Member Info for extrader

.."So this holdings list is confirmation of this?"

I think the screenshot is out of date...and doesn't support that view :

-Eight Capital Partners had 0.07% post RTO, per the Prospectus, they can't have increased to the 9.55% shareholding shown in the screenshot without a TR-1 as they're a UK plc, so that's obviously wrong;

- Equita SIM and Global Capital both had 4.98% at RTO, no change per screenshot, the 21 Jan Bloomberg screenshot I have suggests they're at 0.75% and 0.56% respectively.

So that would be wrong too.

Maybe, instead of more 'softball' questions, somebody will have the cojones to ask AZ what the true, current position re these three of his ' founder shareholders ' is ...and put this finally to rest ?

IMO

The bit that isn't clear, to me anyway, is how the funding side interfaces with the monetisation :

- the funders commit a fixed amount of capital for a fixed 3 year period, in the expectation/promise of a certain rate of return (and it's the longer period that gives them the more attractive return);
- the individual companies are of variable credit quality, monetising variable amounts of inventory, for varying and unpredictable periods of time;
- the individual companies are charged annually up front : how does that work , if their utilisation varies ? If they're charged on max facility, under-utilisation increases the true cost ; even if they're 'motivated' to maximise utilisation, they may simply be unable to, for seasonal or other reasons.

There must be a cushion somewhere in the system to cope with the liquidity /revenue / credit quality fluctuation.

Maybe that's where the introduction of a master Inventory Funder comes in - as a 'swing supplier/provider' - with the individual funders subscribing for $ X at Y % and receiving periodic coupon in arrears based on actual, lower utilisation ?
Basically, give us your cash for 3 years and we'll invest it if we can. If we can, you'll get Y% on the amount invested....

IF would have to take the exposure on its own books at the outset, until it had built a sufficiently large and diversified portfolio to smooth out the volatility. After that , it could look to sell down/sub-participate with some degree of confidence.

If the first monetisation is still with Storm Harbour, that won't necessarily tell us much about the mechanics.

Roll on the update !

Hi Sooty,

Got in no probs. What seemed 'off' ?
The only thing I noticed was that the s/p update was about 1/2 an hour old.
But it's hardly as though we need 'live streaming'......;->

Thanks for the link .

There are a couple of shares I'm following that Zak has commented on.
I'm not familiar with his track record, does he also look at shares where he expects the price to move down ? He seems pretty 'boosterish' at first glance.

TIA

Hi Doctor100,

Thanks for the tip . Like a lot of holiday ideas it originated in the States and is a relatively recent UK import.
As good fortune would have it, my partner's American.... so I suspect I'm ahead of the curve here.

;->

.."Guess these 2 big firms disagree with you chalker...."

The claim has been made by SYME, not by the (unidentified) auditors themselves....and as in other matters , we have no independent support from the relevant counterparties.

I normally give management the benefit of the doubt, but SYME has forfeited that trust by its evolving description of the terms of the 1AF2 loan arrangements.

HTH

..." If they are a company for example do they now show stock on their balance sheet?.."

I think it might help to think that they hold something akin to units in an investment trust : you have a certificate showing your participation interest in the trust = SPC, this moves up and down as the underlying portfolio in the trust changes (ie different companies and share prices = in SYME SPC case a dynamic portfolio of companies' inventory).

You rely on the investment trust manager = SYME to maintain a certain credit quality (ie operate within pre-agreed parameters) and the custodian = Captive Bank to keep track of the ownership paperwork and the accounting and the flows of funds, all made a bit faster/more reliable by blockchain.

IMO

Homer 55, just ask yourself : who benefits from SYME issuing 32.75 billion shares ?
As WG has shown, it's not the post RTO shareholders, who've bought in the market.
Their money doesn't go to SYME, it goes to whoever they bought their shares from.

WG - post of the week , if not the month.

I think AT having been in DXB is that it's a convenient meeting place for people from other parts, China and Africa maybe. Esp if they need offshore banking and other services.

