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“Anyhow, supplied my sources, and sick of arguing it.”
Welcome to the club. No matter how much relevant knowledge you have, the logic of your argument or the quantity and quality of the evidence you can produce to support it you will never, ever get Bfd/T4G to back down. It’s just not worth trying.
“Arb was just hyped at the right time. No real fundamentals behind that”
That’s absolutely not true. It was a profitable business with a very strong balance sheet and was in a great position to grow into a much bigger and much more profitable business.
Unfortunately a series of bad strategic decisions, some better ones that were just poorly timed and a crash in the price of bitcoin led it to where it is today.
You should be grateful Brew is posting as this board was pretty dead over the days recently that he and other doubters weren’t posting. Hardly any of you has anything to say about Qbt so it seems you just wait for sceptical posters to contribute so you can attack them with childish drivel or if they aren’t posting just bait them in the hope that they do.
That’s social media for you I guess. No content just juvenile bile.
Yuri - I think your numbers are iffy so no wonder you are so pessimistic. Distribution costs were only £327m for FY24 and admin (including marketing) was £372m - so both much lower than the numbers you cite and with more savings to come.
Hi Ocean,
The £100m cash outflow you asked about is described and detailed in the report.
The actual cash flow of the operations was broadly break-even. This was £130m worse than last year almost entirely due to the inventories which went down around £100m last year (as they tightened up on this) and up nearly £30m this year (to support the US DC).
So this is the main reason cash flow is so much worse than last year.
The £100m total outflow though doesn’t come from the operations (as I said l, that was breakeven) but from capex (£65m), EBT shares purchased (£15m) and net interest and lease costs (£23m) and a few other small ins and outs. In total these were broadly the same as last year - again pointing to the change in inventory as the main cause of cash deteriorating.
FY2025 will be better because of lower capex and hopefully better operating cash flow (with lower costs and better inventory) but probably not enough to give positive overall cash flow (though just the FCF bit ought to be - as they’ve said).
By the way most of the £50m cost of closure of the DC you mentioned did not impact cash. It was mostly just a write off of the assets held on the balance sheet so just hit profit not cash. The cash cost of the closure was less than £10m.
“Can't imagine it will be reported in the June final results”
I agree, not in the reported numbers but surely it would be mentioned under post balance sheets events? Mind you, as I said, it also warrants an RNS before that anyway in my view if they started to generate any revenue.
TTMBTC - yes, I think it was a refreshingly balanced post which is always good to see.
On the revenue point it is generally recognised when it is earned - not when payment is acoreceived which could be much later or (like with airlines and advanced ticket sales) much earlier.
So any earnings should be recognised immediately when each BTC is mined (obviously a share of it if part of a pool).
Like you I can’t see how live testing can be carried out unless they are mining for real as part of that test. I also agree that any revenue generated should lead to an RNS.
Someone with better technical understanding might be able to suggest how live testing can prove a method works whilst still not mining but I haven’t seen a good answer to this when this has been asked before - though what Woody says could make sense - namely they are allowed to mine by third parties but in return those parties would retain call the income as the price of that cooperation?
Broke - I agree that liquidity is not an issue yet but also agree that it looks to be possibly heading that way.
I’ve just checked and the £75m of RCF that was reported as not being extended will need to be repaid in March 2025. That won’t help matters along with (as I believe) any overall cash outflow over the next year.
I don’t think the company themselves have confirmed the situation with the RCF though? Besides there still should enough leeway so long as they can turn things around quickly enough and keep a tight rein on working capital in the meantime.
“I can only assume it was one man band companies as no proper company would use an unqualified person to do their numbers.”
Actually something I agree with you SCB! Problem is I never said I was unqualified.
It shouldn’t matter what I am or am not and I doubt anybody is remotely interested. I only mention such things because you keep throwing out lies about me and I don’t go into more detail as that’s my business and I would just come across as a dick probably anyway (cue obvious reply).
