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Adams has never met any sort of deadline in last decade, apart from raising cash from the next round of unsuspecting punters whom he has convinced tere is gold &copper in them tha' deserts. Actually, the great Pinocchio is the only person to have made any money, as he has taken a stonking salary and consultancy fees year in year out despite there being absolutely NO sign of any finance actually being raised. Shameful, but not surprising
And Cleminson?
The Board isnt buying ...no Cleminson and a pathetic contribution from Johnson the architect of this disaster
Honestly I haven't a clue. We have a situation where the management have burned through working capital that should have taken them comfortably through to situation where revenues were flowing etc..Instead Johnson used it all up trying to sort out the production issues that came out of nowhere (apparently). So perhaps wee should be asking Coco the clown and Bundred?
So what is your solution?
Completely agree with you. Cunningham jumped ship as you know leaving Maddock to pick up the pieces of what feels like a threadbare financial function. And it appears that was matched by a manufacturing operation geared to showcasing the tech for OEMs but as you suggested certainly not geared for actual volume production,.
So the question is: what actions need to take place to get this back on track. I was gobsmacked by Johnson's insuciant commentary banding about "single points of failure" as if this wasnt anything to worry about, after the furnace issue. And yet I recall a SPOF as being definied as something in manufacturing/process system that, if it fails, will stop the entire system from working.... and there it was in black & white.....wioth that fabulous adjective "insurmoutable" also allowed to pass the Board?advisers scruitny and make the trading update!
The arrival of Maddock and Easton has (hopefully) ushered in an era of professional management sorely lacking in the core areas of manufacturing ops and finance. But it is not enough, we need a change at the top, and whilst in a larger plc Johnson would be out the door after the multiple failings of last 24 months, it is the Chairman that needs to go as he has failed to manage the CEO, failed to manage the board , and failed in his duty to represent s/holders interests.
My nickname for Newland is Nero....say no more....the way forward from here....if they are not to go under then I suggest
1. Newland kicked upstairs to Chairman or failing that a new outside chair appointed
2. Replace the CFO with s/o capable of producing realistic figs that aren't then subject to the rose-tinted intervention from Newland
Berenburg is the house broker - i.e. they bat for the company & should be a reliable pointer for financials. But clearly Newland & Griffiths's utter incompetence in managing the financial forecasts means their own house broker is 30% short on their revenue estimates for FY24 . How on earth is it possible that your own house broker is 30% above Angle's own forecasts...The trouble is that no one has any faith in Newland's numbers. At a pitiful 6.6m revenues company is effectively telling market there are no big transformational deals over next 12 months.....
All of your facts are not disputed. The issue here is that there is a huge gap between what Nero Newland was confidently suggesting in the years up to and just after the FDA approval that have not happened. You also need to look at Newland 's appalling track record of expectation and financial management. These facts are:
1. Where is the sales momentum that Nero talked about in Sept last _ 20 + pharma services companies providing pipeline etc? We've had 3 tiny deals.
2. July 2022 Nero launches equity raise at 80p, raising £20m from institutions & retail. Yet w/i a matter of months we get a profits warning. Aegon immediately start to offload shareholding followed by others incl Baillie Gifford
3. Sept 7th Interims Results everything on course to meet FY 23 forecasts....4 weeks later..Nov 9th Trading update .oops numbers too high .
- Cash and cash equivalents at 30 June 2023 of £22.2 million (30 June 2022: £20.5 million) ; cash position at 2023 year end c. £15 million......burning through cash at rate of knots....
- Operating Loss for 2023 = c£21m.
- Commercial strategy all over the place: Nero repeatedly said US clinical laboratory accreditation is key plank of US commercial strategy (US co's want US labs in same time zone). Desperate measure to save £ Nero now shuts it down claiming all can be handled from the UK...really?
Completely agree - changes need to be made and quickly to assure the customer base & shareholders that there is not a systemic problem. That means (1) Replacing the chairman (2) Laser-like focus on operations, systems, people (3) getting finances sorted (4) recalibrating communications and making sure that we never have a repeat of what has been a disastrous string of announcements from Johnson.
What's ridiculous is that Emperor Newland having been repeatedly informed that trust in his leadership is wearing thin (look at how the big institutions have sold out after being misled by him) he continues to act as if nothing is happening, putting yet further downward pressure on the share price!!!! The two statements made 8 weeks apart couldn't be a starker reminder of Newland's continuing inability to be reined in
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.