Gordon Stein, CFO of CleanTech Lithium, explains why CTL acquired the 23 Laguna Verde licenses. Watch the video here.
The fact that Newland has been reduced to p[resenting to HNW individuals & penny punters in the US says it all. The fact is that we're in a situation that thanks to him pretty much all serious institutional support has evaporated, as the likes of Baillie Gifford have seen through the bluster, and more to the point supported the raise at 80p only to see that Newland has misled them. So Newland has taken his 3 ring circus to the US in the hope that they will be more supportive, ie gullible and pony up cash.
Mean time as s/o on ADFN noted, Newland has stopped talking about the flagship Ovarian and Prostatr programmes, that he promised us in calendar 2023, and is now back with his moonshot fabulations, in what is clearly a 'ramp' ahead of another bloody raise. The level of fantasy& dissembling has to be seen to be believed -has anyone told Nero that the Micawberism is not a sound basis on which to run a company let alone a listed one.
Remember too that Newland has already burnt through £100s of millions. Griffiths the Finance Director is equally unimpressive and another past master at talking with fork'd tongue. Newland is trying yet again to ramp the share price in order to raise some more cash, but without a strong narrative this time around he will need to have some serious commercial contracts to get support even from the Yanks. The ludicurous rocket to 30p on the breakthrough cancer rubbish based on a primary school class size study, is what we've come to expect from Newland. How the staff in Guildford put up with his behaviour, God only knows
One might quibble about the fair value share price, but generally a very fair summary. To change the current istuation Newland has to string together a series of significant commercial deals - where are they? He promised the earth, and puffed up the 'major pharma deal' and what we got was a tiny 250k study for Eisei. Where are the directors buys? Given how bloody bullish Nero is, why has neither, he nor any board member bought a single share in the last 12 months? I mean seriously, Newland if you cant persuade your own colleagues to buy the equity story, what hope is ther you can persuade professional investors? And then theres the little issue of having scorched his way through £130m already.....
After several years of stagnation and treading water under previous management, there are glimmers of recovery here. I'm encouraged by the growth in the order book (notwithstanding the difficulties in A&I) and there is clearly a huge effort being get better at smoothing order flow & mitigating the impact of lumpy contracts that has been an issue for them.
Looks like 2H will see strong improvement so sp could be set to finally recover after 12 months in the doldrums
If I were sitting round the table, I would suggest they speak to the Plain English Campaign as the level of McKinsey-type jargon is ludicrous: "right-sizing and centralising our enabling functions".......what does that even mean?
So Newland's latest desperate ruse is to add the magic PE enhancing phrase"Artiificial Intelligence"...dontcha just love it!
Sadly Andrew Newland has hyped and ramped every announcement going back years. With that useless Board who have stood by, powerless it seems or more likely uninterested, in stopping him. As a result Newland’s rap sheet of consistently over-egging results, over-promising, missing deadlines, exaggerating progress has led to serious long term investors abandoning ship as they no longer believe a word he says. He has burned through 10s of millions of $ and produced the square root of sod all, and is now reliant on spivs, punters, and first timers. Why hasn’t there been a single directors purchase of stock?
The other concern of course is that Nero has now shot his bolt with hyped deals & moonshot announcements and we're only 1 month into the year.
Adams would be a brilliant addition to The Traitor wouldn't he!
I'd be watching very carefully whether that slippery ol' Adams doesnt come back with another equity raise, given that TK is drifting further and further out...trust & Adams don't belong in the same sentence.
He has yet to actually come through with anything meaningful. He was and continues to be he is a walking disaster as a plc CEO. he seems blissfully unaware of how listed CEOs should behave, but perhaps having totally shafted his core institutional support (and burned thorugh tens of millions in the process) Nero no longer cares. Neqwland's modus operandi is frankly laughable (he fails to understand how his antics are viewed within the Big Pharma companies or frankly within the company), when he describes as a major breakthrough a 47 person trial. And talking of which what has happened to all the other impending trial results the clown promised us? Sloaris is especially imporetant to the business case and yet Newland has said nothing about it, and no one at the Private Client hype meeting actually asked about it.
