Member Info for fatherelmer

Piltick, you obviously mis-read the RNS as it was clearly mentioned - the bit about admixtures - where an earlier expectation was that this may come through in October (not by but in) in addition there were also various mentions of Concrete specifically and 3d printed items for various customers.

Whilst this isn't a great RNS by any means - far from it - it's also not as negative as the bashers would have you believe.

Dandanman, DCTA are a lot like VRS in that they don't make any money and sell very little Graphene - the majority of their turnover comes from their Environmental (ie legacy) business.

Basically ALL graphene focused entities are still stuck in the research / early adoption phase and are burning cash whilst waiting for a transformative deal to land.

This is good news - even if the VRS share of the £800k grant pie will be small - as when combined with the "cold roll" trials they are also involved in could turn into quite a future business opportunity. It also shows the value in being involved in collaborations such as the one with National Highways.

Before anyone says it - yes it is another research project and probably relatively low in value - but shows things are still moving forward and that there is an underlying belief in VRS being around for a little while longer yet.....

The bashers over on ADVFN are touting FGR as a great Graphene company and an example for VRS to follow, based upon their latest quarterly results, but they really make themselves look stupid in their dislike for VRS as in those results FGR yes did have ca £85k of Graphene related revenues, but made a loss of ca £300k (and this was after ca £300k of Government grants) so are they really the shining example they portray them to be? Yet they claim those that (still) believe in VRS are the deluded ones.....

Concretene is the NERD product - which used to be agnostic about who supplied the Graphene (with the majority of their initial pours obtaining that Graphene from VRS) but now have a tie up with Black Swan Graphene and so has been said before not all Graphene's are the same, as certainly their early pours appeared to demonstrate some significant benefits.

Another thing to consider - and VRS to be fair have always said this - is it's not just the Graphene that is important but also the skill , knowledge and IP in relation to how it is mixed / applied , and so perhaps this is / was the problem. Though they also acknowledge that use cases are different, and result in different degrees of benefit, so it might not be just the Graphene?

Gordon, you misunderstand my point whilst there is no accreditation VRS will only sell small quantities either direct, or for use in sample / research products such as the recent headwall, however, once independent accreditation has been secured the product then becomes (much) less of a risk and so the "barriers" that may exist within large corporates - who tend to be risk averse - are lowered / reduced and so at that point they may become more inclined to buy at scale, but not before.

This process / approach is what sets VRS apart from probably just about every other Graphene company, they bother to take the time, and invest the money, in proving their products and processes so that "it does what it says on the tin" rather than relying upon hype / snake oil which tends to be the approach elsewhere, from what I can see.

The other advantage to this approach is that you build a USP (of trust) and also a barrier to entry for the competition, until they too can gain similar accreditations, a process that would appear to take quite a bit of time, and money.

Gordon, I think we may have to wait a little longer for real news / traction on the concrete front, as I'm sure I read somewhere that the plan / hope was for Cementine to have achieved British Standard (BS) accreditation by October 2023, IMO no real news will occur until this is in place.

Brucel, make your mind up - you want VRS to have a flexible strategy, yet criticise them when they change course (which surely shows they have a flexible strategy)?

You could also say that the current strategy - divesting legacy businesses, focusing upon 2 market segments (Textiles & Concrete) also demonstrates flexibility.

I understand, and sympathise, if you are one of the affected Korean employees but you can't have it both ways - sometimes in business things just don't work out as planned / hoped, and a change in direction is therefore required. According to Harvard Business School 70-90% of mergers and acquisitions "fail" (ie don't deliver what was hoped / expected).

Brucel, it looks like your issue here is that you signed a contract that included terms you didn't like (that I assume covered a situation you thought would never occur) and so this is actually your fault, not VRS, as you willing signed it - to me VRS have done nothing wrong. If I am offered a contract that contains terms I don't like I either try and renegotiate or don't sign and walk away.

Minami, my guess is he is one (or a family member) of the former VRS Korea employees as that's his focus

Brucel, you may be confusing things re the cost of the acquisition - from RNS dated 22nd December 2020

Versarien plc (AIM: VRS), the advanced materials engineering group, is pleased to announce that the Company has agreed to acquire certain graphene production related assets and intellectual property from South Korea based Hanwha Aerospace Co. Ltd ("Hanwha Aerospace") (the "Acquisition"), for consideration comprising 11,000,000 ordinary shares of 1 pence each ("Ordinary Shares") in the Company (the "Consideration Shares"). The consideration is equivalent to £4.34 million at the 39.475 pence per Ordinary Share closing mid-market price on 18 December 2020.

See the 21st April 2021 RNS for the investment by GrapheneLab into VRS (for £1.93m - via the exchange of cash for shares).

As for what you say about VRS level of Due Diligence upon GrapheneLab, or their day to day management of VRS Korea / the GrapheneLab relationship thereafter I'm not in a position to comment, other than to say things clearly haven't worked out as originally hoped for / envisaged.

