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B2HS2L - fully ware of global threats - I do own other shares!

But Novacyt has gradually lost altitude over many months and finally stalled, nose dived and went into one hell of a spin yesterday. Luckily, the pilot asleep at the wheel awoke just before it hit the ground. Control has been regained and we're on the way back up. How far today I don't know - but certainly enough to clear the trees.

The falling knife has finally hit the chopping block. At 180p the mcap = 70.6m x 1.8 = 128m, but with 101m cash back you are just paying 27m

Wouldn’t be surprised if the whole board loads up today. I would if I had anything spare.

Yes, parts of the rns yesterday were a bit washy but results were in line with expectation and the cash was secure.

The global surveillance strategy was not the trendy oncology that everyone is now looking for but we are experts in surveillance and infectious diseases not cancer – remember: Who was first to SARS? Who was first to Ebola? Who was first to Covid?

If you were creating a surveillance system for your country who yah gonna ask?

Who are the WHO going to ask?

There will be literally billions spent on this and we are sure to get a slice of the pie being experts in the field.
Don’t remember this day as the day you could’ve, should’ve loaded up.

I have a feeling there is plenty more news to come..

IMO only DYOR

Brilliant- revenues 2m short of expectations but money coming in and not being squandered as some were suggesting. Cash is king and we have over £100m in the bank - a substantial uplift.

All the rumours around Ajan and MRHA investigations were unfounded - no skeletons in the closet.

Likely to see traders and shorters move on now as the uncertainty diminishes and excitement dies down. So, expect some volatility as they exit.

Then wait for the updated broker forecasts. I'm expecting these to be very bullish. We are currently priced at PE of around 3.5, which is simply ludicrous.

With the uncertainty now gone, this should at last start to bring in ii to replace traders and we can look forward to calmer waters and the long slow march back up.

New outbreaks, dispute resolution or M&A in line with growth strategy could, of course, still see further step changes in SP at any time.

The strategy is sound. Focus on tests that the market wants. Don't waste money developing brilliant tests that can't be sold. Don't focus on unreliable UK Gov. Expand direct sales into adjacent markets and use cheapet distributor networks elsewhere.

Stay in bed with NGOs. The pandemic will linger and have greatest impact on the unvacciinated, largely in the third wold. Developing countries and WHO will now start to invest in surveillance programs to detect and contain future viruses. We look to be positioning ourselves for some lucrative contract bids here.

We remain top end on quality, with a focus on research and scientific community - so the gold standard reputation and products used as a benchmark for all others will remain.

So will I.

@WBAFC you're at it again. I told you before to stop it, as others have too. Everyone can see through your game. You've switched from all and woe 'the BoD is rubbish - I've lost all my money' to over-bullish and unrealistic expectations in the hope of some drop following results.

As the thread heading says, it's going to be a massive week for Novacyt and £98m revenue, or there abouts, is massive enough. I don't know of any other company that is predicted to achieve revenues of over 50% of their mcap. And if that weren't enough, look at the margins being made on that sum - nothing compares.

Some are clearly betting on a drop following results and will do everything in their power to achieve their goals.

On the contrary, I believe that if we achieve near expected revenues and have other positive news, following such a draught and so much scaremongering over the last few weeks, the market will be reassured and this may be the start of the re-rate for which we've beenwaiting.

An R&D update in February or early March should then further propel this back towards where it should have been all along.

And, of course, as we all know, other positive news (dispute resolution, M&A activity, large contracts or tie-ups) could drop at any time, which is why we hold on through thick and thin.

Our patience will eventually be rewarded:

"Time in the market - not timing the market!"

Good luck all LTH

@ Crimson - I agree, this is a good one for the SIPP. they are forward looking and are investing in eco build materials which come on line in 2023 I think.

"As such, the Board believes that the Group has a clear path to deliver strong shareholder returns into the longer term."

Perhaps, @Aldebaran, you've not yet heard of point of care diagnostics nor healthcare screening. Add ithem to your list of mega-trends!

Hear, hear, Kaeren.

Concerted group doing their thing of distraction and spreading fear, panic even. They are using figures off a chart and by stating them as fact and repeating them are trying to get into investors psyche. Shout 250 or 220 if only to get it down another 10p and buy back in.

