Member Info for Fevertreeman

And Nero Newland has built himself a dire reputation for ramping over a number of years, so Mr Market is wise to his shenanigans. Would like to think that he has finally learnt his lesson and that his powerpoint to US investors hails the advent of a change in fortune, but his track record is lousy.

If this is such a steal, why is it we have had zero directors purchases to date

My dream scenario is as follows:

1. Oversubscribed placing this month

2. Successful EU capital loan this month

3. Directorate Change -Bundred to leave , experienced plc Chair to replace him

4. Strategic shareholder/PE takes stake

Time to change the CFO? Nero at least shows some degree of energy & enthusiasm, whilst Griffiths looks like he's got one foot in the retirement bungalow in Broadstairs for all the enthusiasm he could muster on the online presentation.

Nero as usual evasive over customer conversion. Vague comments about big announcements ...where have we heard that before....In short, Nero said we've focused on the small cap Biopharma sector, but they don't have any cash (Ed. duh...), and now we're desperately banging on the doors of Roche, Baxter, Bristol Myers et al coz they've got tonnes of cash to see if we can work with them. (Ed. But they take years to make decisions Nero). Trouble is we run out of cash ourselves in 2025 (Ed. So you're desperate, and will mean that BIg Pharma will absolutely screw you to wall on commercials)....

That old chestnut....

Yes, Nero has a fabulous powerpoint and media studio track record....scores highly on puffery and hot air! presume the Yanks have fallen for the bluffer Cambridge academic spiel " I'm just someone who is passionate about the world and have spent 10 years & millions of dollars of my shareholders monies failing to commercialise the product"

Well, well , well.....it was only a matter of time before the management team came under sustained pressure to pull their fingers out and do something more productive with £17m sitting there in the bank account. The Board had been warned but chose plod along instead, using the excuse of the markets....

Presumably just before he takes Pinocchio's passport back

who knows? but it says something that (1) these are potential risks and (2) one doesn't know if that includes the **** kit that had already broken down in qs 1,2,3

Fair comments - would have to go back through Report & accounts which might take a while. My point is that a fair chunk of the monies raised (and look at the share prices) has been clearly wasted......

Very much my take too...... CFO and COO critical to regaining credibility. The presentation by Johnson was extraordinarily poor for a CEO fighting for his company's future. When asked by s/o about management bench strength, he was hopeless. We need granularity on the issues and all we got was "We hired new CFO and COO (why they didnt get one before is beyond me) and then some guff about broadening training and 4 managers being promoted/repurposed/

Staggering figures! £72m raised over last 21 years. Market cap is £28m. Management has been disastrous stewards of shareholder capital

Sept 2002 1,446,757 @ £0.90 £1.3m

April 2004 4,142,859 @ £0.70 £2.7m

Aug 2007 5,000,000 @ £0.20 £1m

July 2009 4,516,580 @ £0.10 £0.45m

Dec 2009 800,000 @ £0.10 £0.08m

Nov 2010 7,538,094 @ £0.17 £1.2m

Feb 2013 6,293,902 @ £0.08 £0.5m

Nov 2013 3,843,498 @ £0.085 £0.3m

Dec 2014 8,210,136 @ £0.13 £1m

Apr 2015 2,692,309 @ £0.13 £0.35m

Mar 2016 34,375,000 @ £0.16 £5.5m

Aug 2017 23,725,481 @ £0.155 £3.7m

June 2018 9,000,000 @ £0.17 £1.5m

Mar 2019 12,303,600 @ £0.155 £1.9m

Apr 2020 18,499,303 @ £0.13 £2.4m

Jan 2021 40,000,000 @ £0.50 £20m

Oct 2022 44,963,739 @ £0.40 £18m

Nov 2023 82,918,660 @ £0.10 £8.6m

Total: £71m

Underwhelming presentation for me: overall thoughts

1. No contrition, just slightest hint of apology from Bundred for the disastrous f+++ ups of last 12-18mnths. Quite surreal

2. Neither Bundred or Johnson seemed that bothered by events that have cratered the sp by 60pc, destroyed balance sheet & led to an emergency fund raise....

