Member Info for HarChris

You asked how the share price had risen 25% without any online ramping and I pointed out that essentially it's only recovered a quarter of what it lost over six weeks, again ostensibly for no reason either...

So which way is more 'unexplainable?' A fall from 80p to 40p or the rise back from 40p to 50p?

Most rises like we saw will be largely due to investors and traders taking positions when they believe the share price has been oversold or at the bottom of a trading range and then it catching the attention of others that jump in on the way up and push it even higher in the hope of some news about to land. When it runs out of steam without news there's usually some retrace but if the rise started from a particularly low base you won't see it retrace all the way back, only partially before another move back up.

Seeing as it had fallen back from 80p following extremely positive news I expect it will see further attempts to get back to that price in the weeks ahead.

If you're happy for substantive posts to be lost to disruptive and misleading insider info claims then fair enough - i'll discourage it all I can.

Well the modest rise reflects the fact that Craig looks to be delivering the operational improvements he’s so far spoken about. It’s looking like they are now finishing the year at ~4500mtV run rate.

If that becomes the bottom end target for next year then that’s a considerable improvement.

Please try to refrain from this wholly unsubstantiated ramping guff - it's tedious and dilutes the usefulness of this BB.

That's largely due to the increase in BTC price, 25% month on month and the mcap has already increased by more than that $150m.

The miners with a balance of cash, HODL, hash rate and modest debt are perfectly placed to come out winners long term though.

And by that last paragraph what I'm referring to is further, low capex, upside - upside not needing big ticket financing. Included in that is the small increase in capacity to 36KTpa but not the 84kTpa that management are targeting medium term.

Well that's why I still call it a long shot rather than a fairly high chance but I think the management will change and morph into something else over the next eighteen months as new experienced individuals join via acquisitions and the BODs changes to reflect the fact that those businesses being acquired are actually bigger and more developed operationally than Novacyt itself.

I mentioned EKF recently as an example but to get to £350m mcap, 10X today's valuation, what would we need to see:

(i) the court case resolved and in our favour

(ii) a consistent increase in revenues and a return to group profit of ~£15m, with a safety net of cash (maybe £15m) left in the bank to insure against downturn.

Considering how very rare it is to pull off 10X returns over the space of a couple of years I think the odds of it happening here, especially as we (holders) expect further cash injection from the DHSC, is as good as it gets. There are no expectations built in whatsoever, the net cash position is already beyond almost any £350m mcap company out there and Novacyt is in a sector that's expected to grow significantly through this decade.

Still a long shot, sure, but far better odds than a company that has to do it on a shoestring budget and with big expectations already built in.

You're the most ignorant 'know it all' out there

https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insights/latest-news/metals/092223-robust-exports-stable-domestic-demand-keep-chinas-steel-production-strong-in-2023

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-19/rio-tinto-ceo-says-chinese-steel-demand-is-close-to-peaking

Sorry I should have worded it differently so I didn't have people jumping down my throat immediately.

From the outside the growth in VRFB projects is so large that it *should* have at least offset the fall in demand from HSLA steel. Chinese demand in 2022 was 57% of 120Kt so call that 68000T. If you add a few gigawatt hours of VRFBs then a fall in chinese steel demand of ~20% would offset that. Not a 'tiny' or 'insignificant' percentage whatsoever anymore.

So true, not illogical but a surprise to me anyway that steel demand would a great bit further than that, especially as I've seen tighter enforcing of the rebar standards mentioned numerous times. Something else going on I suspect.

What we know from h1 is:

Started the year with £280K

Produced 4,508T, sold 4,785T at an average price of £658 hence ~£3.2m revs.

We know a prepayment of $1m solved the immediate working capital constraints but that also brought down the average sales price slightly. And we have been informed that this was only needed due to the 30-45 day lag between shipment and cash realisation.