The chart is a rollercoaster, and it has been going up and down whilst the facts remain the same. That is due to a degree of uncertainty, fear and changing sentiment only.

Our decisions as investors should be based on fundamentals and not sentiment, as the later can change in an instant. Another one from Warren Buffet:

“If you aren’t willing to own a stock for 10 years, don’t even think about owning it for 10 minutes”

We know that revenue will be very close to £100m this year; that’s phenomenal for a company this size, and they have no debt and plenty of cash to weather any storms and to build out the business. Plus, further windfalls can come at any point. We know that UK Gov have put all sorts of obstacles in Novacyt’s way for unfathomable reasons but that the company have, again, been agile and taken this in their stride. They are expanding very successfully in the private sector and overseas markets.

Yes, DA is probably not overly focussed on the SP at the moment – he will be concentrating on product development and driving sales. The tradeshow this week is critical in building the kind of long-term business links for which investors strive.

By all means use the dips to gain bargain entry points but don’t so anything silly – stay focused on the fundamentals and the long-term value. The results will be out next week and after that (probably Feb) an R&D update. Better times are ahead for sure. The more we respond to the background noise the louder it becomes.

All IMO, DYOR, GL LTH

Look at the job title: Global Key Account Manager

i.e. responsible for some of the larger, international accounts.

Then look at the timing - December

We may be looking in the wrong direction here. In my view, any US specific appointments for Novacyt Inc. are more likely to be made locally (i.e. hire Americans). Pure speculation but this could be to handle the larger accounts that are not UK/US/Germany (i.e. rest of world)- so perhaps India? Pure speculation, of course.

Ref wage bills - we are at around 250 employees now so ,with on costs, would expect this to be around 4-5m depending on BoD salary/packages. Relatively small really (considering someone's bonus!), as is the cap-ex at around just 1% of IBITDA.

I think it is well worth having another look at the year end update from last January. They were slated for the vague forecast but considering we are now on our third variant since then (Kent, Delta,Omicron) plus the DHSC defaulting - how accurately could they have really predicted with so many unknowns? Yes, they could have plucked a figure from the sky, but then they would have had to constantly revise it. They were actually quite bullish in the language using the word "strong" three times in the outlook paragraph. So why did the SP tank? Perhaps it was more to do with the outlandish revenue forecasts that had been made on boards such as this and twitter in the run up to results.

This year, I think that investors have their feet more firmly on the ground and are looking at the guidance from the company itself rather than from speculateors, which it is currently stating as being 98m.

Will they be able to give an accurate forecast at this stage for the whole of 2022? I'm not sure. But hopefully, they can put some flesh onto some recent company developments.

Any product developments, however, I will see as a bonus, as this is unlikely to be an R&D update. As I have said before, these are spaced approximately every 5 months so that would bring us to February and this view is reaffirmed by Kaerens post from a few days ago suggesting CoPrep may be ready for release by then.

So, in summary, the lower our expectations, the more likely we will see a rise at the end of Jan and this board is not really soundingtoo bullish, so perhapsthat bodes well!

My view is we still need to be far more patient and we will see positive developments throughout 2022 that show the company is making consistent progress in terms of steadily growing the business, and that sales are not about to drop off a cliff - rather than us expecting some big bang on results day.

We had some pretty tough head winds in 2021 and, whilst one can never predict further bad news, Novacyt has been more resilient than most small caps would have been in its place. My eyes will be on cash in bank and if this is going in the right direction, rather than being gradually depleted, then my outlook will remain positive and I shall look forward to sunnier time

@soder et al

I completely agree. We should be happy with around £100m revenue for 2021.

Remember, this figure is pretty much private sales only. The H1 revenues were £40m net of the UNICEF/Ukraine contact. £50m for H2 will be going some considering covid rates had dropped in the summer, travel into the winter (which is generally lower anyway) was further restricted and the CDA banned the sale of most of our products in the UK. Things picked up in December but these orders, as others have said, will go into next year's figures.

The only thing that is holding this share back is the future outlook.

As I said in my post last night, which has mysteriously vanished, moving from covid revenues to non-covid will not be like flicking a switch overnight.

