The latest Investing Matters Podcast with Jean Roche, Co-Manager of Schroder UK Mid Cap Investment Trust has just been released. Listen here.
It looks like OAM’s 5m share sale yesterday was snapped up in one go by someone - a little stake building? We’ll see. I also wonder if the annual results will be delayed a little whilst this plays out....Come on guys, just a little £50m investment from a partner in a convertible loan note and I’ll be perfectly happy.
Bit of a confused RNS. Larbey says “I am pleased that Bango is able to apply additional capital to progress the integration of DOCOMO Digital. The stronger balance sheet will assist in landing the next wave of major customers for our market-leading Digital Vending Machine technology”. So is it related to the integration or new business - which is it? And why would a stronger B/S be required for the integration to complete?
I’m sure this is all innocuous and will be explained early July - and after all, Larbey also says that progress has been “excellent”. Clearer comms would help though.
Just on Odey selling another 1m shares, none of us can be sure why but I’d note they’ve been selling down their holding in another tech stock, Bango. Yes it may be related to Odey’s internal problems but equally it could be a corporate reappraisal of tech stocks in their portfolio in general, or another reason. And if they did want to exit, I bet their 49m shares would be fairly swiftly snapped up if AVO can just get the funding sorted. It’d certainly allow us lot to buy loads more shares at a ridiculously cheap price.
A second conversion of the French loan into shares. When this was originally announced I naively thought the conversion into shares would only take place at the new maturity date. But no - they’ve effectively just converted £100k of the loan into shares at the current crazily low share price, thanks to the protection mechanism afforded them by AVO. No doubt they’ll now sell these in the open market - and who is to stop them repeating tranche after tranche until their loan is recouped early? Perhaps they had no alternative to this structure but I suspect this is yet more mismanagement by the company, which I’m getting heartily sick of. More fund raising is supposed to arrive this month.....tick tock.
What a curious RNS last night. The 12m warrants were awarded back in December “subject to the Company being granted the relevant share authorities at an Extraordinary General Meeting to be scheduled in the first half of 2023”. Now it says it has the relevant authorities and no EGM is required. Just a mistake or did something happen in the meantime?
It was a mid-price (“Unknown”) in the transactions data so not clear they were two buys. Also two identical transactions of a very uneven number of shares with expenses deducted from one strongly suggests a transfer. But certainly there does seem to be more activity in the last few days. Not sure the scale of it warrants the drop in SP. Come on AVO, your management of this situation has been shambolic and reflects very poorly; get on with it.
Spoke too soon, with Odey having offloaded almost 2m shares.
An updated Form 8 from Odey Asset Management which shows they’ve sold 849,156 shares of their 50m or so. As it happens, yesterday’s transactions showed what was clearly a transfer of those exact shares to another party (same price, just expenses taken off), so hopefully that’s just a pre-arranged swap of little concern.
I’m not sure Crispin Odey’s troubles directly affect his holdings here, let’s hope not. The less uncertainty the better.
Two months next weekend since the strategic review started - plenty of time to have seen if any potential partners are interested. The fact that the company hasn’t said “there’s no-one, so we’re going to list on NASDAQ ourselves” makes me think/hope something might be brewing.
The debt plus interest on Kor will be repaid steadily over a four year period, if it’s the same as Yan. There will be penalties for early repayment so that’s unlikely to happen. So those saying the debt will quickly be repaid are not correct. (Of course *net* debt will quickly reduce as the cash builds up). The question really is what will the company do with the growing cash pile? Either put it towards Dugbe or another new mine, would be my guess.
Some of you guys crack me up, with your five zillion ounces, super low AISCs, debt gone by tomorrow, the price of gold at $2500 and doubling of the SP in five seconds. But yeah, positive step today, probably priced in for now.
RNS out. Still exploring more funds through the CLN route plus further non-dilutive options. Said to be “optimistic “ but no guarantees. Real seat of the pants stuff here, I’m pleased they’re focused on non-dilutive options but just can’t get my head around why they’re taking it to the wire. I continue to think they may still be waiting on a loan, but who knows?
Popped in to have a look at what’s going on. Usual bedwetters moaning. So so boring. Plug Power, FCEL, Ballard etc all 30-45% down over the last 6 months. AFC down 20%. Stick that in your pipe, derampers.
Starting its climb back up as it usually does towards the end of each half year. Would be nice to see it back to the 260p it reached previously before its inevitable retrace.
It’s been six weeks since the review kicked off. By now they should be clear whether there are any potential partners or investors out there, going onto the next stage. Hopefully we’ll be given a hint very soon, perhaps at the same time as a funding update (which surely must come this week).
They have about 150 actually. It’s not unexpected that some people may have been asked to leave as the company’s been very clear about cutting back its cost base - and as it emerges from its R&D phase that doesn’t sound unreasonable. So ok have you got any real info or are you just scaremongering?
Iwant, where have you got that info from, about salaries not being paid for the third time and a move to remote working?
(There’s nothing wrong per se with suppliers taking shares in lieu of cash, btw. It’s not uncommon).
You would have thought some of the companies selling existing proton systems would be interested in LIGHT as a defensive measure - because if it can be produced for $50m rather than 2x, 3x, 4x that, then potentially they’d be blown out of the water.
*funders of last resort*
In terms of further cash being raised, the Form 8.3s are revealing about who has real skin in the game here. Odey, Seamus Mulligan and Mrs Renhua Zhang (Liquid Harmony) have between them 127.7m shares and 55.14m warrants at 25p. Just getting back to 25p share price would be a gain for them collectively of £23m from here. Getting to 37p (roughly equal to the £200m invested in LIGHT to date) would be an increase of £44.9m (including the warrants). One would hope they are prepared to invest more, as “founders of last resort”, until a more permanent solution can be found. Assuming they are able, and haven’t lost faith.