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Definitely a positive. I’m not sure I believe their existing block customers will take the whole 16000 tonnes even if they are available this year but if it has been quarried additional customers might come on board. We have said it before but this should at least be cash flow neutral going forward on a month by month basis and profitable if the factory does well. Time will tell.

Money talks. They can source the machinery anywhere in the eu so I can’t see delays getting quarry equipment. It’s not like the factory equipment which is made to order. Just to let you all know they are back in the quarries and working away. Well malesheve is anyway taking out Selene blocks from the lowest bench. I’m not sure about prilep. All this talk of minus 20 and 10 foot of snow was nonsense. There isn’t snow in sight it’s just a bit wet from the snow melting. That’s a 2 month improvement on last year.

It's quite possible the entire quarry and factory workforce costs less that the Fox marble showroom in Wembley each year. The labour costs are negligible, probably why the 2nd shift at the factory has come online so soon and if there's going to be a success story this year I think it will be the factory.

I can't make the investor show but my first question would be on the 2 tenders won and produced for 10500m2 of sivec tiles. If the block marble is paid on the nail before it leaves the quarries I assumed processed marble would be the same before it leaves the factory. We were told the orders were completed. What happened then?

My second question to fox marble would be about tenders and how they find and bid for them as I think processed marble tenders and wins will escalate this year and it's quite possible unvrkw is right and a large project order comes in from the middle east. Probably for sivec/alexandria white until the rest of our range become well known brands.

I wonder if they bid through b2b stone marketplace websites like indiamart or stonecontact? There are a multitude of other similar sites that link buyers and sellers but I have only really browsed stonecontact You can view buying requests for marble blocks or tile/slabs and the specifications of what they want to be quoted for. They also let you know when the tender process has expired, where the customer is and where he wants bidders of the marble to come from.

https://www.stonecontact.com/buyers/marble-tiles-slabs-category

What struck me is that there are many small projects but the biggest ones seem to be in the middle east or the Russian federation. A lot of people want specific marble but also just put in generic white marble sometimes to see what gets quoted. I put sivec in the "search buying lead" enquiry" as it is a well known marble whereas our other marbles aren't yet and there are small and large projects as well as requests for wholesale providers and crushed white marble stone. If I see a large tender for a middle east project come up I will let Fox Marble know!

https://www.foxmarble.net/quarries

Updated summary and also pictures for the factory, Prilep and Malesheve quarries. The tile polishing line will be installed by the end Feb. They have low teched and installed some more manual cutting machines and a small tile cutting machine. More tiles processed for Dubai last month as well and being packed.

Fair point if it doesn’t generate cash it’s worth nothing and will gradually fall to that so it’s a risk. When listening to the interview on capital expenditure I thought good call Nitbhav. You said they needed it. I hope it’s enough! 2 things are stopping me from selling. I’m really poor at calling the top and bottom, so if I sold out now to buy in later on further results I would probably time it wrong. The next is unvrkw is right and the Dubai office does knock out an absolute stonker of a cut marble deal. As for the management team, quite, I’m not impressed either. I expect they will cop a lot of flack this year.

They interview answered the point I made on results day about setting up their own offices worldwide. It was a tacit admission their efforts so far have not been successful. I still think a couple in the USA would make sense if we are chasing the high margin slab market. The claim it's minus 20 in the quarries at the moment just isn't the case. I'm willing to accept they aren't back quarrying until March if there is more snow falling in February, but I'm sure they will still be selling more reserve stocks before that.

Going through the RNS statement again I think the May results will show revenues in India broadly neutral and Europe dropping with GCC and China increasing and USA nearly zero. Ever since Pisani collapsed they have struggled in the UK market with no new developments having been announced, and I don't think the increased sales to Turkey will counter this. Simsekler only took 350T of marble in H2 anyway.

I think the quarterly updates they have indicated are coming will be needed to build trust. It won't help announcing q1 first as it is the slowest time of year. To be worth the current mcap they need to show they are cash neutral at worst from q2 onwards. For example if they announced q2 they quarried 6000T and sold 5000T in block form I would assume they would be cash flow positive.

I have mulled over reducing my position as well but I think I will stick to my orignal gut feeling and hold until H2 results in July. To be honest after that shocker the only way is up for market sentiment, and I want to see what the factory does in the way of orders and the quarries in tonnage excavated.

Thanks. That’s s directors talk interview I just got notified. I’m going to listen to it now and going to take everything said with a big pinch of salt.

Sorry to hear that Nitbhav. Don’t be a stranger! I bought into R4E a while ago and that’s doing pretty well. It has helped offset the loss on fox from the drop yesterday. It could be worth a look. New management who are actually outperforming fir a change.

All the best Ctw. I will be giving it another year! Maybe when they invest in new equipment they should consider getting a few whips and doling out a few lashes every now and then to keep everyone sharp. I think the dedicated tiling line was an additional line purchased autumn 2018. They just had to quarry 4 blocks of marble per day over all the quarries to hit their 20000t target so some serious problems that they didn’t. I guess this year has the potential to be a whole new ball game Just like every year since 2012! It.was hard to get too annoyed yesterday, I saw the rns late as my wife discovered she was pregnant, so everything was put into perspective. I can’t see Chris resigning or being ousted. If he was nearly 10pc of the share capital could turn into an overhang. I think they will release another statement before the investor show to take the pressure off them.

