Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
"Could this be the equity placing that was talked about?"
Definitely not.
From the Half Year Results:
""The Board intends to provide a mechanism for retail shareholders to participate in any equity financing and a further announcement will be made in due course."
Great to have the draft guidance recommendation of the CYP2C19-ID test today. The final recommendations are expected to be published by NICE on 10 July 2024. So we have 3 months to wait until we know if we are over the finishing line on this one.
The timing of today's announcement was fortuitous with the IMC coming up on Friday. James finally has something positive to boost the morale of long suffering shareholders. Last November the sp went on to double after the positive pronouncements at that time from the CEO. Will the same happen this time? I suspect that James will be more cautious after the failure of many of his previous forecasts to materialize in the given time frame.
Then, of course there is the elephant in the room of the urgent need for funds. If the company is able to come up with a non dilutive means of raising substantial funds that would be massive. But that is by no means a given. There are a variety of possible sources, aside from further drawdowns from RF, as highlighted in the Half Year Report:
"Our initial discussions have been with the Manchester ICB to obtain funding from April 2024 for the live sites across the Greater Manchester region".
"The Company is at advanced stages in agreeing a partnership with a key strategic USA-based Medical Group".
"The news that funding is to be made available from the government's Office for Life Sciences via NIHR for the real world evidence generation required by NICE for our Genedrive® MT-RNR1 ID Kit is very welcome".
And a big hint that there will be some sort of public offering coming up soon: "The Board intends to provide a mechanism for retail shareholders to participate in any equity financing and a further announcement will be made in due course."
So where do we go from here? With the company having two great products showing definite if somewhat delayed progress, I remain cautiously optimistic.
Good to see that at least one of the forecasts made in the IMC last November has now happened, albeit somewhat late in the day:
"CYP2C19: Has been delayed. Hoping to get info out in early January which should recommend our product."
Don't forget the IMC in two days time!
There are many POTENTIAL positives in today's announcement but it all comes down to IF these events actually happen in the given timescale and IF reasonably sourced funding is found soon!
1)"The Company is in advanced stages of negotiating a collaboration with a USA-based Medical Group to support a highly cost-effective pathway for the necessary clinical trials." Previously we were told end of last year, beginning of this. IF this happens soon that will be a huge boost.
2)"Ongoing discussions with other hospitals in the UK and Ireland with further near-term adoption anticipated". Previously were told other live siteS very, very near. Well one, Brighton, did happen but no others thus far. IF the company can get a significant number of other hospitals/trusts on board that again would be a great positive.
3)" Initial international sales of the Genedrive® MT-RNR1 ID Kit received from France, Austria, Greece, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the Netherlands". Ok revenue £240k but we need a lot more than that IF the company is to be self sufficient without the regular need to raise funds.
4)" Final NICE recommendations are expected to be published in July 2024". Yes, delayed, but IF the recommendations are positive that will open up a great future for the stroke test.
5)6)"We should also achieve IVDR approval for CYP2C19 by the end of 2024/early 2025 allowing us to sell the product into Europe and further afield.". Great IF the company has sufficient equity to remain as a going concern and IF there are no further delays.
6)"We will seek to raise further equity funding in the coming weeks in order to provide a longer-term financing solution for the Company's exciting growth plans." At the moment this is the most important consideration. IF the company can raise funding without engaging in another death spiral financing or huge dilution for shareholders that would again be a huge boost.
GDR on Linkedin: " Yesterday, some of our team delivered a staff collection of Easter eggs, chocolates and crafts to local hospital NICU wards as a gift to families going through the difficult experience of having a baby stay in NICU."
A great idea. Will they be delivering some Easter surprises for shareholders tomorrow??
"Over double the buys to sell’s yet still sinking, mms having a field day"
Don't forget that 4.1 million shares were admitted to trading yesterday to support the further drawdown, Until those are soaked up I suspect there'll be continuing downward pressure on the sp.
Looking at today's posts when the share price was on an upward trajectory earlier on, I noticed several comments which no doubt were prompted by the temporary bounce in the share price and perhaps by attempts, dare I say it, to push the sp still further. But were they based on reality?
