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Beggars belief but yet again Newland's commentary has mislead the market! He & his management team are (1) totally incompetent or (2) pathologically incapable of realism.
Interims Sept 9th: Newland predicts: "Pipeline for products and services businesses building well and H2 2023 expected to continue the strong momentum seen in the first half, delivering revenue in-line with market expectations for the full year"
TU Nov 9th (i.e just 8 weeks later): " The Company expects revenue recognised for 2023 will be c. £2.2 million, which is an increase of 120% over revenue achieved in 2022 but below current market consensus of c. £3.0 million. "
That is a 25% miss on predicted revenue 8 weeks after his Interim statement - wtf is happening down in the echo chamber in Guildford
What evidence is there that things are moving up a gear? Newland hasn't announced one single commercial deal since May ( Artios: a deal so inconsequential it had no figures included)! At Sept Interims Newland blathered on about momentum accelerating, but on closer inspection, it was the typical vague Nero Newland line about these "generating new large scale revenue opportunities" Well when exactly Andrew? Since Sept, and with 7 weeks till end of FY what has he announced? 3 non-commercial announcement around Parsortix containing verbs like: 'supporting, showcasing, outperforming"
Zeus has suspended forecasts because the ones they put out 4 weeks ago as house broker (guided by the company) turn out to be a pile of dung. Superlative management by Bundred and Johnson......
The fallout of Friday’s shambles continues - Zeus forced to suspend their analyst forecasts.
And that's not counting the extra dilution from the cash raises. So well done the Chuckle Brothers, Bundred & Johnson for prove yet again that a great business can be undone by useless management
Does Johnson have Toto Wolff 's mobile number?
The Board must act. They can't pretend that the current mess is down to external factors - 1/3 of value of company wiped out due to factors within the management team's control i.e. financial forecasting, operational excellence etc. Did Bundred & Johnson really NOT KNOW the situation 4 weeks ago when they confidently told shareholders tthings weer stabilising? Bundred must resign or be asked by the SID to step down and a new chair appointed who will grip this mess
Totally agree with your comments. However, there needs to be much more done here:
- first, the Board needs to instigate urgently a thorough review of what went wrong: messaging, financial forecasting, operations management, and staff oversight and training. And they need to do this AT PACE because shareholders need answers!
- second, Easton needs to drastically overhaul the operational team and find out how they Johson & the Board could have signed off on this portion of the 1H results statement on Sept 29th:
"Our operating loss (before non-recurring items) was £4.6 million compared to £2.4 million in the same period last year. This is due to a number of ramp-up issues we experienced as our production capacity increased to meet growing demand. These ramp-up issues resulted in lost contribution of £1.6m and costs of £0.9m with equipment failures and scrapped production. We have overcome these technical challenges and do not expect these outlays to re-occur. Indeed, the work completed has resulted in improved production processes and the design of proprietary equipment."
-third, heads must roll. Bundred should resign as chairman and be replaced by s/o who actually challenges Johnson and isn't in love with the product. And we given the international nature of customer base; high time we had European or US NED
-fourth: they need to overhaul their approach to IR & communications. today's announcement shows the level of reporting shambles within the company. Absolutely no proper oversight/understanding of any key function : financial forecasting (over to you Isabelle), shareholder management (over to you Isabelle), operations (over to you Easton).
- fifth, the Chair & Johnson should get on the bloody phone and apologise to their advisers/ & equity analysts whom they have comprehensively hung out to dry
-sixth: urgent discussions over working capital - they need to get on with it.
Absolutely time now that Bundred stepped down. Absolutely clear that Johnson and Bundred have hung us out to dry yert again by the continued inability to do the basics well.....frankly staggering that Johnson has the effrontery to make his comments as if its bloody obvious there are going to be problems. Absolute shambles of a management team that (1) has misled their shareholders (I mean ffs at what opint did they realise they couldnt make their own bloody numbers, numbers which they had assured us all were achievable)
Not great either way. We have world class tech with a big moat (currently) ; operate in a global duoploy; market trends are in our favour; we have a very large order book with some of the world's largest & most exacting OEMs......and yet. the company is struggling with concerns over financing and operational competencies....
If s/o , be it private equity or a global automotive supplier wants to buy a plug-in-and-play niche global tech business geared to very large global markets, then I'm afraid we have never looked more vulnerable to a bid.
