retail £569k
Total Cost of Sales £2.73m
Gross Profit £250k
Add wholesale 2018/19 £80k
Add retail 2018/19 £244k
Total Gross Profit £ 574k
Administrative Costs £1.6m
Marketing Costs £249k
Total Administrative Costs £1.849m
Total Loss £1.275m
Cash balance end of Sept 2018 £1.65m
Loss for 2018/19 £1.275m
Payment of £544k loan
Total cash balance as of September 2019 -£169k
So in September 2019, they are negative in cash, lost £1.275m with a small revenue of £3.3m and no where near breakeven of your £7.5m
The revenue needs to be well into 8 figures but loads of cash required to get there. So I do not see the BOD strategy anywhere near working in the slightest but the fiasco may continue via further massive discounted placings below this SP
Part 1
If you look at my 13.08 post on Friday, these were the figures I quoted and ERV1 extrapolated further down.
ERV1 and myself have always agreed on the majority of each other’s figures as we both use the figures the company has issued via an RNS, Prospectus or the CEO smoke and mirrors chat in an interview. Bearing in mind both of our own working history before we retired, the sarcasm just degenerates your point.
But let us work on your figures of £7.5m revenue - no where near what is required by the way.
Let us assume Toople get 420 RGUs per month and assume as AH said, over 20% are from existing customers and will continue to place additions at this rate - personally will hit a peak and lower off but let us say new customers is 320 and 100 from existing customers. Not that it matters as these we assume are constant
Each month will add £3,123 GP, revenue of £10,416, marketing costs of £19,500
Over 12 months at a constant growth of 420 RGUs with the current staff will generate additional for retail customers:-
Revenue £812,448
GP £243,594
Marketing Costs £249,000 (12 months x 320 new customers x £65)
I have taken the £65 which is between the 2 figures quoted by the company for new retail customers as the 100 RGUs from current customers are nil. The £65 is very very optimistic and feel it is closer to £90.
Wholesale although growing are lucky if they generate 10% GP and revenue increases will be relatively small like £200k with say £20k GP. Add on £1.2m revenue from August 29th which will only benefit 6 months - so total £800k generating £80k GP.
Misprint - sorry I have edited it
Then the administrative costs were £2m more than I expected which was much higher than the rampers view and the cash was £2.4m less at the end of March than I expected let alone the rampers view. The discussions at the time was a £3m cash balance at the end of March with the True Deal making it £7m - again the rampers said this was too low with expectations to be between £8m - £10m.
Oh was that a threat blacksheep 😟 😦 😧🤣
This movement has been forecasted started off from the True Oil deal in April - only revenue source now depleted but cash in the bank and needed another good revenue ASAP.
Then the administrative costs £2m than I expected which was much higher than the rampers view and the cash was £2.4m less at the end of March than I expected let alone the rampers view. The discussions at the time was a £3m cash balance at the end of March with the True Deal making it £7m - again the rampers said this was too low with expectations to be between £8m - £10m.
This was found out on July 24th that the results were so poor, a serious effort needed by the BOD to get another good revenue stream. With this in mind you can ignore short term high revenue from WD, Helios and DTU with only the Nitrogen play the best Avenue really. Sure this is coming soon but time is not on their side. The agenda for the AGM confirmed the BODs plans in my view but keep looking out for the dividends in a few years time.
The so called scumbags have predicted this for 6 months and so far the BODs have fallen perfectly in line with this. The administrative expenses is still way too high and my view is there is around £1m in the bank now and not enough cash to continue until the revenue from ED arrives. It will only cover the administrative expenses for the first month and after that a cash outflow.
They seriously need working capital funds to cover the existing projects and turn at least one into a good constant revenue source.
The wti on Friday bounced off the 50% Fib twice at $59.43 - needs to bounce off this level tomorrow or will continue to drop to the 61.8% Fib @ $55.34.
See if Eric answers the numerous emails you have all sent to him - not that he can answer anyway whether they are or are not looking for funds without adding “at this moment in time”
By the way - your figures are wrong as each RGU is worth £7.4375 GP per month - in theory from the figures so far produced. So an additional 420 RGU is an additional £3,123 as ERV1 produced. Your figures are too low as you based it on 300 RGUs but still an additional £2,231.25, so I am a little confused why you are using £1785.
I assume you misinterpreted the figures as you are using £5.95 per RGU GP per month and confused with the 2 year revenue of £595?
But on another matter and llooking at the last interims, I cannot see 30% GP so expect this to be considerably less.
1) All retired
2) High risk? Strategy will never work for many years which would need another £5m to spend to achieve the breakeven figures. Not sure they will achieve it then due to multiple red flags like Merlin having the ability to cope, third party arrangements for their services which can affect Toople reputation, churn rate, administrative expenses, competition etc etc
3) Yes fully agreed from day 1 in April 2016 as explained before - failed in Coms, failed in Cube etc etc. No change in strategy but still unbelievably get several pi’s to part with their money. Even more unbelievable is the fund managers that have fallen for it - they should be sacked. Strategy has not changed but please explain why since the IPO, what is different? Still have the same product including wholesale and retail customers trying to sell the same service after all this time.
