Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
as stated at the AGM 2018 was a "pivotal" year and "2019 will be another year of tremendous operational and financial progress" Maine today adds to that story with lots more to come!
further application to the use of microsalt this morning. I have discussed the implications of microsalt with my medical guru and he feels that such a product has significant benefits especially if the salty flavour is maintained/enhanced.
Interesting RNS this morning. The CEO statement that this partnership with JP Morgan will be a " significant contributor to growth in years to come" is encouraging. And the market reaction would indicate that the market agrees.
I never anticipated that if I sold my total share holding in ZOO I would move the market SP 7%! Yet today just over 80K shares sold and that is what has happened! I hold
my understanding of things (from my tech expert-he may be wrong) is that the end customer has told Nokia that they are going to use the existing spectrum hardware of their proposed acquisition-which happens to be a different technology. There are 2 main approaches-one is having 2 frequencies-one for transmission and one for reception. That is what the majority of the market uses and what FTC bases its antennae on. The other is time based antennae-a split second of transmission and then a spilt second of reception. That is what the acquisition probably uses and because it is so expensive the purchasing company has decided to stick with that rather than spend money using Nokia and hence us. While this is a major short term setback it does not mean we are dead/finished with this approach but any orders will not be in the realms we were hoping. In light of the current situation I am sure FTC will want to maximise their investment in mMIMO and will be working out what to do next. I hope we will get an idea on that in their next results update due at the end of January. In the meantime the defence sector contracts are steady and long term so we are not dead yet. I have decided to hold and see how things unfold. Today's market response suggests the reaction to the RNS may be an over-reaction-which s often the case-or may lead to running out of cash-also possible!
I was at the AGM in London on July 13th and had the opportunity to listen to Mark Bonney on his assessment in inheriting RTHM with its recent acquisitions and his conclusions. I have just listened to the podcast of the interims and am encouraged by the summary. He is doing exactly what he said he would do. He has consolidated the businesses into one; he has reduced the head count considerably; he has promoted the talent from within; he has closed non viable countries and non profitable functions; he has worked hard on the integration of the acquisitions into one entity, and this process is all consolidated on the platform -which has top rating on the seller trust index. He is about half way on his cost reduction process and hopes to achieve near 80% by year end. The gross margin is up; the EBIDTA is greatly improved and they are getting closer to profitablity. Cash will improve as costs are stable and receivables paid. As the SP rises he may well be looking for further acquisitions as part of the process of consolidation in the market place. Looks promising to me so I hold.
ZOO AGM 2108
H1 is up 17%; they expect a strong 2nd half; dubbing is up 3 fold-charges 10 times subtitles-this is much better than anticipated, and the fact that this is all done in the ”cloud” makes it unique. The dubbing component was curtailed due to “accreditation” issues-they appear to be resolved and things are returning to normal.
They are winning market share in a growing market. They are also unique in that their R & D is internal and adapts rapidly to customer demands. They can easily scale up due to their software and their freelancers-over 5k now; they have a point of presence by having affiliates around the world-no offices/expenses etc-Dubai the latest. They have good relationships with clients, reflected in their “preferred partner” status or as Netflix calls them-fulfillment partners.
There is favourable market dynamics and demand is increasing. There is more content; more channels and more languages. There are 400m subscribers to such services world wide and this is projected to be over 600m by 2021
Dubbing is 75% of the market and they only started this element last year. Growth is 8-10% pa and the market is $2B pa.
The new expanded offering of subtitles/dubbing and media processing- a one stop shop -has been well received. They were reticent as to who was responsible for the recent pause in orders but we can all guess .
The dubbing process is due to the fact that they are the first company to move to a cloud based system and create a “virtual” dubbing studio. It is up to 10 times quicker; more convenient and cheaper. They have a very strict QC process-we had an impressive demo.
The other part of the demo was explaining that they receive a 1st cut of a series and add dubbing and subtitles to that; they then receive cut 2; cut 3; cut 4 before the final version is reached and they want to release the series world wide on the same day-pressure. Previously -this all had to be done manually-slow/errors/difficult! They have created “Delta”-software that identifies all the changes and tells them what has to be corrected-impressive++! An automated process as opposed to the old manual process.