I wasnt expecting much & wasnt disappointed. Admire fact that they have moved quickly to reshape the business, cut costs, & stregthen where they can. Did really well to switch to local sales & with the cost savings, they'll be covering costs come March. I really felt for Luke - one can sense his frustration that all of the catalysts listed rely on others & are very much out of their hands.
FYI this is CoTec listed in Canada https://www.cotec.ca/
Erm...wrong Cotec..that's the Cranfield Ordnance Test &Evaluation Centre...part of Cranfield Defence and Security, which works with the MoD for a wide range of Defence Engineering and Scientific courses
And yet Nero Newland puts out this nonsense, in what appears to be a desperate bid to concoct some sort of narrative that things are moving rapidly forward. Granted the Eisei trial was a step in right direction, but reality of the announcement was at odds with how he had positioned the tie-up.... a $250,000 trial with a large cap pharma
Milverton needs to start thinking about expectation management as the longer this saga drags on, the more sceptical long-supportive shareholders are going to become about management ability to put the foot down on the accelerator. heading to end of Jan, and still no news on the imminent deal. Let's hope for management's and share price sake that this hasn't hit a hitch. Three poss scenarios:
1. Deal going ahead but timetable stretched, as bureaucrats slow to cross "ts" and dot "is" - neutral to positive
2. Deal parameters changing as a result of budgetary issues /pricing, leading to rengeotiation of terms - negative
3. Deal postponed or cancelled - negative
October 10th Interims:
"1Streetworks, automating traffic management plans, a £400m ARR market opportunity, launched with five trials ongoing, first material contract expected to be signed imminently onto an annual deal. "
Clown!
Thanks to Nero Newland stiffing institutional investors such that most won't touch him with a barge pole, the only shareholder meetings he gets asked to attend are advertorial events for private clients. And you can forget the US as well since Jefferies, our joint house broker, who have genuine sector expertise & significant reputation in US markets either resigned (my hunch) or got fired.
Watched the marketing pitch to punters. All I can say is that it was mercifully short. One or two there clearly had a firm finger on the pulse but the format didnt allow them to delve deeper or challenge assertions, thus potentiully sparing Newland's blushes. Some of the back n forth was amusing. Newland's answer to why sp was where it was, another masterclass in deflection: its small cap markets, its lack of funding for biopharma, its Covid & bond purchases(!!). Then there was the usual obfuscation about what cancers Parsortix is FDA approved for apart from breast which led to Newland riffing/waffling about turning handles etc....: "If we sell it for breast they literally just turn the handle but if we sell it for lung they need to be happy with the results under their accreditation"
The blue-sky commentary about what the potential is with EISAI was also classic Newland, extrapolating figures over which he has no control, and then throwing in figures per test, for which he provided no 'workings' or context. This would be a neogtiation, and it is commercially stupid, and irresponsible of Newland to throw out figures like this...EISEI will no doubt be aware of what hes saying..
The lack of financials or forecasts was not a surprise given they cant hand out PSI. So beyond the above what were my takeaways?
1. Newland's evangelism on display trying to strong-arm the industry into adopting Parsoritx. His passion & vision were what sold me in the first place (plus the device)but there needs to be far more realism and less blue-skies, a point that may explain why so many institutions finally bailed.
2. Griffiths clearly unable to provide any comfort over revenue forecasts, or when and if another raise will be required. Given past history, highly probable before Q2 25. The issue will be whether they can secure a decent raise. IMO they can, but only if they can demonstrate genuine commercial progress that equates to proper cash deals.
3. A sense that beyond the public hoopla, privately Newland & Griffiths would be thrilled to sell. Hence Newland's musings about company being hard-pressed to resist takeover. Optimistic comments from punters that any offer would need to be multiples of current sp ignore the fact that many of the institutions have either sold out or written off the carrying value of Agl.
Where are they.....
Is this his message for internal consumption?
Is this his message for internal consumption?