Member Info for dougerboy

Hi MC 11p in new money is £5.50 per share. I long for those days too. The drag is the long haul to break even in my opinion. When that RNS drops “Itaconix is pleased to announce revenues and margin are well ahead of market expectations and beyond breakeven resulting in a maiden profit for the year…”

It’s got to be 2025, surely…so long as those raw materials keep coming.

That is realistic conjecture AK.

That’s a question only the company can answer AJP. But on the face of it, a bit of vertical integration I can see making sense. When out selling the company may have had to deal with “how will your new ingredient affect the high speed performance of our Tablet production line?”

That objection, if present, is presumably now firmly removed.

Sums it up nicely Molson.

They would be very unwise to slap a tariff on Itaconic Acid which was listed as one of the 12 most promising chemicals available from biomass according to the United States Department of Energy report in 2004.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5815973/

If the new administration in the US has any sense they will make the tariff distinction between raw materials (not available in the US) such as Itaconic Acid and end-products eg. EV’s.

By the way there are other big US names taking loads of IA -,eg DuPont & Lubrizol.

John Shaw: get on the phone to the other users, pool your resources and do a deal with a US (or European) Pharma/Chemical Company for second sourcing.

Cheers

DB

That’s a good piece of analysis Smart. Now if we can keep that kind of profitable growth going across the board + new additions in FY2025, we are knocking on the door of breakeven and better beyond.

Hi AJP, great work on the shipment info - thanks again and hoping for more! Basically I think an average of a full container per month puts us beyond Breakeven. There is also the (remote?) possibility of sourcing Itaconic Acid within the USA. We wouldn’t have visibility of those shipments. That’s a future question for John Shaw: “do you have a local Itaconic Acid source?”

Cheers

Great find AJP that IS interesting.

Feeling that way myself WM. So much progress everywhere - except the share price!

Smart may be right with prudent advance purchases ahead of political uncertainty. My own hope is after recent substantial raw material purchases, the imports keep flowing regularly, substantiating the view that the train has really left the station.

I found this product on laundry care with Sodium Polyitaconate in there. More recurring revenue.

https://happybeehinds.com/en-gb/products/grovia-mighty-bubbles

Finally had a chance to give some thought to AJP‘s recent raw material shipment data. Raw material inventory value held at end of 2023 - per annual report - was $418k, which I estimate just under 1 month‘s worth on last year’s numbers. Assuming recent shipment data is correct and GM is maintained as forecast, all data is pointing to 2025 being breakeven or better - in my humble view. We will also be getting close to full plant capacity if (hopefully) this trend continues.

They seem like a decent outfit. Ranked 12th in the UK and obviously coating a bit less than BDO. Good.

That would be a great RNS to get dandj. The sooner the better as far as I’m concerned.

Thanks for this AJP, and now I’m going to with your data look at the last few annual reports and try and get a handle on inputs v outputs!

Well done AJP. Are you able to estimate shipped tonnages for the past three years from your data?

That doesn’t seem unreasonable Vince. I‘ve been here a VERY long time too and used to enjoy the positivity of ToT, and be irritated by the incessant sarcasm of kreature on the other thread - whose posts I now enjoy - though still hoping they won’t be vindicated.

Good stuff AJP. I feel a question coming on for the presentation, which sadly I can’t make. But here it is: at current levels of Gross Margin, what level of input tonnage of IA raw material is required to break even?

I doubt he’ll give that answer - but he will know it!

Cheers

That‘s interesting info on new hires AJP. Helen Cane is still showing as Itaconix active, so I’m assuming she‘s still there. Going by the new sought hires, per your links, this is then confirmation of additional ops resource recruitment. That is very positive. Of particular note is Night Ops Supervisor, and running now or soon to be running nightshifts mean we are gearing up I would suggest towards fuller plant capacity from existing factory footprint.

We will all recall, that capacity as previously stated by John, equates to ca. $15m revenues, before additional Capex is required. That means, there is, I would suggest, an even clearer by the Board a view of that road ahead to maximum plant utilisation.

Crucially our future road is without the lower margin business (good) and which was strategically rejected a few months back - and caused much debate on this chat.

For these new hires and doing rough numbers, costs for these will be ca. $450k above our current cost base - so to pay for these we need an extra $1-$1.5M revenue based on current GM levels. So in seeking these hires Itaconix must have a really confident view.

The only slight negative I have is on the job spec of the well paid Marketing Communications Director: I would like to see an emphasis on the word „selling“ and „sales“ - the increase of which is the ultimate judge of how successful one‘s marketing team members are.

So John Shaw, if you read this, please attach revenue and GM targets to your marketing & sales team actions.

Come on guys, down 10% on only 6274 shares traded. It’s a joke. If you feel like selling into that “big” drop on measly volume, fair enough. The question for me is: where are we today on that revenue/GP curve, which as we all know, has been way too tardy, but IS moving in the direction I want.