Other points in Q&A. Service delivery vs licence concept. The EU will legislate to determine at least 20% localisation- that will help ZOO. Piracy-they have introduced a range of strategies within the software to address this issue-watermarks; limited access and actor only has access to his/her component. Impressive evening and re-assuring after the SP fall today-I hold
The smartphone is a computer with a phone app. The software is the key not the hardware and the process is customer centric not network centric. The recent RNS talking about the collaboration with ARM is an example of that. They have been working together for a year and their software on the ARM processor means that software can function on any hardware. Not Intel centric on Intel or ARM centric on ARM. The second element to all this is cybersecurity. It is a strategic issue not just a �defence� issue. Cyber attacks are the new Bonnie and Clyde. The software sits on the junctions of the company/country�s networks. The parameters are then adapted to the needs of the particular organisation and the systems are all monitored. It is a �cyber Interpol� concept. Thy have had a range of �Proof of Concept� (POC) trials running. They have signed a major project for this recently with a government. They have just won a POC contract �for which the potential purchaser is paying them -$350K -to do this and from that a contract may follow-another government-European-it takes about 9 months from POC to contract.
ZOO AGM 25th September 2107 To summarise. There is less seasonality in the workload. This is due to the home entertainment revolution globally. In the new world there are 100+ platforms; 50+ languages; the demand is for release in a short space of time so they want subtitles in weeks and days as opposed to months. Terms with digital channels vary greatly. They are in a $2B market growing at 8-10% pa and of that dubbing is 70%. The studios want someone who can do both the functions �subtitles and dubbing. Dubbing is done in a �traditional� way-studio in each country-localised and open to piracy. Using Zoodubs the material is tracked so if there is any piracy the source can be identified. The demonstration was excellent-difficult to explain in words!. It is a collaborative process and their first project which is still in train has been an excellent learning process. By having all the staff in one location they have been getting feedback on a daily basis and adjusting the software accordingly. Significantly the client has signed off the early parts of the process. The project was apparently larger than they would have liked for their first but they seem to have coped and ready for the next one! They seem to be optimistic that more work will flow on from this. The voice actors have found the process easier to carry out using the software. They do not even have to be in a studio-they can do it from any location. Another project was to take all the back catalogue which is in all sorts of different formats and systems and their role is to standardise it-again another challenge successfully completed My personal perceptions. They seem relaxed and confident. The CEO gave a good overview and then delegated the presentations to his managers. The company has moved from a licence concept to a service concept using the software expertise to provide the service. The Chairman is ex IBM for 20 years and clearly has expertise in the area. One of the business managers applied to the company from a competitor as he felt that ZOO had better prospects. I like that The IT lead has been with ZOO a long time and was very confident in his presentation and showed his ability to listen to those using the service. He has spent considerable time in the US and so knows that environment very well. He has worked with the guy based out there for a long time and clearly they have existing relationships with all the major players. When they demonstrated ZOOdubs at some event 6 months ago people were for the most part very positive on their concept. From my perspective I think this could really add a whole new dimension to the business. They do not have new relationships to develop and they do not have to break resistance to change barriers. I did not t have the opportunity to speak to the FD but the Herald Investment Trust manager was present and he seemed very relaxed with their 20% holding in the business �and Hargreave Hale-now
several pointers. Henry Joseph-Grant had already commenced work with them and they were very pleased to have him on board. When you consider what he achieved with Just Eat he clearly has some expertise-and that will be utilised in the US as well. They will be appointing some of their own sales people in the US who will obviously be totally focused on Altitude rather than the MarketBrands people who have wider areas to cover. Martin Varley is based in the US and he will not only train them up but also have an overall role and responsibility for them.Channl is now getting a "trickle" in the UK which they hope will become a flood and hopefully the same in the US. No details will be announced before September. I came away with an impression of confidence-but you would not expect anything else-and a major shareholder who was there assured me he was not planning on selling any shares-time will tell.
trending up nicely since flotation and it basically disrupts the traditional relationship with the business and their bank-makes it better and more cost effective... is this a game changer?
hardly worth the watch-only said he was putting it on his watch list. When a company changes broker there is a perception that it may be leading to a fundraise! That may explain the drop in the SP
Paul Scott is highly critical of the financial position at DGB. They have raised £111m and lost £65m. He feels they will talk the talk in order to get the SP up before they have another rights issue. My concern was that they only have £1m in cash left so his assessment is something I take seriously. I would recommend anyone to read his comments..
now we know why the CFO quit!
excellent update on trading for the year. All positive I hold ? buy more.
? any feedback from the webinar on Thursday 16th run by Equity Development. I am aware the question will be posed/was posed regarding the CFO departure. The webinar is not yet up on the Equity Development site but I would hope it will be soon.
Due to main feature review in SCSW at the w/e. An excellent newsletter
The webinar is now on the Equity Development. CEO impressive. Knows his business and has a clear plan of execution. The revenue is building nicely as are forward contracts. I feel he has every chance of success.
I have spoken to Equity Development and they tell me that the presentation will be up on their site by lunchtime today. I look forward to that.
I was unable to listen to this so any feedback appreciated. Just got to my desk! SP up a little ? a response already.