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Its true
GB2
There appears to be some confusion over NDA, several companies in the automotive world seem to be able to mention specific names of people they supply but it comes across that SEE is reluctant to mention specific names, is this due to NDA or is it a decision of SEE to protect the T1/OEM regarding their plans?
KK
We have hired highly experienced automotive people to run the automotive business. They strongly feel that our customers expect and deserve secrecy and have chosen a communication strategy that promotes trust.
As result, we keep our head down, do good work and build strong trust based relationships with OEM and tier 1 customers and potential customers that allow a free flow of information that in turn allows us to do a better job, provide higher levels of customer satisfaction and win more work.
I don't think that's asking too much. Competitors have chosen to take the opposite approach and we've displaced them in a number of accounts.
I'm sure we could find a way around the NDAs if we wanted to but we don't want short term customers and want to hold onto our OEMs long term.
GB2
Can i share this information (as i felt it was important)
KK
Sure
I'm not talking myself into a placing or at a specific price, despite some talking themselves into depression/lower buyback, there are options and Ken used the words "to date" in his alleged email reply.
I'm keeping the options and timescales open and i am adding each day. I am here for the outcome and in 2014 or whatever i said we would be in millions of cars, i await that outcome.
It's not a defect it just means you cannot drive over 37mph and it cannot be sold in the US i think so it has limitations rather than a defect. BMW will have gone through their RFQ for these models a few years ago when we were in a Takata headlock so the choice of Smarteye or Smarteye was quite easy to make.
Xilinx are fabless so they outsource their manufacture to Taiwan (TSMC) i think, having such a large market share of FPGA they do appear to be a decent business to be working with and unless someone like them or above them shows interest in making our chips with fovio then they do seem to be set to benefit greatly from ensuring that there is a cost-effective way of getting those chips into auto on a mass scale within the window of the next 18-24 months. They have to be consulted as a strategic investor surely?
If Xilinx did this and then bought see, they could probably reduce the costs dramatically and offer the Gourmet Chip for Cheap as chips prices. I have no reason to think they would do this but if i was private equity i might see this opportunity emerging now. I'm less concerned this will be sold cheap, but still feel it will be sold, so i shall let the story unfold when it suits.
The new set up on the BOD makes me feel more comfortable all stakeholders are being considered.
Despite trying to keep an open mind and consider the possibility that this win with FCA could have been a last minute switch from Aptiv to Veoneer im still looking at a lot of evidence and specific events that point to FCA wanting Aptiv to use SEE in the Jeep or the Ram following the Veoneer win with the F150 Ford. We do have an unnamed Global T1 who has entered a collaboration agreement with SEE as mentioned last month and it appears this could be Aptiv but Denso feels more likely. If i was Viktor i wouldn't give up on PSA yet and call Martin a pirate. The industry needs a few suppliers of DMS, we need SE to win basic models and be able to raise cash. I really wish them well but if Aptiv do move to SEE like Veoneer did on a similar deal then it's just Chow mein and papadoms for them it seems, there is money in all OEM's so im not writing them off as yet. Dont give up Viktor your reports are very welcome!
Smart Eye’s main competitor (and only known tier-2 compeitor in the ongoing procurements) Seeing Machines (SEE), has today won a contract with a major US OEM.
As usual, Smart Eye is not allowed to comment so the following are soleley Redeye's reflections:
There are only three major OEMs in the US; GM, FCA and Ford and it looks to us like SEE has bagged them all. Labelling an EV player with a few hundred thousand cars per year, like e.g. Tesla, a ”major OEM” would be a very creative, if not deceptive, use of the word ”major”. Thus, it looks like we were wrong about FCA, although we had expected the FCA contract to be a lot larger than AUD 6m as FCA has mentioned that several models will have DMS. However, we believe SEE downplays the contract value.
Aptiv won FCA in the summer of 2018 and our research pointed to Aptiv being Smart Eye’s tier 1. In theory, tier-1s could have dual routes but that would be expensive. If the Aptiv link is indeed broken we also believe that PSA will be lost.
FCA and PSA are/were both part of our estimates. We believe we will lower our base case of SEK 125 per share by around SEK 15 SEK in our next update, everything else equal (Smart Eye and the market moves rapidly so everything might not be equal then) . However, we will first have a closer look at the matter and find out what went wrong.
Wilson, Aptiv said they had won FCA a while ago i believe, Redeye Vik was just waiting for them (SE) to announce it, that has not happened as they dont have a chip and SEE tech is better, now SEE looks like its won FCA via Aptiv and the new T1 is called a partner on the RNS, the most significant thing for me is not that we have won FCA but SE look like they have been sidelined by FCA and the communication last month said a new collaboration agreement had been signed with a large global T1. I wish SE well but this is not good news if Aptiv has also made this move to SEE like Veoneer did and may have signed up to some rules, Vik might be looking at this now and thinking the same perhaps?
Now we can see why SE decided to go down the chip route a few weeks ago, really seems that they expected to win FCA with Aptiv with software, Vik suspected something was going on with SEE and Aptiv in a redeye report and we had an anonymous global T1 sign an agreement with SEE a few weeks ago and it stated SEE and the anonymous T1 would work together on future projects (or similar)
Is this Aptiv?
FCA via Aptiv seems the logical one, it all fits.
Why has aptiv gone quiet about FCA, surely aptiv won’t do a veoneer and dump SE and do a collaboration with see along with sushi denso?........shall we wait and see who the mysterious T1 is..........maybe there are two......
Denso, Bosch or one of the Aisin's in that order of probability but I don't think we will find out until the unnamed OEM win (VW/Toyota) is communicated, much like the Veoneer win was.
