Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
PC01, yes it's very undervalued but not as much as you say, as you are ignoring not just the need to discount future income (which makes a big difference), but also the now 65% tax rate, and the fact that it probably costs more than $30 per barrel now to produce.
The tax is only on UK profits.
I think a reasonable argument could be made that due to the generous investment allowance it is now more likely for this investment to be made, at least by UK companies who would otherwise just give the money away in tax. But my worry is that even so the value of the resource is now less, because of the extra tax that will have to be paid. Previously for every £100 of gross profit they would be left with £60 after tax, but that will now be £35, so surely the value is now only 35/60 compared to before or 42% less. Of course this assumes that the market price before was based on the assumption that the present oil price would remain unchanged and also that the windfall tax will stay indefinitely. One could argue that the market price was in any case based on an assumption of say long term $70, in which case the fair value now is no less, as if the price were to fall back to £70 then presumably the extra tax would be removed.
Agreed. I can't see why there are clearly some very disappointed investors who are selling out. There was nothing particularly surprising in the presentation, and there is plenty of grounds for hope that some good news could emerge soon, most likely inclusion on a big trial. The share price seems low, and is now the same as before the announcement of the 70% reduction in death for the sub-groups. Doesn't seem logical.
Why does everyone keep criticising the protocol and RM for agreeing it? Do you think they should have said no-one can get steroids because that might make the test fail? They couldn't do that as it would unnecessarily put people at risk. Also, if it would have emerged that there is really no improvement when using SNG compared to steroids there wouldn't be a need to approve it. I'm not saying there actually was no improvement, but the principle of why everyone got standard of care treatment (steroids generally) is understandable
As usual some stupid comments in the IC with a generally negative tone eg:
"The word “timing” appears more than 30 times in Burford Capital’s (BUR) annual report. The litigation funder attributes its first pre-tax loss of almost $60mn to the “vagaries of the litigation process” and a series of court delays. Burford’s chairman thus concludes that the loss is not a “matter of substance”. Timing is far from insignificant in the world of litigation funding, however, where companies back legal claims and take a share of the winnings if they succeed. Cash flow is crucial to consistent returns, and Burford’s is notoriously lumpy."
Incoherent criticism there.
Then "The unpredictable and lengthy nature of litigation is also beginning to translate into headline losses." Implication being that it will continue with no rational argument to support this, when of course the opposite is logical in that the pent up cases needed to conclude at some point.
Then "Litigation funding is still a nascent industry and opportunities abound. Risks, however, are also plentiful". No explanation what those risks are - timing risks? Is that it? Hardly a risk. Or that they might lose some cases? Well of course, that's understood and a natural part of the business model.
And to finish off, probably one of the most absurd comments yet by anyone regaring Burford "these figures will doubtless raise the spectre of earlier criticism from US short-seller Muddy Waters over Burford's accounting treatment." Are you joking? What has the slow conclusion of cases because of covid got to do with MW's allegations of fraud, which no-one believes anyway now, especially in the light of the US listing with the consequent SEC's scrutiny of the company?
Does anyone understand why the share price at 47p is so low. I mean at 30.9.21 its NAV per share was 108p so it's on a 57% discount, how does this make sense? And NAV is likely to have gone up since then due to further house price gains. Even if house prices were to fall 10-20% it would be on a big discount.
Just seen reported from Wall Street Journal that apparently Muddy Waters are being investigated with a search warrant in a probe of illegal trading tactics https://www.wsj.com/articles/justice-department-is-pursuing-wide-ranging-investigation-of-short-sellers-sources-say-11645019122?page=1
Could be interesting
I agree with shareholderchar - it's absurd to assume that charts can take into account possible future surprise events. To say that " it is certain that that info has been around and taken advantage of by some in the days preceding, and the chart will show that" - just doesn't make sense. Of course it can sometimes happen but you can't assume it will.
People are welcome to search the internet to work out how long it took other companies to announce phase 3 top line results from when the the trials finished - it would actually be pretty interesting if someone has the time.
I think there is some confusion here. The suggestion was that they wouldn't release results until the end of the 90 day period as this may affect people's reposnses to the questions (I have argued that this is not a problem as it would equally affect those on placebo, but that is beside the point). No-one is saying they have to wait until they have ANALYSED the 90 day data to avoid bias, they just need to capture it from the patients before release. They can then analyse the 90 data for however long it takes and then release it.
On a different note, see https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20211122005249/en/ where Pfizer announced results of their assessment of safety data for their vaccine (in children 12-15). It says "These data were collected from November 2020 to September 2021." But the announcement was only made on 22.11.21. So even if September 2021 means the end of September, it still took Pfizer 7 weeks to announce. So that gives some indication of the time required to analyse results, even for big pharma. Synairgen are only now up to 7 weeks. And of course that trial may have finished earlier in September, meaning it took up to 11 weeks to analyse.
Matterhorn, I understand what you're saying but my point is that this argument (of "association") will also apply to the people on placebo, so it won't matter, as the trial will check if people on the drug outperform those on placebo. And again, you could make the same argument about association to the whole trial even if results are not publicised. As in, people have heard about the potential of the drug and indeed the good phase II results, so they are more likely to be positive in their responses. Which is precisely why there is a control group on placebo. This nullifies the unconscious biases. So I still don't see why producing results would affect anything.
Sorry I don't follow this theory of waiting for 90 days. How could it create bias given the patients don't know if they had the drug or the placebo? It won't be any more biased than the whole trial is from the beginning in that everyone knows they might be having a drug which could be helping them - that's the whole point of blinding and placebos. Announcing the results wouldn't cause people to know if they had received the drug or the placebo - unless you think they might somehow be able to work it out from the details of the results, but it seems rather far-fetched to me.