The Gulf Arabs have difficulty diversifying from hydrocarbons, because that's their main competitive advantage and doing something local creates at least 'some' local employment, which is a big political/social problem.

So they've tended to move to 'added value' energy sector sector, where their feedstock is cheap and plentiful : petrochemicals, aluminium smelters, desalination plants. Iron ore has the problem that they don't have locally the raw material supply or the market demand....and most of the workforce - management or labour - has to be imported.

Oman has the Musandam peninsula at Straits of Hormuz which allows itself to be considered a 'Gulf' country, but it's much more outward facing to the Indian Ocean and beyond , with historic outposts in now ****stan and Zanzibar (don't mention slave trading......). It has / had a reasonable , small scale steel sector.

The Gulf Arabs might add some value to KP2, I can't see them having any relevance to Zanaga.

IMO

(1)."PrEP-001, is an immunomodulator in Phase 2 for the prevention of influenza, influenza-like-illness and the common cold. These upper respiratory viral infections (URVIs) drive significant disease burden particularly for patients with underlying respiratory disorders (eg asthma and COPD) or weakened immune systems (eg the elderly)..."

(2)The other is a 'repurposed influenza immune modulator'.

A non-layperson will have to explain the difference !

We appear to own 100% of (2) , but only 62.6% of PrePBioPharm...with (per Companies House) 49% of voting rights.

Which might make a difference in 'spin-off' approach ?

No reply to any of the 6 emails I've sent since 4th Feb.

Could well be ! This is a bit more detail re project scope (from adiac/depeches de brazzaville) :

.."Work on the plant is scheduled to start in the fourth quarter of this year, with an export perspective in 2023 and eventually for an annual production of more than 100 million tonnes of iron ore, according to Manuel André.

The mining company will also have to build related infrastructure, a Sangha-Kouilou railway line, an ore port and energy facilities..."

Straight from the Simandou playbook.... I'll ask AT on Monday whether we have an exclusivity arrangement with COIDIC.

ATB

.."As AZ has said I don't think new clients is an issue, I am sure the stakeholders Syme is working with will have a contact list of any potential Greensill opportunities..."

The only Greensill opportunities of interest/relevance to SYME are potential funders : SYME has a pipeline of prospective borrowers that it hasn't satisfied in a year because of A LACK OF FUNDING. It doesn't need more customers.

Mos of the current Greensill lenders - if they haven't already lost money on Greensill - will be thankful that they've dodged a bullet...and will be hesitant to go into a new venture in supplychain finance sector.

Wouldn't you, however attractive it may be ?

Meanwhile, US interest rates are on the rise, lessening the pressure on 'yield-hungry ' investors (SYME's target funders).

These external factors (Greensill and macro environment) are not helpful to SYME's cause.
IMO

Hi allthatguff,

The ownership may change, but the location (all 3 mines hopelessly up-country) hasn't !

I'm more inclined to think that this is a 'see, we have alternatives' ostensibly to soften up/encourage Zanaga.....how can anyone consider as credible 'competition' coming from a company that has no mining record and expects to be exporting within 2 years.

Since it's obviously rubbish, who is the intended audience ?

Oh, wait. Congo has elections in a few days. Nothing like a bit of simplistic 'resource nationalism' to get the unwashed onside.
'Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel'.

IMO
Oops ! as I write this, I'm suddenly struck by the parallels closer to home...;-<

...curiously reminiscent of Zanaga's EPP / overland initiatives.....

Maybe an Arab/S American approach will be different - and perceived as different from - an approach from the 'old' colonialists or the 'new' colonialists ?
In any event, there's the prospect of a bit of newsflow to keep us interested !

ATB

Hi beardozer,

Snap ! I put the loose change from another trade into KP2, to double my recent 'super small' position, although I've kept an eye on it for some time as a potential read-across or 'compare-and-contrast' to ZIOC.
Like Mitch says, the fundamentals are strong : resource scale and economics; strong shareholders; great logistics; proximity to target markets in Africa and S America. Like him, I'm not enthused by Brad (but Aidan Heavey at Tullow Oil showed that you don't have to be from the industry to be able to grow a business), meanwhile the end product - fertiliser - is even 'greener' than Zanaga's high-spec iron ore and isn't clearly China -dependent.
Meanwhile the stage one low cost start-up strategy that they're pursuing now is

Today's FT leads on Greensill and particularly the failings of the FCA. The article offers some interesting insights and opinions about the fintech / supplychain finance sector.