At the AGM, Novacyt forecast revenues from covid testing to halve year on year generally but said that they expect to increase their share of this remaining 50% (I assume this is because they now have a superior product with Promate and an embedded sales team). So, we could assume from this that sales for 2022 could be anywhere from between £50 and £100m. This is a large range.

However, that was last June. They said it was difficult to predict at the time and we've had a resurgence of Delta and an explosion of Omicron since then.

Everything is pointing to longevity PCR testing for the foreseeable future (at least 2022 and going into 2023). From TATA newly (December) investigating in this sphere to the latest Avacta RNS (my sympathies to any shareholders there):

"We believe COVID-19 testing remains a long-term commercial opportunity."

I recon that there is ample opportunity to even increase revenues further from covid testing, especially overseas where fewer are vaccinated, in the short term. Of course, post the emergency response period things will taper off eventually but this will be years and not months, which will give us ample opportunity to build out the company and replace any lost revenue with non-covid sales in the areas of transplant, respiratory and infectious disease (as per the company 's development plan) as well as the extension of clinical use certification and Promate technology into their existing portfolio of 550 odd RUO tests.

This is all without the windfall of any further significant WHO/UNICEF orders or a successful DHSC resolution.

The investment proposition here at the current price is easily compelling enough and does not, IMO, require overinflated (and possibly counterproductive) revenue forecasts for year 2021 which we pretty much know on the nail.

Good luck all LTH.

(Sorry if you have already read pretty much the same in my deleted post from late last night. )

Well, well - what happened to the £8 thread and all the related posts from last night?

@P100 - did you report yourself and have it removed? I was looking forward to your compelling response to my long-term investment case.

PCR covid revenues will continue to play a large part in the development of this company to £1bn midcap as it looks beyond the pandemic emergency/war footing - I'm looking forward to their updated guidance for 2022

#shenanigans

Yes, one certainly can't help notice it when reading the Telegraph. First, it was very soft touch but now more specific to cruising. It looks like they have survived the Omicron attack due to good management putting in a gold standard testing regime - well done!

This has become real value/recovery stock at these prices. 250 was a an excellent buy in price but included considerable risk at that stage. I had kept my SIPP holding but bought in on two other accounts this morning as felt the risk reward equation has changed in SAGA's favour and see this being well over 300 in the run up to results. If all goes well, and we don't see further more dangerous variants raise their heads, we could see this move quite quickly and even go back to the SP seen last summer in the medium term.

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Belated Happy New Year All!

@Sainsmith asked for ‘an uplifting New Year’s message from Hillseeker’ and sorry, I have been slow to act. I have been taking a back seat, as I felt the BB had been taken over for long periods by those wanting to distract, simply moan or had other spurious agenda. [Thanks to Kaeren, Wilson et al for their sterling efforts in keeping things sane and all the other researchers for their continuous rooting, keeping us abreast with various links.]

And the truth is, that I don’t want to post if I feel I have nothing new to add. Despite being heavily invested (according to Larry’s latest tweet, I find I own a larger proportion than some of the smaller institutional holders – which says more about the lack of ii support than the size of my holding, and I’m sure there are other much larger private holders), I know little more about what’s going on than anyone else on this board. But, if I can’t post an uplifting message of sorts for the New Year, then I shouldn’t really still be here. So, here goes:

We all have the same information - it is a question of how we interpret it and how we handle the risk/reward equation and, of course, how patient we can be with our investment.

This last point is critical. We’ve all heard the phrase “time flies if you are enjoying yourself” – two minutes watching an exciting film compared to the same time holding a heavy weight at arm’s length – but equally important is how occupied you are. Would you prefer serving ****tails in a busy bar or watching one customer making their drink last until closing time?

What’s my point? Well, many here are watching daily, hourly, or even minute by minute fluctuations in the SP and analysing every bit of news. Meanwhile, those within the company are working flat out (and I really mean full pace, and have been for some considerable time) to deal with the rapidly changing situation they keep finding themselves in, whilst also trying to develop and expand the business.

