The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode featuring Jeremy Skillington, CEO of Poolbeg Pharma has just been released. Listen here.
'· The Company has seen significant signs of a turnaround from the subdued price of flake graphite in recent weeks and notes the forecast by various reputable market research entities of a potential flake graphite shortage to kick in over the next few quarters. '
It does at least make this an interesting time, especially with TGR at all time lows.
~1100t is break even at a group level and they are aiming for 1500-1600t in the immediate term. I get that historically targets have been set too high but it really isn't that far fetched to believe they will not only be ebitda postive but cash flow positive fairly soon. Graphite prices and basket price rising only increases their chances of achieving the above.
Gallmat you keep saying they won’t raise down here because they won’t dilute themselves, then when a positive update comes out suddenly you’re saying watch out for a placing?
Which is it?
For me lots of positives that could soon make a £6m mcap look ridiculous.
Was it presumed that most of the cash was going to be funnelled into the core assets to achieve £100m revenues or, even more ludicrously, was this alongside an M&A strategy? The whole DA premierships is shrouded in mystery, after all he left just seven months after setting that goal of £100m annual revenues in 'five years'
WBAFC, James won't revert back to CFO, not when a new CFO was appointed just two months ago.
I know you keep bringing up the LTIP but it's irrelevant now, the minimum price in which any of those shares vest is about 8 times the current share price.
Your posts do highlight what a complete overhaul there's been in the executive team though, that's a big positive as it shows Novacyt are no lifestyle company offering lucrative senior management salaries for non performance. We'll probably see many of the senior positions filled by YG staff as we the group slowly becomes a defacto merger between YG and Novacyt.
Isn't Abingdon's 'problem' right now for want of a better word simply funding risk? Sure the primary objective is to reach a cash flow positive position in 2024 without additional funding but it's certainly not guaranteed and even if it was surely further capital is needed to grow the business as the cash being generated will be very modest?
Investors have been stung time and time again in recent times where any 30%+ rise has been used to get a placing away at a discount, the rns'ing of a proactive interview feels like an attempt by the CEO to boost the share price a bit so I imagine the interims have caught many people's attention (including myself) as the improvement in operations is undeniable but many will be unwilling to risk being caught on the wrong side of a placing in what is a tough, tough environment for small caps right now.
Gallmat would you mind sharing what debt TGR have due as you keep claiming it? If you mean the 12% interest payment in July then yes there's a payment due but it's only £166k, that's all that is due throughout the whole of 2024 so the threat of insolvency near term is virtually zero.
It can be assumed that the £1m raised in January went towards paying the Jan coupon and also reserved for the July coupon (the £166k as above). I'm led to believe the company are close to break even now but the extra £1m is needed for the broader strategy. How do you attract a quality CFO for example without guaranteeing a salary for the next couple of years? Why would NEDs join if they aren't even likely to receive their fees in cash?
Despite all the negatives this is still wildly undervalued fundamentally and would take very little to be back trading at 3 times the valuation. Of course whether we get those changes (professionalise the corporate governance, take steps away from it being a 'family business', reach cash flow positive status without additional funding) remains to be seen.
Well they followed through with the YG acquisition, a company that was actually valued around £70m prior to covid so not one of those that got any sort of covid premium and what seems like potentially very good business. I understand the need to focus on streamlining the company through 2023 but once that's complete there's every reason to believe they will continue to look for acquisitions and other forms of investment with the large cash position they are sitting on, yeah.
There are a few things we have on our side at least.
(I) large and jumbo flake graphite prices are back on the rise and are clearly bucking the trend of the rest of the graphite space - this is the majority of what TGR is currently selling.
(ii) TGR have only £2m debt repayable over a couple of years so there’s no scary debt deadlines looming.
(iii) the cash TGR is currently seeking is a mere fraction of what they raised when times were good, or at least when the market bought into the narrative here. If they were needing £10m+ to reach profitability it would be hard to see how that could be possible, but that’s not the case.
The bad? As has been stated by some good posters today corporate governance is at the very heart of the issues and for me there are still doubts over whether Shishir actually gets this. I imagine he still believes the fundamentals will do the talking but they won’t, it isn’t enough by itself… better operational performance will bring a modest recovery in the share price, it’s all the parts coming together - management restructuring , corporate governance, operational performance, strong communication - that’ll properly rerate from him and reach the potential Shishir loves to highlight.
Fast forward a few months and ABDX trading update signals that the cash break even isn't going to be achieved without further funding. Novacyt would have the ability to pick up a company with a very promising product on the verge of becoming profitable for less than a quarter of their current cash position. Or they could even reach out and be the funder that bridges them in the interim, £2m say for 20% of the company at market rates.
After the YG acquisition I can start to see how Novacyt could become a very large company just by acquisitions, bolt-ons and investment within the diagnostics space. Any increase in the cash position following the dispute broadens that opportunity further.
So for you it wasn't enough to leave the auditors to do their job, you're now leaning on them to try and get them to step away which would cause chaos here?
It sure is obvious that you're gunning for tgr to fail.
The actual price of gold bullion at any single point in time isn't as important as the signal of where it's going next or where it's likely to average over the medium term. This last week has seen higher than expected US inflation, a decrease in the supposed likelihood of FED cutting beginning in June from ~70% to ~50% and despite this every attempt to knock gold down so far has failed, and we still sit here today with gold at $2168.
This is as important or more important even than gold hitting all time highs.
I mean we should be all smart enough to know that no placing doesn’t mean no placing, it means no placing unless they really have to further down the road. And as we all also know, operational performance has underdelivered since, to put it mildly.
I’m glad that they did bite the bullet at 11p though and paid all the board and non execs through shares that will be worth 45% of what they were meant to be worth the moment they are issued.
Skeletor, even barely six months ago the SP was 30p and we had Shishir out saying they have no interest in diluting shareholders at such a depressed valuation. Now 30p seems like the giddy halcyon days
Jarv not just placees but also ordinary punters who sell when they think a big seller is about with a plan to buy back in when the selling stops.
It all will have contributed to a larger sell off than it would have been otherwise.