Congratulations notmuchinsales you predicted 1.4-1.8 million so take a bow. It's good to see the company releasing trading statements promptly, and having managed to raise money without cratering the share price. They obviously can tap investors that believe in this.

The bad is just about everything else, and Chris Gilbert I hope some of these comments are passed on to you and some of the shareholders attend the investor show and ask some awkward questions.

Revenues H2 2018 were lower than H2 2017, despite having a fully functioning factory, a showroom, unbelievably kind weather, a higher extraction rate and more sales avenues.

It's obvious the distribution agreements in the USA, Balkans (via Dino marble), and UAE aren't working and considerable time has been wasted. Hopefully having fox marble offices up and running in Dubai and Mumbai now changes this somewhat. Maybe you should consider taking all territories inhouse. If the USA is the largest slab market in the world set up an office there as well and be more aggressive with sales.

I can't wait for the final results in May because you have a problem, those 2 orders for 10500m2 of sivec tiles you said were completed in an RNS. I can't see how that can possibly have happened with the revenues you have provided for 2018. Isn't an RNS meant to be a legal truthful statement?

Missing the quarry target of 20000T was disappointing and you can understand the 3 million in block sales (16000T) seem suspect if Malesheve isn't sorted out fast.

It's a hold, too many jam tomorrow statements, not enough trust. You need to get the workers back into the quarries ASAP and provide a real barnstorming update for H1 in July.

No problem. December and January they have been working elsewhere and it makes sense to subcontract to them so we aren’t paying them for the winter shut down period. As they are a local firm it gives a very good idea of the weather and driving conditions there. I’m also hoping when they are back in the quarries we will know through them or one of Fox marbles staff. God bless social media!

Thanks unvrkw. I remember you said that after your conversation with Chris Gilbert. If you get a few minutes check Lani Lani Kastrati our on Facebook. He works for a local transport firm in malesheve. I think they are the ones we subcontract to move the blocked marble to the factory and also help clear the quarries topsoil when the company does extra expenditure on the quarries. October and November they seem pretty busy. Must of been moving a lot of blocks to storage. But I think they were in the quarries until December 8th. There is quite a lot of videos and pictures.

They provide KPI's, territorial breakdown and slab/block sales in the end of year updates. I don't think you will get them during the year to protect the terms of their distribution deals.

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/541ff465e4b0a0d6201bc718/t/5af5293aaa4a998a19222bfc/1526016318742/Fox+Marble+Holdings+PLC+2017+FINAL.pdf

Page 18 for KPI's. Page 53 for sales breakdown by territory.

Blok marble sales (tonnes) 2017 - 4641
Processed marble sales 2017 (m2) - 5000
Quantity marble processed 2017 (m2) - 14000

I would also like to see some forecasts start to come out. Sensible ones this time from their broker not the outlandish ones they have published in the past. When fox marble do release their preliminary results this year I will contact Peter Rose at Brandon Hill Capital and see when they will be doing this.

Last thursday 31st jan they were picking up Selene blocks from malisheve in the snow. One of the drivers put a picture up but I’m not sure if that was for block sales or to take to the factory. Either way at least the quarry area is accessible by the end of jan even if they aren’t cutting it out yet. Hopefully the remaining snow will clear this week an everyone will be back to work.

You did indeed Nitbhav, it’s nice to see this ticking up day by day. 2 more months until the investor show so hopefully plenty more news before then and more shareholders buying into the fox story. Good luck in getting to the million club unvrkw, you would nearly own 0.5% of the company.

The obvious solution is foo to dip his hand into his pocket and do a short term loan. Don’t want to lose the gravy train! It has to be worth a few million a year.

Usually rumours have some truth in them, and being very tight on cash they would be negligent not to access their options and put the feelers out. They should have released an RNS.

It will be interesting to see the share price reaction today.

They will issue an rns at 7am either way. They will need to address the press reports. If the share price drops it will be on the back of them raising money over the weekend. If they haven’t raised money best to temporarily suspend the shares while the placing is finished. I havent owned any shares here for years but it seems to me any money raised would genuinely be for working capital until the Eneo payments start to come in. They wouldn’t need to raise that much, a few million? They should be cash generative at these levels even with royalty payments. Can’t believe they are still going on about west med, cng and more drilling. It’s like a broken record. But if the shares did drop I will be tempted to buy in in the morning. They have a high cost base but it shouldn’t increase if the ever sign up more customers, only the royalty payments. The share price seems to reflect an awful lot of bad news already. I don’t think anyone seriously expects west med to sell, the insurance claim to be successful, cng to take off, another power station to connect anytime soon or foo to give up his royalty payments. But you never know one might come in!

Brandon hill capital are forecasting at least break even this year as well. They should have been steered by the company. https://www.brandonhillcapital.com/media/77772/fox_marble_flashnote_2019_01_21.pdf The weather in prilep is pretty good next week. Hopefully the snow will clear up and they can get back into the quarry early. Malisheva will take a bit longer.