3. Board change desperately needed to show they mean business - Bundred must go!

4. CFO appears a steadier pair of hands., but I was unimpressed by her answers - a fair amount of hot air, and quite unforensic approach to unpacking (1) what she found on arrival (2) what went wrong & why things will improve

5. CFO seems quite confident about signing commercial loan which she pointed out was EU backed and gave them a fair degrees of flexibility over when it gets drawn down (has to be w/i 2 years of signing)

5. Lacklustre presentation that only increases my view that SCE lacks the management, money and skill sets to go it alone independently and that the only viable option will involve a takeover by PE or an industry player.

Individual points:

1. Focus seems to have shifted to 2025. With Johnson saying new business not a prioirity given their focus is fixing current clients etc, it sounds like s/holders will be treading water in 2024, as I can see no catalysts for rerating. Disappointing if true

2. Extraordinarily , there was no admission of the lousy way they handled the announcements. Didnt answer why interims Sept signed off by board then lead to emergency fund raising 5 weeks later! Clear there were questions about this but Bundred wouldnt answer them! That is a huge issue as its all about TRUST

3. Johnson fitness as CEO remains major issue.... evidenced by bizarre answer to legitimate question about why they overpromised and underdelivered rather than other way round. Johnson's response was worrying imo: he indicated that they has got themselves into a corner by dint of their first prioirity being to their customers who needed to be assred SCE could meet their demands & deadlines. Effectively he seemed to be saying that " We told the customers what they wanted to hear because they are our most important stakeholder and we didnt want to disappoint, so that's why we got ourselves into position of overpromising to the market."

A very troubling answer as it shows he does not understand about the relationship between company and its owners (the shareholders) and his responsibility to his owners in terms of providing credible forecasts that crucially decide the share price and hence the value of the company.

No mystery to this imo:

1. Continual drip feed of sales ( 1m traded today) likely from institution/s.

2. No buying by Board or management : hardly ringing endorsement

3. Nero produced another dreadful set of results. Hurtling toward year end and no sign of any commercial deals.

Well pointed out. One of the rather good features of LSE is the RNS news archive, which is well worth a look at to show just what Adams has accomplished in the last decade or so......ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in terms of getting the finance to build a mine, building said mine, extracting AG or CU from said mine, let alone little issues like infrastructure or relocation of locals....What Adams has achieved is to enjoy an uninterrupted annuity stream of income from Kefi whilst delivering absolutely nothing for shareholders or locals.

A random pick from the prodigious number of updates comes up wth gems like this:

Adams's AGM Statement 10 December 2015:

..."The next step is KEFI's appointment of the banks, which will mean that we will have agreed the terms for funding an aggregate amount of circa US$140 million of the US$176 million capital estimate as per the 2015 DFS. We will then be able to finalise the gold stream facility, for which we already have headline terms, as the last key participant in the funding syndicate. Thereafter, KEFI will seek approval from the National Bank of Ethiopia of formal legal documentation, including inter-creditor arrangements. ..."..

It is, indeed, pleasing that we continue on track to target profitable gold production from late 2017 and to establish a powerful platform for further discovery in a most-promising region of the world."

Page was an unmitigated disaster as chairman & CEO as I laid out in August and I personally am glad to see the back of him . Elevation of CFO is imv a surprise given hes hardly been in the business any length of time but suspect that Harwood engineered it thus as hes likely to be more collegiate. CFO appointment is very interesting given his background in PE- no one in right mind would move to Carlisle unless that is one sniffs a big opportunity! The fact is that this company has never managed to make most of its assets & expertise, and hopefully that will start to change. That said, ag market is weather & broad economy dependent and nuclear is govt dependent so still a business with v little control over its markets.

Kinda sums it up. The difference in content of the two statements within a matter of weeks of each other drive to the heart of the problems of the last 24 months: complacent & out of touch board, misleading communications, poor operational management, under-skilled workforce; stone age financial controls & finance function, and an arrogant 'we know best mindset' of Chair and CEO

I think if I were the board of Churchill China I would be feeling somewhat uncomfortable given the financial forecasting debacle & lack of controls all occurred under Cunningham's aegis

The big holders imv will have insisted they have a head (if not more ) on the plate in return for their support. There isn't time to faff around

1. Bundred has to go in the New Year (or announce he is leaving) because his credibility is shot to pieces & be repaled by a chairman with proper international plc experience

2. Johnson has at most 6 months to show he has the skills to turn the ship around; if he doesn't he should be replaced or moved internally