There were, of course the daily offerings of Systemzero "expecting good news before the 28th", "mid day RNS ??" and so on. But there were many others chipping in.
" So, if we take him at his word both the Specialist Commissioning and FDA news could drop at any moment." Yet unfortunately James has made several statements which have not come about within the forecast time so can we take him at his word?
"The graph is suggesting a huge surge is due going by its history." Yet the share price ended the day 14% down.
Referring to the NICE timetable for the stroke test: "Wow 3rd April date." That is the start of consultation. The expected publication date is now not until the 10th July a considerable delay on the original expectations.
So while I, as a holder, hope for all the predictions of Mr Cheek, which indeed I have highlighted in the past, to come about in due course, let us not get carried away with irrational exuberance!
Interesting. My source confirmed that Friday's announcement was put out at the insistence of Peel Hunt though they couldn't confirm if the remarks about the need to fund raise was also at their request.
I had a good chat with a company spokesperson earlier today and came away feeling rather more reassured at the end than I was at the beginning
First look out for another RNS next week. No, I'm not referring to the Interims which are on the 28th and I know Guy will be watching closely, ready to catch me out if it doesn't materialize :-) but I am assured there will be one. It's not price sensitive...it will be announcing another IMC (Investor Meet Company) presentation with a chance for investors to ask questions again. This presentation itself is , I am told, likely to be around the 4th or 5th of April.
Secondly it seems Riverfort is almost done picking the bones of Genedrive, apart from the warrants which are exercisable at prices most investors would be happy to see again, ranging from 10.4p to 40.8p. This presumably excludes the 4.1million share admission announced an hour ago. There is also £1.5 million in drawdowns still possible which would mean further dilution. The death spiral financing wasn't a great one for the company and it is unlikely that the company will go down that route again.
The timelines have been frustrating for James and the company. Things have been taking longer than anticipated. But the delays to the timelines were not something the company could control and, it was emphasized, these delays don't mean to say that the anticipated outcomes won't happen!
The overall picture I got was that James had inherited a mess and has spent his time unpicking that mess but now there is great potential for the future and the CEO is working hard on that.
So there were have, the good and the bad.
I found today's announcement a little strange.
An RNS welcoming the £800k tax credit would have probably given a nice boost to the sp which was already ticking up.
So why throw cold water on it by announcing the need to fund raise when that had already been announced in November?
If the fund raising is to be by way of a placing you want the sp higher, not lower, as others have pointed out.
Secondly why introduce further uncertainty by stating "The Company expects to be able to announce further details supporting this plan before long. " ?
The wording here is rather vague and creates more questions than answers. Indeed the phrasing brings back memories of some of the statements from the presentation of last November. Hopefully the predictions will turn out to be more accurate!
Whatever the reasons for this statement, the effect has been to push the sp down rather than up so the market has viewed it negatively when today should have seen a positive boost.
I've had confirmation from a company spokesperson that the interims will be by the end of the month. So, for better or for for worse, we should get some idea of how the company is progressing in 2 to 2 and a half weeks time.
Previous interims: 2021 25th March, 2022 28th March, 2023 31st March. That last interim was also when they announced the £5 million Equity Pre Payment Facility. It seems probable that further funding measures will also be announced at this year's interims given that the existing cash will soon be running out!.
Looking over the trades of the last week and a half there seems to have been a pattern. Buyers there were but a relatively big seller /sellers, selling into them, often after trading hours
5/3 100k and multiple 50k sells
6/3 600k sell
7/3 2 x 50k sells
8/3 300k sell, multiple 50 and 100k sells
11/3 Multiple 50k and 100k sells
12/3 250k sell
Yesterday the pattern was broken. There were 170k of buys and 900k of sells but that didn't push the price .down.
So is there respite from the inexorable downward path? Time will tell. : -)
Sytemzero: 14/03 6.18 "If we go into the 3p,s..it could be game over."
Systemzero:13/03 12.15 "Still think JC is going to suprise us in a good way when the next RNS drops."
With posts such as "Big bounce coming," "Still confident here that 20p is on the cards on the next RNS", " Wednesday today... RNS day for GDR." it is clear, Systemzero, that you haven't got a clue. But even the broken clock is right twice a day so eventually you might get something right. :-)