Gordon Stein, CFO of CleanTech Lithium, explains why CTL acquired the 23 Laguna Verde licenses. Watch the video here.
The NAV has reduced over January from 31.2 to 30.67. (-1.69%) Not bad considering a few of the drops the portfolio saw over January. The 27% cash is close to about 17p per share. The FA. sale will help when this concludes, shares are about 10% under the offer price currently. Of the ones that dropped, SPEC should bounce. Not sure about WRKS or CAU. We also a large dividend to look forward to from HSP, which should be about £270k.
The sale of FA. has been delayed a little due to the buyer being foreign. This could be an issue.
Prior to the wind up, it was always stated that 50% of shares could be redeemed for NAV in May 2024. So this is probably why it is winding up. They realise that you would be silly no to, and this would leave the fund in a sticky spot going forward. Shame about SPEC, as DSM added to this recently. It dived 30% last 2 days, but has not affected the nav by much. Shame the top up was il timed- as a buy today would have worked well. It could even be DSM selling to cause the drop. Fluid power down a little today. (I made a DSM watch list on this site and in Trading view, so I can follow all of the stocks).
The trading update has no bearing on the dividend, which was cancelled over 4 months back in the interims. Even if they wanted to pay a dividend, the largest share holder is not in favour of it. The update is ok, but not great in my opinion. I would have liked to see net debt reduced by more than 2M over last 6 months. Not much to look forward to, according to the board. Lets just hope that this gets taken over within the next year, so investors can see some return. Blackrock are slowly closing short position so we may see some upside in the mean time.
SB, previously, the cash balance quoted did not include Russia. And from what he said in the last presentation, the Russian balance would be run down any way. I linked to the part where he said this, if your interested.
https://youtu.be/a50MXSRBi44?t=1262
Listening on a little further, if the above is correct then current cash has exceeded expectations of 2.4M EOY. My remaining investment in my pension looking for growth is happy with the situation. I would still like a top up under 30p if it comes.
I have bought in recently. I did some research at the time, and regarding the Works - The position was bought in May 2022 at 3%, then it was added to on January 2023 to go to 4.3%. The economic climate was very different in 2022. Yes the position could have been sold, but the remit of the fund is to stay invested in microcaps. By all accounts the Works is very cheap now, there are other II there who are pushing back on Dividends and asking for buy backs. At least the business is virtually debt free and has currently a fair bit of net cash. It appears cheap on fundamentals, but I dont like the business.
I have not followed the stock closely but it seems to have disappointed repeatedly after the buy in here. It looks from a cursory glance that a management shake up is needed, though you could argue that the business itself is not a great one (shops full of tat IMO, not great at anything). I wouldn't buy the stock myself, but we are where we are. Just putting the record straight that the decision was not made in 2023 to invest in the Works, if anything you could say it was back in 2022.
Having just bought in, it only matters to me if the NAV increases from now, so even if the Works cannot get back to b/e for this fund, I still think it will recover somewhat. The fund is a mixed bag in terms of success, but I still feel they can add value as they wind up the fund. They are selling in to strength on JNEO which is at an ATH, and selling down a few other positions. I noticed that they increased on SPEC. Of all the positions, assuming FA. sale goes through, and EQLS gets a bid, then we only need another big winner to make a material difference here. I like NWOR, be great to see an offer there after Media courage went up to 24% in December. You can only pick the stocks as an investor, manage your entries and exits. Nothing else is in your control.
100,000 Euros was stated in the last presentation (thats about £85k).
https://youtu.be/a50MXSRBi44?t=3245
I think a placing is out of the question, when the mcap is so low ($178M). Its not going to raise much cash, to make a lot of difference. Tyrus who sit on the board are not going to want this. I do think cash is tight, if you add up the costs in the RNS. Dont be fooled by the cash balance, which was only a snapshot on a particular day. Hopefully between them all, they can conduct some financial engineering - it seems to be in everybody's interests. I think operationally they seem stretched, so another acquisition also makes no sense. Joint broker is becoming very common on small caps. It does not necessarily mean a raise is coming. If anybody is interested I wrote a post about this subject on ticker REAT.
It was kind of announced...
Look in the going concern part of the last couple of FY results, it is mentioned. Though its not made obvious in the liabilities section. Best way is to Ctrl-F for HMRC. That is how i found it.
I was thinking that it might have been them selling at 2p on the day of the placing. However Chelverton have not sold any shares, I just checked after the previous placing they still had 9,000,000 shares. So the position is just reducing due to dilution. The position is worth £180k at 2p. Seems an odd use of their funds when the trust is a dividend trust. Perhaps the old adage of 'its only a loss if you sell' is in play here. I suspect they bought in the old days of 80p+ per share.
So of the 30,000,000 placing shares:
Miton 3.75M
Raglan 7.5M
First Equity 11M
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22.25M out of 31,350,000
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So there is 9.1M knocking about... (and possibly First equity bought another 1M).
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That isnt that many really. £182,000 worst case that could be flipped. Lets hope they all find homes. We may have even bought some unwittingly already. Ideally if there are no sellers down at this price then we might get back to 3p over the next few weeks.