If you or anybody disagrees with what I write then happy to debate sensibly but just attacking me rather than the content of what I write is just boring and clogs up the board.
Happy - Free Cash outflow in FY23 was £63m but overall cash outflow was just over £100m. The difference is mainly interest, EBT share purchases and lease payments all of which are excluded from FCF. These will be similar in 2024 (or a little less maybe) so again overall cash flow will probably be £30 to £40m less than FCF.
This assumes no new capital raised or repaid (not sure offhand when the £75m RCF that hasn’t been extended will be repaid).
“Oh come on Heaxm - you stated you have done the numbers for companies and advised them... None of which should be done without qualification (numbers) and experience (owning and running companies)”
I’ll try and make it simple for you - again.
I have prepared accounts and written commentaries on them.
I have not advised companies only the CEO etc of the companies I’ve worked for and prepared the accounts for.
I am not a qualified accountant nor have I ever owned (or run) a business but neither is necessary for what I have done.
It would be nice if you could challenge me on the content of what I have written rather than just throw out childish, petulant and irrelevant insults.
For example to you think overall cash flow will be positive in FY25 and why?
I thought my summary of the financials was balanced in the circumstances but if there was any element you think was unfair or wrong then let’s hear it?
Broke - I am not a qualified accountant nor a company advisor as SCB keeps telling everybody. As you say understanding FCF is investing 101 so perhaps you’d like to answer Happy’s question - I already have but he seems to have ignored my answer.
“It's not a weak promise. And how will overall cash flow remain negative if FREE Cash Flow is positive?”
It’s weak because there is no mention of any profit expectation for FY25 and a positive FCF should be a bare minimum. It seems a headline they’ve put in for people (like you) to latch on to and keep interested. And it worked. They could have said we expect negative overall cash flow for FY25 or another loss as their one headline but I suspect neither of those would have gone down so well?
The reason overall cash flow is likely to be negative is that FCF excludes share purchases, interest and lease payments.
So unless FCF is over around £40m then overall cash flow will probably be negative.
Results look poor to me overall but with a few positive bits of encouragement.
They missed the already downgraded revenue target albeit only just (by less than half a percent).
They did hit EBITDA guidance though - just sneaking in at the bottom of the range.
Cash flow was very disappointing (over £100m overall outflow) though part of that was the understandable increase in inventory in the US. It means a sharply increased net debt position and the mention of fixed assets to promote its balance strength is to me a hint of desperation. Overall they say FCF will be positive for 2025 (helped by reducing capex) but this weak promise suggests to me overall cash flow will remain negative as will profits.
Talking of profits, they made a huge overall loss of just under £138m not helped by chunky impairments. One bright spot though was that the RevB investment made a £3.1m contribution to profits. Also the focus on costs should help them get back on track in time.
Overall though the results look at the bad end of expectations and the expected recovery seems to be pushed further in to the future.
I said simply how I interpreted the comment. He said ‘go for’ or ‘got at’ which to me is the drawing down part. He never said ‘used’ in his original post - unless I’m going word blind.
I’m not defending him just explaining why I didn’t think it needed challenging. Of course if he actually meant used despite his wording then that would be as silly as saying there was £290m left in the first place - especially as nobody ever gave a decent reason of why they drew it all down and incurred additional charges in doing so.
And if anybody thinks I look silly saying what I do then so be it. I’m not bothered what anonymous strangers on a bb think about me especially those that I have a very low opinion of anyway. If I got their approval then I probably would be concerned :-)
See, you just can’t help it.
Incidentally the only way the comment was wrong about the RCF (given how it was phrased) was that it said there was only a few million to be ‘got at’ (or something similar) when actually it has all been ‘got at’ already as it is fully drawn down. It hasn’t all been spent or otherwise ‘used’/allocated though - and we don’t know how much has been (it’s not just a case of simply looking at the cash balance).
So in my view the comment was at best correct (bar a few million) and at worst ambiguous in its meaning.