Member Info for HarChris

Would you mind sharing which graphite downstream projects are bringing in shed loads of profit? Just name a couple… I’d love to invest in them.

There’s one to make my point immediately!

Whilst child labour sadly does go on in the DRC and a few other African nations the number of children involved in illegal unregulated mining will pail in comparison to the number of children that suffer from a lifetime of respiratory illnesses and early death around the world.

Will be better when more EV manufacturers switch to cobalt and nickel free batteries though, which is slowly happening.

Yeah lots of false claims out there re EVs, some of which were somewhat true in its infancy but much less so now and some that are just plain rubbish.

Also we could be talking smog-free cities in the future - with COPD and other respiratory conditions such a major problem around the world that’s a huge benefit for billions of people.

Those who kept a close eye on BAT may well have predicted this sell off. What we had was BATs TGR shares making up the vast majority of their market cap with financing options being a placing and/or sell TGR shares… so when TGR share price started falling BAT started selling off which led to further downward pressure on TGR and then BAT to go lower still and with the placing no longer viable a full selling down of their initial allocation.

Frustrating but opens up a great opportunity for those on the sidelines or with cash to add.

That’s actually what I’ve been saying BBN, these 5.5m even at ~17p average should be enough cash runway / breathing space to allow them to sit on tranche 2 at least into ~ late q1 and then whether they sell/how many they sell will depend on what’s occurred over the prior six months.

You can believe it all you want but it’s rather unlikely they will be able to sell immediately due to the stipulation that they must be sold in an orderly fashion. Sure we don’t know exactly what it means but one thing we know for sure is that it’ll mean no immediate dumping all at once.

You’re forgetting or intentionally ignoring the fact that these shares have been sold over 6 months, from early April, not immediately.

I suspect BAT will try to hold off as much as possible to allow the TGR share to recover and at, say 50p, tranche 2 would be worth £3.25m and would allow for much less aggressive selling to manage working capital.

JAdams ‘trading’ will be based on absolutely nothing more than the mantra ‘take your profits when you get them’.

Fine, each to their own but tedious to have to hear about it. Please, please, please keep your amateur trades to yourself in future.

And this person keeps saying that BAT have well over a million shares remaining whilst arguing they are still selling. Yet actually all we know is that they had ~1.65m shares as of Oct 2nd and since there’s been close to 3.5m volume. So which is it? Are they selling right down to zero and hence must be out or nearly out with all the volume or have they stopped? It’s one of the other.

As they are below reportable threshold there will be no further TR1s.

We will get quarterly updates from now on I’m certain of that, in addition to interims and full year results. I’m hoping it’s as early as possibly in October but yeah I wouldn’t be surprised if management want to see BAT conclude their selling first.

Not just yet but they have been dimmed to save the last of the money and without a bit of luck and soon they will be forced to switch them off completely.

What does the acquisition of Yourgene tell us about what’s going on with the dispute? It’s an interesting question but difficult to come to any sound conclusions.

I’m comfortable with admitting, despite being heavily invested, that I think novacyt are toast if they lose the dispute in any meaningful way, if anything close to the full amount needs to be repaid. Looking beyond (what I think is a very unlikely outcome) the Yourgene acquisition is unambiguously positive… it means we aren’t simply stuck in limbo until the dispute is resolved and sets up the potential to really hit the ground running post a positive outcome and it also adds to the confidence that ncyt management are at least reasonably confident about a positive result… after all why go to all the hassle and work that this sort of thing requires simply to be financially decimated in barely six months time?

As for director purchases, I would absolutely hate to see one because it informs the market that no progress has been made re the dispute. I’m still hoping/expecting a resolution prior to June and if so talks will be reaching a pivotal stage what with being this close to the court date.

Management attempted to quell the sell off by (i) quickly sorting the $1m prepayment and emphasising that this solves the working capital bottleneck and (ii) offering to meet investors one-on-one to discuss any concerns.