4) Whatever the retail customers are, they are miles away from breakeven and growth is insignificant really. They got 300 retail customers in October which was less than they achieved in September. Trouble is they need to generate well above 1000 new retail customers per month. Several problems, not enough cash to progress this so aggressively and definitely not enough employees.
The compounding is based achieving higher growth on new customers and achieving less to the last month. The growth for the RGUs has been based on existing customers placing additional orders - my view is it was a lucky month - see the next update and see how that develops.
Also weird how I use your figures as posted and I’m an idiot but you call me a liar for forecasting figures for next year - you know a forecast - you cannot lie as it is a judgement.
Anyway, have you figured out the history of AskMerlin, Cube, O-bit, Coms and how Toople was financed and why?
Funny how the numbers have changed for the worse.
Ignoring the costs to acquire a retail customer, when I worked out the retail customers required to cover the £1.5m loss or thereabouts Toop would need 12000 customers. Admittedly these marketing costs were free and no additional staff to cover the additional sales and business.
Well now looking at RGUs, they need 16807 to cover this loss based on the same understanding, no marketing costs or additional staff.
Looking forward to see where the profit will come from, oh sorry, where the next set of funds will come from to continue this fiasco
Enjoy your day ERV1 - funny how the figures do not stack up to anything special - in fact the opposite
Neo89 - so you are happy with £207k of GP over the next 12 months?
Bearing in mind we have similar figures for end of Sept 18 :-
Revenue £1.7m
Cost of Sales £1.45m
Gross Profit £250k
Administrative Costs £1.6m
Loss £1.35m
Cash balance ~£1.65m assuming the payables and receivables are similar - if not this needs to be adjusted
So that £207k GP will not do much to the loss of £1.35m will it. And with the Administrative Expenses will increase the loss this time next year due to additional staff and massive direct marketing spending - hence why I see a bigger loss amount as my forecast for next year (or more as I tweeted before)
Expect 12 months to September 2019
Revenue £3.1m
Cost of Sales £2.7m
Gross Profit £400k
Administrative Costs £1.95m
Loss £1.55m
and cash all gone by the especially if Toop pay back the £544 loan to DB.
Why cannot TOOP identify the average costs for acquiring retail customer - not a huge range between £40-£90. It is not hard to work out the marketing for these new customers and work out an average cost especially if they have bundles of customers? So how do we know they are decreasing these costs also? And from where? £90 or £40 or somewhere in between. If it was anywhere near the £40 the would be shouting about it, hence I feel it is nearer £90. But they have now changed to RGUs - why? The costs will look cheaper as 20% from existing so looks better. The trouble is the GP is nearly 30% less but I suspect the RGU cost per customer has not dropped anywhere near 30%.
Surely they should be able to calculate the cost per RGUs by now as they are spouting these figures about but without the cost to achieve these figures. Do you know why? I do as they are bluffing their way through it but the figures in the interims in March 2019 will show this but not expected to be available until June 2019 when they will be skint by then and a huge consolidation and massive discounted placing will be before this.
It is just like the comment “The Company believes that the current positive trading and sales outlook is further evidence of the successful implementation of its in-house sales strategy adopted earlier in the year.” Yes “BELIEVES” which is another waffling term or B/S. If they know the old RGU cost to the last month cost, why is it not announced within his interview where he spouts all the other figures off regarding revenue and customers which do not comply with his previous interview but has not specified the costs to achieve these additional 420 RGUs. Cannot wait until they become available as this will be another nail in the company strategy that will not work.
Funny that Miss G
Out of the 3 that he seems to criticise, one was a Director of a PLC company, one was also a Senior Manager of a PLC company and Managing Director of a Limited Company and yourself
I suppose between the 3 of us, one day at least, one of us should gain a clue about running a business 🤣
You feel we are doing a good job - much appreciated - thankyou 😀
Now you keep making assumptions my friend - one day you might get one right but on the basis one lives in England, one in Scotland and one who lives abroad, may be you Report this post to Admin with your explanation in the comments box.
If you realise why many with bearish views post on here, you will know but clearly do not - another one I hope keeps averaging down then and then says bye bye to their monies due to their own ignorance 🤣
Lol Miss G (Miss P) 😉
Not 100% sure I could get down to their level - but trying though 🤣
Mr D (B)
Bradley - The prospectus said the marketing costs were between £40-£90 per customer. Initially I used the £65 cost per customer but also identified what £90 would be.
Now you tell me what the average cost is as the company can only provide a range and I suspect most are much closer to £90 rather than £40. Do I take it down from £90, £65 or £40 - bet you cannot tell me - why?
Because the strategy will not work and these smoke and mirrors played out by the CEO and varying the numbers on GP and revenue as nothing is accurately specified. Surely the company knows the average but keep quoting the £40 - £90 range direct marketing costs for each customer. With the huge retail customer, it doesn’t take much to divide the customers achieved so far from advertising and the costs spent to identify the current cost per customer exactly up to a certain date and refer to that. But they cannot because they do not wish to issue too much info and details or it becomes obvious it will not work.