"Seeing Machines has recently finalised an additional collaboration agreement with one of the largest global Tier 1 automotive parts suppliers, paving the way for more in-depth technology sharing and collaboration toward additional OEM design wins, and demonstrating continued, successful growth of Tier 1 collaborations across the industry"
Question is what is "one of the largest T1" is it top 10 or top 5?
If it is one of these then having Veoneer the largest pure-play company focused on ADAS and one of the largest T1's then it seems sensible to prepare for an announcement quite soon, both will have signed a non compete agreement which is significant...........had the name Bosch or Aptiv (for example) been mentioned in that RNS recently then you would have seen quite a rise for SEE and quite a fall for SE......
The closest competitor’s system (Smart Eye through Aptiv) has not been deemed reliable enough by Audi for the same level of semi-autonomous functionality as Super Cruise. It can only safely enable a low speed traffic assist feature.
Seeing Machines has been chosen by two of the three world’s leading automotive brands by engineering excellence, one of which switched to Seeing Machines from a previous supplier in Gen1 DMS.
We believe the third premium German OEM is currently in a group wide RFQ with Seeing Machines for its Gen2 system, despite having used Smart Eye for its Gen1 system in the Audi A8.
Seeing Machines was one of only two suppliers at CES demonstrating higher level signals such as Driver Engagement Level and Cognitive Load.
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Despite seeing this and reading it several times I'm wondering why some are so intent on talking about the future of SEE and funding, are you wasting time reading what some other emotionally charged soul thinks about see on another site like they have any idea at all rather than going out for a battered mars bar and an irn bru session with shouty grandad o'donnel........ what are the odds HAGD on a large German-based global T1 being the next collaboration and is this for cars or commercial vehicles? Daimler are huge in this space so will we see diversity and the sausage cooker finally appear from their odd "partner" status and will that explain the change of direction/relationship last summer?
We will see, but understating your OEM wins like you have with BMW which according to many is "all models" is a bit below the belt.
Anyway we will see....
"words 'train union' & 'sense', don't often go together".......... Well the words GB2, technology and reasonable time also dont go together it seems.
Ive just been told by my phone that despite me being "retired from a real job" i spent a total of 884 hrs on my IG share app and calculator last year, add in the hours on stockopedia researching, the hours on timetotrade looking at charts, the days spent meeting people in exotic places like the Penang fish market and i think i spent a quarter of last year trying to make money so i could give it to people who needed it more than me, and then in september seeing the vast majority of it disappear in seconds whilst on a boat in spain watching a Staffordshire bull terrier have a wee on the boat mast...............you are not the only person who looks at 2018 and says "that was going so well, why did they do that to us, we didnt deserve it".........anyway happy new year, lets hope for the BOD sake they do better in 2019 or they will be really hunting for investors, even if you are 99% sure something is about to go, sell half at 50-100% regardless of how good your tea leaves are...............i'm really hoping now Jack, the new non cycling type employees and the new independent director will ensure that they get what this is worth, i still think this will be sold as do many, but the developments in July, the free shares and subsequent sackings indicated to me it was so close but then something changed.......i hope this is the belief in the BOD that this is worth more than any indicative offer that may or may not have been made mid summer that the price moved towards ;).........the summit was meters away, we had the cameras out for the peak shot............ and then we slid back down, but we can climb again, when i went to Everest we went up and down making no progress for days and i was edging on tears occasionally, the climb should start soon so maybe prepare some funds perhaps, anything could happen at CES and whiffs of Sushi are getting stronger.
who is next on the list
"The Group is in the final stages of appointing a new Chief Financial Officer and expects to make an announcement shortly"
I think Sanjay made a point about management and a cultural change being needed, we said several years ago that we felt the company would struggle to meet the demands. Senior Management cannot keep leaving and coming back and people in the company cannot go awarding people like Mike $1.8m as a package. Its rips the ****
The only time i've seen the price go up when we announced a change in leadership was when one CEO was replaced by another CEO...........staff in SEE will be wondering now w
Why raise money now when you have enough to last you until mid 2019, self driving cars are the dotcom ramp of 2018, they are all massively overvalued.....if you need money do it off the back of several OEM wins or another major BDMS win, even the industry is now saying its not looking good for Johnny cabs and driver assistance will be required.....
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-13/waymo-ceo-says-self-driving-cars-won-t-be-ubiqitious-for-decades
Waymo Chief Executive Officer John Krafcik said self-driving cars will require driver assistance for many years to come, and that he doesn’t envision a day when the technology operates in all weather conditions and without some sort of "user interaction."
Everyone is entitled to their opinion and one thing that we seem to agree on is that the company has some great products but there have been some mistakes and as a result of this they are not getting the support that they used to have from ce
What amazes me more is how much two particular posters remind me of Statler and Waldorf from the muppet show with their heckling.
My mother said to me when i was winging about something in my youth "GB2 if you have a problem you find a solution to it, you wont get anywhere in life moaning or holding grudges, moan for a while then find a solution and fix it you little Sh1t"
The company made a mistake in what they did this summer with that fleet news, however thankfully the business has some excellent products and some decent staff like NDF smashing auto like he smashes Jack Daniels, i think we all might look back and say we recall saying the issue here will be how they manage the demand and that is on the strength of the BOD, the staff and workload. The last thing we need is Coogan creating more ideas and his laboratory wizards saying "oh no, not another tweak to the plans"
I thought this was good.........What’s the difference between a charismatic leader and a bully?
A. There isn’t one. Unless they order you to believe that there is.
If you are the captain of a ship you cannot keep blaming others for hitting icebergs and throwing them overboard, roll on AGM and some news even if its just to stop Statler and Waldorf spitting popcorn at people.