This might have done the trick to a degree but once BAT started selling that was essentially the end of any chance of a pre-q2 recovery. Even if the company were planning to throw out an unexpected rns along the lines of ‘50% capacity reached, company on track to meet all upcoming targets’ then all it would have done is given BAT a slightly higher price to sell into.

No, best to wait for BAT to sell all their 5.5m shares if that’s their plan and then release q2.

And Gervais Williams of Premier Miton is about as respected a small cap stock picker as they come.

Miton were adding prior to that rns and crossed the threshold to TR1 the day before. I wonder if they’ve continued to add?

I’ll be honest WBAFC that’s a pretty fair summation of the negatives. The investment case is really based on the fact that Novacyt still has an enviable cash position after all the mistakes, errors and money spent streamlining the business, one that possibly no other £38m company on the planet has! Add in the IP and it really does look cheap.

That cash pile obviously falls due to the cash offer for Yourgene but could well be recovered from the dispute and some. Let’s be honest, history tells us the DHSC do not win covid related court cases.

And then there’s the quite obvious benefits that buying a competitor / similar yet more established diagnostics business can bring.

In this environment are the risks greater than some other £38m small cap with great potential but very modest cash reserves and a definite need for financing down the line? In my view, no.

In what was a painful week for the market and one of the most painful for small caps for some time Avacta stands out amongst the crowd as one of the very few to actually see gains… and that was without news.

This is absolutely itching to break out and have an attempt at breaking year highs soon.

I’ve responded to his ‘cash burn is crazy!!!!!’ type comments so many times but they are invariably ignored and then repeated a few days later. The cash burn is modest relative to cash position but we now have Yourgene’s similar cash burn on top.

Do we need to see operational improvement through synergies from this merger? Absolutely we do. Is it a race against time due to dwindling cash and liquidity ? Absolutely not.

If this new management team can turn novacyt into a profitable business within a few years then we’ll be looking at considerable returns from where we are today, barring a bad outcome from the DHSC dispute. I see that as likely and am tempted to add a few extra shares next week after this recent retrace.

As for stating categorically ‘NO fundraise’ I’m afraid they simply can’t do that, it’s not something you can guarantee via RNS. What they have done with their messaging is repeatedly assure us that they have no intention / interest in seeking dilutive funding at this level (in fact they said this at 30p ish so the same applies and some at 15p). They have also stated their production targets and made it clear that if these are achieved (and as BBN points out there’s considerable room for error still) then there will be no immediate need for funding and the earning potential can be showcased through the end of 2023 into 2024, rebuilding the share price and opening up funding options for future expansion to 36k capacity first and then beyond.

Obviously if unforeseen issues or operational failures arise then some sort of emergency funding would be necessary hence management cannot promise there won’t be a raise, all they can do is repeat again and again that they are not interested in dilutive funding until the share price is considerably higher than today’s price (and by extension higher than 30p). That’s enough for me.

Yes the share price initially fell following the suspension and then q1 update but the reason the share price is *this* low is almost solely due to BAT offloading. It was a vicious cycle, they needed funding, most of their value was tied up in TGR shares, TGR SPstarted falling so the BAT share price cratered meaning a placing was off the table.

Seeing as they started with 5.5m shares and then had just 1.6m shares as of the start of the week and there’s been 3m volume since it’s safe to assume they are either down to zero or very, very close now. With the selling ceasing that should be enough to get back to the 20s…

And yes, the next update will land in October and that’s got to be positive for this to recover back to 30p and beyond.

That’s purely your opinion, I would argue it’s the combination of lack of trust and low cash because without the former the latter wouldn’t be an issue - if they deliver as is the plan described in BBNs posts then there will be no cash call and they will be delivering positive cash flows. Once that’s achieved they’ve proved themselves to be able to produce at *significantly* better margins than all their graphite peers and then funding will be forthcoming for expansion, not for keeping the lights on/reaching previously funded to milestones. Two very different things, it’s the latter which is being punished so severely in this environment.