1) whether they have a 1k, 2k customers, the revenue was GP i# already in the accounts up to March 2018. The difference since then will affect the costs up to the end of September
2) you are now showing yourself as completely stupid. I explained with 12000 customers they would break even as the additional revenue with cover the administrative expenses. But in reality, they are not free so still a big loss. You seem to be struggling with this. I quoted the numbers of GP and compare it to the losses which is about breakeven. But as AH has said, these cost between £40-£90 so there is a huge cost and hence a loss.
3) I never agreed in manipulating the numbers but if that is how you see it, my numbers for H2 is way way too high.
4) I will be bearish as I have been since the ipo as I know the history pre being renamed Toople and the strategy will not work. So far after 30 months, no problems in my forecasts so far
5) The figures are what AH quoted in the previous interview so not assumptions as all, exactly what the CEO said. I will listen again later to the interview and listen to ERV1 comments but I have explained, if they are 420 RGUs, then with the GP has reduced by nearly 30% which massively affects the numbers the wrong way.
6) I haven’t ignored the wholesale and explained that the revenue from these wholesale contracts are pretty much too small and with just 10% GP, it is the retail customers that the company are planning to grow.
7) without a doubt, there will be another massive dilution or administrators in during 2019 because the strategy does not work. Simple really!!
Then stop responding Neo as you clearly have not done no where near enough research, do not know the history and seem to struggle with the company strategy and you think it is fine. Just keep investing Neo on every dip until your portfolio is too heavily invested in here - and then you can say goodbye to your cash.
I based them on information given and when not accurate, I make my own opinion which is normal, isn’t it?
Well my last post just repeated exactly what the CEO has said in today’s interview and based it on the figures the CEO has quoted as a GP of 30% - personally cannot see that either but sticking with his comment of 30% so have not adjusted it to suit whatever means you think.
He said £250k over 2 years, 420 customers at 30% - so what have I changed - NOTHING
So bearing in mind my figures were based on achieving revenue of £833 per customer and not £595 achieving a GP of just £178.50 instead of £250.
Nothing has been made up but I think you keep. Just wondered how this can be biased but you keep wearing your rosy tinted glasses
So having listened to the interview, the figures he quoted as 420 generate £250k over 2 years doesn’t tie up with a previous interview
Now instead of achieving £250 GP per customer, within a month his revenue has decreased from £833 per customer to £595. Even at 30% GP it only generate £178.50 GP, a drop of 28.6% in revenue and GP.
God this will change the numbers and increase the cash outflow due to the high direct marketing costs in comparison to these numbers and increase the losses.
So we can now assume he will not pay above £90 for £178.50 GP over 2 years - drastically makes this business even worse than the POS it is.
No one can exactly guarantee what retail customers they have as their own figures do not exactly tie up.
If you look at the October update, the £250k of revenue is not in line with AH figures. He said £250 GP profit over 2 years at 30% GP which equates to £833 per customer of 2 years.
£250k/£833 is 300 customers for October and not 40% increase to September. I’ve explained this before, the figures quoted by the company do not tie up - hence we all have to guess. Funny how in the first week they gained 115 customers in October - which means, each customer is not creating revenue of £833 but actually £250k/420 customers is £595 revenue per customer over 2 years. At a 30% GP equates to £178.50 over 2 years and not £250. So it is difficult to forecast future revenue based on the figures issued by the company. So all a guess and therefore no lies as it is the future - unless you have a crystal ball? These variables in these figures is massive when working out cash outflow and therefore how big the next loss will be.
Whatever they are, the current figures are already included in the interims and our September 2018 final forecast and yours is similar to mine.
Next year is a forecast and based on your own opinions - how can it be a lie?
I have explained that Toople was renamed and listed in April 2016 but was Cube Telecom before that when it was privately owned by DB. All in the presentations if you care to look
You are quite right HD - a few months away in which case wti could be even lower and back into the 40s.
Funny how people laughed when it hit the $63 a few days ago and most thought the $59 would not happen - but it did within days. As I see a few days back I can see $55 coming which will see a loss of revenue next year around $750k for 2019.
But you are also assuming it stays there. Funny how most like to ramp it when wti was in the $70s and increase in revenue but do not like to hear it when it drops and a reduce in revenue.
What happens if goes back into the 40s?
But you keep counting on water purification. The revenue is insignificant currently but we are talking without Kansas in production that HNR are £millions short of cash for working capital.
Still see a placing in 2018 and still foresee it this month. But at this low price, they will find it difficult to get it at 10p as raising funds is much more difficult now compared to earlier in the year. I have pointed out before that the reduction in revenue for 2019 due to wti means they will require even more money.
Just waiting for the Kansas agreement together with a placing for working capital to progress their projects, cover their huge administration expenses, lawyers, consultants and so on.