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Here’s what we know, or the story so far. They’ve had some good luck followed by some bad luck followed by more good with a douse of further bad. The good luck is largely of their own making, the bad luck seems largely out of their hands.
The first good luck was being nimble enough to seize the opportunity and capitalise on being first to market. Large contracts were secured, and revenues were used to pay down all debt and, by buying IT-IS, to secure vertical integration and move into equipment provision (Q16/Q32 aka Mygo/MygoPro) to go alongside the tests (sell the printers/razors that need the cartridges/blades). This was a master stroke that gave us control of critical IP (securing it away from potential competition), moved us into the PoC market and opened future doors for the rest of our 500 plus PCR products, which are currently mainly RUO but could become far more widely used B2B, if not consumer, clinical products.

Then came the bad luck. We secured even larger contracts with the DHSC that were soon to be reneged upon. The losses from unpaid goods have since been quantified, however, and what we have heard in recent months reassures me that the fault does not lie with Novacyt, who could have done little to change the situation. It appears to be a market wide circumvention of British diagnostics and an inexplicable favouring of products from a dictatorial, genocidal regime that threatens to ‘smash our heads’ and whose record, from the environment to human rights and worker welfare, is pitiful. [Well done Neale Hanvey MP for your support in parliament – although he doesn’t appear to know about Novacyt, yet!]. Indeed, the UK Governments action is completely inexplicable - speculation from brown envelopes for the boys to the avoidance of accusation of such brown envelops due to the (possibly counterproductive pressure) from GLP perhaps - who knows? - but whatever the logic, truth will out eventually, and I believe we will receive our financial dues in the end.

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Then came more good luck. Not only do we now own these small and portable machines (with considerable capacity for their size – oh, and they look good, which is important when one is selling something!), but we have an innovated R&D team who have adapted the PCR test into anew product, Promate™. This new version of the PCR (and importantly this patented technology is transferable to their other tests) requires far fewer processes, less technically qualified personnel and no biohazard cabinet. From this, Versalab was then born – put a Q in a case together with Promate™ (or put even more Qs in a trailer or several trailers if scale is required) and go literally anywhere (from the jungle of Borneo and remote third world med-stations to the busy airports or an Amazon warehouse). This together with their existing connections and gold standard reputation allowed them to become first choice suppliers for many of the best emerging test providers. These test providers, like us, will have been struggling to keep up with the huge demand caused by the sequence of covid waves of various variants whilst battling constantly with the changing regulatory environment, but will also have been developing their strategies and honing business plans for the ‘post Covid pandemic’, emerging PoC markets. Personal screening, community diagnostic hubs, ongoing travel requirements, corporate welfare - this future market is fast developing and is going to be massive. This is why I say ‘the future is Novacyt – Novacyt is the future’. [How much we are involved with Tata we don’t know – but they wouldn’t be investing in this sphere at this ‘late stage’ if they didn’t think there was longevity in PoC diagnostics.]

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What really impressed me though is that, faced with suddenly losing the DHSC deal of the century, how quickly they rustled up £50m of private business in the first half of the year. £10m was the Ukraine UNICEF contract, so 50m second half will be good considering the constraints imposed by the CDA and that anything ordered in the final few weeks of 2021 will be forward orders for 2022. So, with PCR testing levels currently so high but with our main sales in the private sector where winter travel has been reduced, I will be very surprised if FY is under £100m revenue but, equally, I think the chance of being so far over this figure to warrant an upgrade to estimates (i.e. more than 10-15%) is also slim. And would you really want to put out announcements so close together for a few percent; it seems a bit desperate – why not wait three weeks? Also, if you look at R&D update spacing, these are approximately every five months or so (clearly dependent on the timing of advancements), which would take us to around February for the next, so we really are being impatient. It takes time to develop, trial, approve, patent and manufacture new products.
I’ve barely scratched the surface here. There is so much for the company’s management to consider when every day they wake up to new news – more variants to monitor, more regulatory hoops to jump. What is the competition doing? Should we buy them? (Will they try and buy us?) Which other companies to buy/merge/tie-up? Who to do deals with first, how many international trade fairs to attend (remember we did five in the autumn and now can’t cope with demand), which test to develop initially, how to upscale without tying in capital, how to ensure supply of reagents, where to focus our next gen R&D, how to be on UNCIEF/WHO’s good books (must not appear to pushy) …

