Member Info for HarChris

Calamari, survival wise they certainly don't need a big BTC recovery, I imagine $30k would keep them afloat through the bear market. It does however suggest that a good few months as low as it is now would leave them in a rather precarious state though.

It is a bit naughty that.
July they manage to sell at a good price and they include this:
During the month of July, the Company sold 887 Bitcoin at an average price of approximately $22,670.

August, nothing. Therefore you've got to assume they held off selling at the start of the month expecting a bigger bitcoin rally and were then forced to sell closer to $20k.

Come on burylad, working out the difference in HODL month to month is quite basic.

It's still factually incorrect to claim (actually imply in this instance) that novacyt have current board members accused of fraud.

Absolutely, I'm not saying we should be valued higher or valued at 3-6 times cash like they are. I'm saying that theoretically at least, they are the best comparator as novacyt and sourcebio were very similar companies pre covid and still are fairly similar companies.

If we lose the dispute we will still likely have a similar cash figure as they did before their recent acquisition (£30m return from corp tax and VAT rebate), if we win the dispute then we have £120m+ and no longer have litigation hanging over our heads.

Right now we are where we are for the reasons you've just expressed.

I actually think if Sourcebio were able to make enough progress to reach £100m revs they'd probably be looking at closer to a £500m valuation.

That is obviously what we want to see here and it's around the level in which the BOD would get their full LTIP remuneration.

Sourcebio is the best company we have to compare novacyt too. Today they announced half year revenues of £20.5m so call that a run rate of £41m - they are valued at £93m. Some of that revenue is derived from an £18.5m acquisition earlier this year (in which they've paid £15m) and they also have £15m still in cash.

I would assume if they were able to scale up to a £100m business they'd be looking at a valuation in the range of £250m-£300m - as a base case we have triple the cash to achieve the same aim (calling their's £30m when you include the acquisition).

You are viewing it from the perspective of continued management failure, indefinitely... of course in that scenario winning the dispute will merely be a further cash injection to fritter away slowly over another 5 years or so.

However obviously those of us deciding to see this through, unlike you CO (good move it looks like so far!), believe that despite appearing to be incompetent so far there's obviously the potential for a turnaround in fortunes. Evidently the transition to a post-covid company has been rocky but we've been signposted Q4 for new developments and if we start to get some auspicious signs of progress then we absolutely could see the share price begin to rally, at least to around/just above the cash level (say £1.50 ish a share) and then a settlement in our favour on top would have a far more positive reaction.

Impossible to call the DHSC dispute with the little we know but looking at the DHSC's track record in these situations I wouldn't say 50/50 is fair.

Can't you just ignore Beechknot or filter? We all know it's meaningless drivel but the constant replies double, treble and quadruple the trivia.

Some of us have tried to get him/her to stop but they won't, the best we can do to keep some semblance of flow on here is to let them talk to themselves.

I doubt it CO, if anything the DHSC winning the dispute would merely prove that they did recklessly toss away billions in tax payers money without the necessary due diligence to dodgy outfits. Clawing £100m back out of the tens of billions blown would not be a vote winner.

They either lost interest or realised that the macroeconomic outlook is pretty dire and so ploughing millions into buying shares of another company might not be prudent at this time? I imagine their acquisition strategy has had the foot off the accelerator recently.

From what I remember the buying stopped around the outbreak of the war in Ukraine?

Sorry I'm rather tired, I read that as the only chance of a recovery (in amongst all the talk of novacyt being finished) rather than a spike. You're probably right on the spike front.

'The only hope of a spike now is a positive outcome of the DHSC case. Any guesses on the timeframe of that?'

What are you talking about? Do you mean in the short term or ever? The only hope is that the management are able to effectively execute the near on £100m (or £90m - LTIP payment) cash pile over the next couple of years to build novacyt into a credible diagnostics business, leveraging the relationships its built through the covid pandemic.

All this talk of existential crisis is ridiculous. Sure it's more than a bit s*** right now but I'd worry more about the companies going into this recession with no funding right now in terms of financial viability.

News flow has very much moved on though from covid, especially as Boris is gone. If it’s really just for that reason, to be seen to be doing something, as in to save face, do you think it’s possible they might just settle soon and be done with it?

Yes I do volunteering and the Age UK stuff I mentioned.

I get that you are altruistic but if you take a step back you'll realise there's far worthier causes for your time and energy. I'm happy to suggest a few... what about volunteering at Alcoholic's Anonymous? Maybe work with age uk to help combat loneliness in the elderly? You could do some face to face befriending, it's very rewarding.

Or if losing money is something that's close to your heart then may I suggest one of the many excellent gambling charities?

I highly doubt it's Michael Saylor/Microstrategy - dumping their entire holding at this stage would not only seriously hurt the reputation of Microstrategy but also make Michael Saylor himself one of the hated men in America. And even if they were to be forced to sell a portion of their holding they aren't going to dump the entire lot at this stage.

MSTR hold 130000 BTC at $30650 average, I don't get why the MSTR share price is higher than before they first started buying bitcoin (afaiw the rest of the business isn't exactly thriving to make up for it).

CS as it turns out we appear to be on an almost identical page.
I too don't believe any of this strange Wakefield narrative, for me he's out of his depth and/or disinterested.

Same re the DHSC. My thesis is that either this gets settled out of court in our favour within six months or it goes to court and drags on giving the company roughly 2 years to turn things around and start showing progress. In the latter case we'll still see the share price recover if progress is being made even with the dispute hanging over us.

I too will be looking to sell on a share price recovery unless there's clear evidence that management have turned a corner and have what it takes to develop novacyt into the leading diagnostics business they so often talk about.

Well in my opinion fundamentally the company wouldn't be in a hugely different position even if DA was an extremely talented CEO and had immediately started to replace covid revenue with new revenue streams. What would be hugely different is the share price and sentiment in that situation, but not the financial position.

So yes to a degree that's certainly what I'm hoping for CS, in fact I feel he only needs to prove to be reasonably competent for things to turn around here significantly and I find it unfathomably difficult to come to the conclusion that literally nothing is going on behind the scenes to which will soon be announced.

Got to hope or get out, eh?

He's also in the very rare situation of being able to take his time. Not defending him because performance has been very poor but the financial hit from the snail's pace progress is pretty minor currently, if the new products start selling as we hope and revenue ramps up in H2 then sentiment and outlook here will shift pretty much immediately.

Meanwhile there's plenty of companies on AIM currently with share prices imploding due to funds running out and BOD silence. At least there is time to turn things around here.