I would say the interest rate news has caused the drop.
European stock markets drifted more decisively lower on Tuesday as hopes for a rate cut by the European Central Bank diminished following some hawkish comments from policymakers, whilst data confirmed German inflation rose in December. The Dax slipped about 0.7 per cent while the FTSE 100 fell 0.6 per cent. Several monetary policy hawks from the European Central Bank circled, and delivered a clear message in concert – this was no coincidence so the market is taking it seriously.
Joachim Nagel, president of the Deutsche Bundesbank, said it was “too early to talk about cuts” because “inflation is too high”, while his Austrian counterpart Robert Holzmann told CNBC: “I cannot imagine that we’ll talk about cuts yet because we should not talk about it. Everything we have seen in recent weeks points in the opposite direction, so I may even foresee no cut at all this year.”
Looks like Miton took 3,750,000 shares in the placing. Their holding slightly increased (due to dilution).
Jefferies cuts Moneysupermarket.com to 'hold' (buy) - price target 265 (305) pence
What a sad day for BEG. This is what happens when you just keep issuing shares. People have to sell them to realise the cash they should have received. Look at my post 15th December, 103 looks on the cards. The EBT is less than the amount of shares issued recently.
...Begbies Traynor Group plc announces that it has today applied to the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange for a block listing of 949,141 ordinary 5 pence shares in the Group ("Ordinary Shares"). Admission is expected to occur on 29 December 2023.
... has on 12 January 2024 purchased 100,000 ordinary shares
I sold my position in Eckoh (ECK) after they sent an RNS for a joint broker on the 9th March 2023. To date they have not raised funds, and went on to put out several positive updates. I would be more sceptical here if it was one of the market maker brokers like Cavendish etc. But you dont often see Dowgate as a broker, so maybe this is just due to their stake in the company. Just checked, and Eckoh appointed Investec alongside Singer. React has appointed alongside Singer, perhaps the reason is related to Singer?
This link (from 2018) is saying that joint brokers could be used to help find more investor clients such as II. (hopefully without a placing!!)
https://www.accountancyage.com/2008/07/17/aim-companies-why-two-stockbrokers-can-be-better-than-one/
Or another that came up from a google search is EQLS, who appointed a joint broker Peel, (almost on the same date to ECK 30th March), never raised capital, and are now under offer. Not sure we can say Joint broker goes hand in hand with a placing, but like I said I did sell a position due to that worry.
I need to do something with REAT, hold a very small position here from a momentum trade that fizzled out at 1.6p. Lol.
Interesting reading that website, quite a few AIM names that I recognise.
Perhaps one day they can help facilitate a take over or trade sale.
https://www.raglancapital.ie/selected-transactions
Who ever sold that 350,000 at 2.03 (if they did acquire the stock in the placing) made £105 gross profit. That tells me there is possibly a seller who may need to be cleared. I notice Chelverton dividend income trust are still holding. I wonder if they have been selling, this would not fit with the funds strategy now. When the new shares are admitted hopefully we get TR1's from the other holders and we can see whats what. You never know, Chamberlin might even update the website.
Raglan Securities Ltd 4.18% of the enlarged share count. 7,500,000 shares (£150k)
Https://kestrelpartners.com/news/
Should we get excited that Kestrel are buying stock? They are a private fund who buy shares in small caps, then put a member on the board. They are buying other companies too, for example increased in RCN today. Exploring the website indicates some others they hold too. If anything, they maybe able to broker a deal for another buyer. You could look upon Kestrel large holding as a negative, now it means that an approach from someone else is very unlikely. I follow a similar vehicle called Dbay who have near 29% in a couple of companies. They surprised me when they took Finsbury food private and kept it (due to the FCF). I think a company making cakes has limited growth compared to TIG, so I doubt this would be a sensible approach. Perhaps they could flip it by relisting it on the Nasdaq, I dont know. But if you follow stocks, Kestrel buying and having a board member is fairly normal and im not reading much in to it, other than a huge endorsement from some very skilled professional investors. Kestrel fund is not open to the public, so you could go and buy all of their holdings to replicate the performance..Also shows where the value zone is, if they are happy to buy under 1.20. I caught the bounce of 115 this week with a few extra but sold them today at 122. TIG is a good holding but im not expecting fireworks any time soon, the yield is low here and the SP growth is slow to come. A lot of the time, I forget I hold this and focus on other stocks.
Regardless of Kestrel I think the BB shares will get cancelled, though strange that they have not done so already. The alternative is that they work on increasing the share price and use the shares for an acquisition so long as they are valued at higher than they paid for them. Currently bought back 8% of the company.
Just checking on the buy back..
Started 4th April, plan to purchase up to 20% of stock.
Currently has purchased and cancelled 5.39% (30,295,958 shares).
The Share Buyback will end no later than on the conclusion of the annual general meeting of the Company in 2024 - which is in May. So likely they will make it to 10% in that time. They can always continue it next year I suppose.
Your argument falls down as i3 has more than halved in just 18 months. I think BP transitioning in to renewables will be a long term better bet. Investing in I3 has taught me to be wary of 10% yields - there is always a catch.