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I do appreciate that the handover at the AGM was a little strange, to say the least, and it would have been nice for DA to say hello – but he would have had other priorities at the time possibly and a couple of weeks had passed he had missed the moment – so is it really that big a deal? A bit rude perhaps after giving them our votes. I don’t get RNS every day from other stocks I own – but there no one expects them, some of the boards are like ghost towns even. Doesn’t meant the shares won’t do well eventually. What we are looking for is how the BoD develops the business and, considering what has been flung at them, I believe they have done pretty well so far. If they focus on the business, the SP will eventually follow – I love this Geff Bezos clip previously posted https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msFwJ5xpg_g
“As the stock price was going the wrong way everything inside the company was going the right way – we didn’t need to go to capital markets; we didn’t need more money… …we just needed to continue to progress”
We have three weeks until results and at some point, expectation is going to build. Of course, at any time before then, or after, sudden news (good or bad) can drop. From the latest innovation, M&A activity, large contract (TATA?) or corporate tie ups (think BBC or Amazon?) or even the DHSC resolution (who knows?) – to not such good reading such as competitor moves or whatever barrier our UK Government can think up next.
That brings us back to the reward risk equation – IMO, it is the level of risk that is keeping ii at bay. The ship is too small and the water too choppy, when things calm and the direction is clearer, they will come aboard in numbers and try and plunder our loot.
I may have most of my eggs in the wrong basket, and they are just about to get crushed by a Sherman tank (sorry I don’t know the names of the new Chinese tank varieties). Alternatively, those eggs may each be about to hatch a perfect little gosling that will endlessly lay those proverbial, golden eggs.
I’m hoping it’s the later and we’re still heading up that £1bn plus mountain that lays some way ahead. Unfortunately, the fog refuses to clear and sounds of scavenging predators are annoying to the extreme, but I have a feeling the cloud will disperse in the weeks ahead and all will become clear again – sunny days to look forward to and the prospect of our £15 zoom party. It could be sooner than we are expecting in these down times.
DYOR this is not investment advice, all IMO – mainly intuition, experience and gut feeling, so I could have called it just as wrong as the next man!
[Footnote: Regarding other investments of mine, I may be just about to put an offer in on the purchase of a public house (be greedy when others are fearful - lol). If I am successful with this new venture and we do also hit SP15 – we can forget the Zoom Party and you can all come round my new place for a drink on me – is that good enough inspiration for you Saintsmith?]

There certainly seems a high degree of correlation with our equipment and tests. The pictures certainly show the Mygo-Pro/Q32 and the test times/flows indicate possible use of Promate plus mention of 3 gene test. Of course, there are other suppliers of similar3G tests.

Why would Tata want to pretend that this is all their own invention, whoever the supplier?

Simple answer - they want to quickly become India's national test provider of choice. This one airport is just a pilot programme to demonstrate capability. They are obviously thinking much bigger. The trouble is, they know that the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, is extremely nationalistic. Hence the need to refer to India's governmental bodies and keep it all looking as if developed in-house.

Even if our involvement is restricted to the manufacture of Q32s under licence, this could be a significant development for Novacyt who will, of course, be happy to play along and keep it all under wraps with NDAs/OEM agreements.

No new could indeed be good news!

@The Thinker - that's exactly what I though with Novacyt. Every time I thought it had reached the bottom and bought in, it dropped some more!
The reason I bottled and sold last Friday is that when I zoomed the chart out to a longer term view, I saw that this had dropped to well below 600p in January last year. Not saying that ist will go down that far again, but with relentless lock down news, this could still go a lot further before bouncing and so I did not want to take the risk. I'll probably buy back in in January once we see how much lockdown there is and whether there are further restrictions on travel imposed by UK gov or other countries.

GL to all who have held on or just bought in.

Bottled it and took a small loss this morning to sell back out. Just feel that Bo Jo will do all it takes to keep things going until after Christmas and then wham - more restrictions to save the NHS

typical - it then rose for the rest of the day, and may do so a bit more, but ultimately this could be heading back to the levels we saw when covid first reared it's ugly head if hols are called off again - skiing already decimated.

Not just JP Morgan. Six analysts have rated this stock with either hold or buy - target price above 240 on average:

"Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of GBX 245.83 ($3.21)."

Full article here:
https://etfdailynews.com/news/ibstock-lonibst-stock-passes-below-50-day-moving-average-of-203-19/