The headline is 'Greensill exposes blind spots in radar for systemic risk'.

After describing what the Germans, Swiss and Australians are doing.." in the UK...there is little sign of regulatory action : citing need for confidentiality, the government has refused for almost 2 years to answer questions posed by former City minister Lord Myners.

.. the main entity, Greensill Capital was registered with the FCA only for anti-money laundering purposes. Supervision of a separate entity that arranged deals with clients... was sub-contracted to a third party firm. This is a dubious set-up for keeping watch on a company that arranged $ 50 Bn of financing last year alone.

However, even if the FCA were more involved, there wouldn't be much to police under current rules : commercial lending is 'a big boy market....never really seen as needing regulatory approval'

Since market participants are not retail investors or small business but large institutions and wealthy individuals, mainly based outside the UK, they are considered too sophisticated to need much protection "

After drawing comparisons with AIG, which got into trouble after its lightly-regulated London unit wrote insurance for mortgage-backed securities (triggering a US$ 180bn US Govt bailout in 2008) , the article concludes by going back to Greensill's current situation :

.." This looming fight between loan originators, securitisers, funds, banks , insurers and investors looks very like the fallout from the 2008 crisis"

All of which makes the suspension of SYME all the more puzzling : the FCA is once again confirmed as being generally asleep at the wheel; it has very little effective regulatory powers; and SYME is a start-up, and a minnow by comparison.

One wonders why they bothered.

IMO

The Pasteur was pretty painful, but the locals all pushed the white guy in the business suit to the front of the queue (about 50 folk, it is or was endemic in Egypt) for a little idle 'entertainment' ! And it's not a good look to cry in front of children.

My mood wasn't helped by a call from HO, partway through, of the 'good news or bad news ?' variety.

The 'good news' was HO had determined that the relatively painless Merieux was a better solution, the bad news that nobody knew if it was risky to 'change horses in the middle of a stream'...so I better just continue. Thanks guys ;-<

To get in a roundabout way back to ORPH, that experience is why I've signed up for the 'mix and match' studies proposed for efficacy or otherwise of AZ + Pfizer....

ATB

Hi Vascular,

Thanks for the link ! and the entertaining account of your encounter with an 'exotic' tropical disease.

My own brush with rabies was less agreeable than yours, in Egypt back in the mid '80's where I was nipped by a farm dog, whilst laying a trail for a local running club.
I was initially more concerned by the bruising from having been attacked on the same trail by geese, but my fellow runners were alarmed, telling me of a PeaceCorps volunteer death a few months earlier from a kitten LICK (kittens, who'd a thunk it ?) on an open wound.
There were no tests there, so I ended up having the Pasteur treatment - daily jabs in the abdomen , for 3 weeks , via a large self-supplied hypodermic (this was at the time of the HIV hysteria) .
Just as well, because the Embassy took it upon itself to have the dog caught and tested : turned out it was indeed rabid ;-<
My employers (more concerned I think for reputational risk than me) flew me back - after completion - to (where else ) the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine for a 'morale-boosting' check-up.

No-one there was interested in the outcome (" if the treatment hadn't worked, you wouldn't be here"), but Pasteur had been replaced in most places by the 2-jab Merieux vaccine, so what they really wanted to see (and photograph !) were the swellings/bruisings on my stomach : six-pack ? I had a 12-pack !

The specialist was disarmingly frank : ' My students have read about Pasteur in the text-books, none of them will have actually seen ....would you mind ...?'
So they all gathered round and everyone (about 12 students) had a prod and a poke, whilst they talked earnestly amongst themselves.
'Long ago and far away' ....Thanks for the prompt !

ATB