Patience is wearing thin among a pretty loyal investor base. If they raise, then Bundred has to step down, as he has consistently over-egged the pudding & doesnt appear to have had a close enough oversight on Johnson.
If you were OEM 10, you would want to know before awarding the 100m contract that ST was confident of financing its expansion. Therefore Johnson et al must have had to present detailed funding arrangements to them. The question I'd ask is what is it that they said on the finances that gave OEM 10 confidence to pull the trigger, notwithstanding the fact that the contract kicks in down the road?
Reputationally, another lowball equity raise will not only effectively destroy the share price leaving ST highly vulnerable to a takeover. It will also destroy Bundred, Johnson, & the new CFO's reputation. The markets are largely not to blame for the share price being where it is - the blame lies squarely with Bundred and Johnson and the board for their inept handling of things. Let's hope that message has finally got through !!!!
you make a substantive point. in the past, both the chairman & johnson pooh-poohed queries about the robustness and rigor of the manufacturing process when pressed but as we know they fell flat on their face with the process issues, and we as s/holders have ended up paying for it as they threw several millions at trying to rectify the problems. so if teh oems are satisifued johnson would do well to explain the owners of teh company, what it is that has given oems comfort to award another 100m contract. really not helpful that he cant be more granular about this!
frankly, it has been a relief to get a proper coo on board and a new cfo. however, it is crystal clear that trust has been damaged, and that concerns remain about (1) depth of operational management skills (2) ability to expand & scale up production without more ****-ups (3) capability to produce at run rate needed to satisfy customer base w/o **** ups (4) quality control- again something that one of their recent rns mentioned as an issue
(5) finances: all very well trumpeting an 100m euro order if the cash is running out......shareholders were upset by the nature & timing of the last raise, they will be doubly furious if johnson & bundred pass the cap round again, having
used up a portion of the last fund raise to resolve operational issues of their own making.
TCM is correct to do this with Pinocchio because there is constant changed and shifts of verb tenses, adjectives, adverbs etc....I think that Adams stands just on the right side of legality but he is clearly a thoroughly unedifiying individual
Adams is uninvestable !
Does he speak English?
Very much in agreement. Relistened to the interims presentation, and was impressed by the confidence and clarity of teh management team. Well positioned going into tough period: strong balance sheet & cash flow; rewarding s/holders with progressive divi, and clear strategy. Share price doesn't reflect the quality of the business (now) or the management. IMO, an each way positive bet : markets recognise quality and share price responds OR market doesnt and Private Equity snaps it back up
How long have you held this? Dream on....Adams has been saying that for 5 years plus...mean while the only person benefitting is him, his consultancy contract in Cyprus, and his pension pot....the share price says it all
Adams is one of the least trustworthy characters currently operating. His track record is truly dreadful - the man is incapable it seems of telling the truth as most people would interpret it. His constant ramping re TP is there for all to see. He relies on an idiots version of pass the parcel where weary investors who 've lost a packet give up, and a new round of naive marks hoves into view and the story gets repeated. Not for nothing has RAB sold its stake imo. Outside of AIM Adams would never be allowed to hold a board position - and it is clear why....
Adams told us 3 years ago that thTK would be signed off and the project was good to go....then it was Xmas 2020...and then he hit investors with another equity raise.....then it was March '21, then summer '21..then Autumn 21, then it was going to be ready at close of '21 then another equity raise....the 1H '22 came and went and YES another Equity raise....and full funding would be in place definitely in June 2022, with construction starting in Oct and full funding signed off very soon...etc...You get the idea....he is utterly untrustworthy, and mean time thanks to the man's complete lack of scruples, he has managed to create a share capital baase of 5 billion shares......yes you heard right 5 billion.....
Anytime between Feb -May 2022
PLACING
full funding by June 2022
October 2022 construction will start
Mid November financial plan 2022
no now it's December 2022
No A month or so (may 23)
PLACING
No A few more months
Q4 2023
End of the year
Actually what we need is some of the hopeless NEDs and new execs to start buying the shares. If Newland is so confident of sucess why oh why are the directors not buying?
Not exactly ambitious,....but at this point I'll take any positive vibes out there. What would be good nmow is to see our new execs writing some cheques for shares