Run rate for Q3 so far (Oct 19th) is at 3750Tpq and target for H2 is 7500T-10000T (lower part of the range probably more realistic). It's reasonable to therefore assume that cash flow break even is close at £3.2m per half year making cash flow positive a near certainty at say 8000T / ~£5.3m.

Further upside is still considerable from Vatomina and Sahamamy through (i) increasing ore feed beyond 2400T per day bringing production much closer to the 30Ktpa capacity, (ii) low capex option to add 6KTpa capacity at Vatomina and (iii) additional 500Kw hydro plant (currently 100Kw) to meet the entire power demands at Sahamamy.

This is a good article but got to take it with a pinch of salt seeing as it was from July and what we’ve seen in the four months since is anything but a coiled spring - a deflated tyre would be more apt.

It’s really difficult to understand how VRFBs and hence v205 demand has taken off so in China yet reported Chinese v205 prices are at more or less seven year lows. Illogical.

I agree with you gallmat especially as valuations depend on so many factors.

Just look at the valuation in 2021, averaged 90p with total float averaging 80m shares so an mcap of £72m. That was with capacity just built out to 12k and production only just starting.

Multiples of 20 plus can and probably will happen again when confidence and momentum catches on but as TGRs set up right now lends itself to steadier, prudent growth the highest multiples probably won't be applicable. And in a bear market such as this point 1 - downside being limited - makes for a strong investment case.

The only positive spin I can put on it is that it certainly protects Mara to the downside and will arguably make little difference in a 2021-esque mad bull rally. So if a bull run never comes or it's more disappointing than everyone hopes (think something like 90k peak and going into 2025 at ~50K) then Mara is still there alongside only three or four others from the current crop and having probably doubled market share to make up for the halving of rewards.

And if there's a bull market expect the doors to be blown off and all common sense to go out of the window and so they'll pull off significant and impressive financing once again what with a clean balance sheet and a massive market cap of $5B+

maybe that's Fred's thinking?

Hedging now on top of the 2026 convertible notes exchange, does seem strange... Are Mara execs just playing it super conservative now, essentially guaranteeing survival long term and guaranteeing healthy paydays for years and years to come, at the expense of potentially much greater upside?

Possibly but only 30% of their shares will be possible to be sold/traded in the first six months after issue:

'70% of the Consideration Shares will be subject to a 6 month lock-in period.'

I'm not sure you did, I think you questioned if the price being realised was as high as I was saying it was in March, especially in the US (it was). The price then came down considerably in Q2 but as we were informed guidance was on track I projected a profit being seen for H1 overall and therefore cash holding up fine. And that's where I talk about being misinformed as a shareholder, I think it's reasonable to assume that management isn't telling porkies...

I agree that there were many more balanced investors at the time that I should have listened to and that might have led to making better investment decisions and I'll learn from that for next time... but listen to someone like yourself that sold and then willed it down with all your might? Without offering any substance whatsoever to your posts? Nah not in a million years.

I think that's a reasonable summary. That realised price is certainly conservative given that TGR still saw slightly higher than that in H1 despite the considerable fall in graphite prices, what with the Chinese curbs and the expected demand to come from the energy transition i'd expect at a minimum we'll start seeing the US$910 - US$935 (~£750) that mgmt predicted for this FY back in April. Hopefully a fair bit higher in time...

Equally though I'd have thought actually producing at full capacity is rather unlikely? I'd be looking at more like 25K-27KT from this built out 30K capacity.

I supported Fortune all the way until August 2nd when it was revealed that despite claiming to be on track to meet guidance on the 21st June (full year report) with just one week of the quarter to go the reality was very different and the mounting issues were being withheld from shareholders. The downgrading of guidance was then left for Craig to do in the Q2 update a month later.

Whist the biggest reason for the situation we're in right now is still the capitulation in V, well beyond anything forecasted by the brokers, I hold my hands up and admit that I wasn't able to see just how out of his depth FM was until those recent issues were revealed and compounded by the stark difference in what we've seen from Craig so far.