Brucel, the issue with CVD Graphene is that it is (very) expensive to produce and so there are few commercial opportunities where the benefits outweigh the costs. My understanding of the Hanwa assets was that VRS saw an issue that they could address - based upon their own IP - when combined with both the Hanwa assets and the IP of GrapheneLab that would mean that the production of CVD Graphene would be cheaper and / or available at a larger scale, and thus opening up a wider set of commercial opportunities.

On this basis above you can then see why VRS may have been prepared to offer more for the Hanwa assets than another company, this is not unusual in business (or in life). Also don't forget VRS didn't pay for the Hanwa assets with cash but rather with VRS shares, which on the back of they were able to raise cash (ca £2m) by then selling 15% of VRS Korea to Graphene Lab - so overall a cash POSITIVE deal for VRS.

As for why they are now selling them - could be for a variety of reasons: they require more cash than VRS can afford; the combined IP hasn't proved to be as worthwhile as hoped; the CVD market is just not big enough (even with the opportunities that the IP affords), etc

Smokey, you are forgetting one key part of the Hanwa deal (apart from any potential positive PR it may have generated) associated with it was the sale of 15% of VRS Korea to GrapheneLab for ca £2m - so they in effect got the Hanwa assets for half price and a local sales office / outlet in Korea (which has been seen as a very buoyant market for Graphene) into the bargain. Therefore failures in Korea are also partly about the failure of GrapheneLab to gain traction / monetise the Hanwa assets.

Brucel, the only bits in your post that are true are that Graphene is indeed a wonderful material; that you may be down 94% on your investment; and that adoption of Graphene is taking a long time (and a lot longer than we hoped).

As for your statements about VRS product not meeting the Technical Need, here this is where you are most likely incorrect - VRS have approached this differently to pretty much every other "Graphene" company (especially those that are really just purveyors of crushed graphite) in that they undertake external, independent, testing of their products to back up the claims they make and then also ensure that all products meet appropriate regulations before selling them) - so for Textiles the Univerisity of Gloucestershire undertook testing (VRS published the report); for Cementine there are lots of studies on-going, but also VRS are having their Ad-Mixture certified to the applicable British Standards (due October 2023); before that they even had the virology and bacteriology claims of their Mask independently tested, and verified. So to say the claims they make about the tech are wrong is plainly not true, that of course doesn't mean to say that what it does might be proven and the market is still looking for something else - problem is the Graphene industry has been characterised by "snake oil" salesmen so far and so no-one believes anything anyone says, so in my book I'm glad VRS are trying to do things properly.

He's just bitter and twisted because, through his OWN decisions he lost money, and is seeking to blame someone else.

Whilst I might be nursing a paper loss (I haven't sold out and so it hasn't crystalised - indeed I have even bought more recently as I think these are oversold) I accept that I made decisions to invest and that things haven't turned out as I hoped, and are taking a lot longer to materialise, so I own this. Upon reflection could / should VRS have done things differently and the answer is probably, but hindsight is a wonderful thing, at the time the strategy seemed sound and I was supportive - so I own it, there are many here who don't (and probably also feel the Government should be bailing out their mortgages too).

Dandan, don't believe the hype DCTA are no better than VRS - they have similar Group Revenues and LOSSES and burn through even more cash in a year then VRS do, though it is fair to say that they do currently have more cash / cash equivalents available - and (probably more importantly) a deep pocketed key shareholder.

The reality is that ALL graphene companies are in very similar positions - loss making, burning cash whilst trying to achieve transformative commercialisation.

I wonder what the Interims (due before 30th June 2023) will do to this rally?

Will they include "good news"? Will they give an update upon the "Strategic Transformation" and / or legacy business disposals? Will the current "bubble" burst / FOMO frenzy burst?

Should make for an interesting ride over the next couple of weeks - I'm still holding (and now thankfully after 5 bagging [so far]) on my last purchase one of my holdings is now very healthy again.....

Trek, not sure your post is necessarily fair, though over on ADVFN one of the posters who like the sound of their own voice is calling you and idiot, and saying that LSE (ie here) is an asylum - when bar the odd poster, who as Yoda may say, "bitterness, much you have" - this place is sane in comparison and they should look much closer to home!

Sausage, whilst what you say may well be correct, though it's as likely not to be - at this point in time no one knows.

It could just be that this current placing - which utilised the entirety of the authority granted at the AGM - is sufficient to allow for the completion of 100 day plans of the Turnaround Experts that the company have contracted for, and that the result of this plan is more than sufficient funds to carry VRS through, and that it is perhaps felt best to "pull the sticking plaster off" as it were and get it done now rather than wait and see the SP diminish further whilst the results of the plan become apparent.

My personal opinion is that at the time of the December raise the business should've exhausted the current mandate, rather than only partially, though I can accept given the state of the markets at the time - following Trussonomics - they may well have raised as much as they could.

The joys of being privately held (as they probably don't make any profit and consume oodles of cash). Interesting another University of Cambridge spin out - who also have an agreement with Verditek (VDTK) in respect of Graphene enhanced solar cells.

As a point of note VRS of course majority own (85%) another University of Cambridge spin out and have been involved in Solar Cell trials in Greece.....