Member Info for Jiving

Whowrotethis, not sure if that is a response to my post or an earlier. As an investor since IPO I am only to well aware that NFX is on the main market which is why I added the description smaller company sector to that of AIM in the sentence "..UK AIM/smaller company sector.."

Regarding the 75% issue. There has never been any hint that Elphick & Co intend taking the company private, if you look at the new shareholders they are senior intl businessmen with good reputations, why would they wreck them screwing small shareholders over a minority stake? Also many of them are involved in the private equity/investment fund sector where they cannot afford to develop a bad reputation vis minority shareholders because at various times they will need to access the public markets. IMO this type of behaviour is generally the province of dodgy desperados with poor reputations & no reputations to lose.

Also the likely existence of a 75%+ block is actually a positive in corporate finance terms. First, it enables Elphick to offer strategic investors who participate in a bidding contest a guarantee that if an EGM is required to approve a deal that he has the 75%+ votes to pass the appropriate resolutions. Second, it actually protects our interest in getting a deal over the line, by ensuring that a disgruntled strategic investor who has lost out in the bidding contest, cannot buy a 25%+1 stake in order to block a successful competing bid for the project.

Just to clarify, I did not use the description "insider" but used the milder description "suspicious" with specific reference to the broker warrant transaction, an issue I flagged at the time btw. I have never thought there was anything dodgy about the current BOD, who seem to be making the best of a difficult corporate situation & gradually edging us towards a partnership. However, I am generally sceptical about the roles, intentions & actions of many of those involved in the UK AIM/smaller company sector like the brokers, advisors, analysts & MMs.

Well I also disagree Soup, the Orphan Drug decision may not be the only forthcoming news, we are running low on funds & it would make sense for any new raise to come after the Orphan Drug news whenever it was announced. CMC Markets were responsible for the October raise, hence the warrants & may be involved in the next one.

Indeed Soup but brokers are also often in the company news loop, so there is a justifiable question mark over the warrant exercise - particularly when they had so long left to exercise.

Exactly Soup, the exercise of the broker warrants @0.05p on 14 April looks very suspicious in the light of today's trading.

"We will now progress to applying for US FDA orphan drug designation. Given the EMA's positive opinion, we are hopeful that the US FDA would conclude similarly. We have shared the EMA's opinion with potential future licensing partners and will provide further updates in due course as appropriate."

Brilliant news, hopefully a partnership announcement soon! Great positive summary by COMP:

"In its communication, the COMP confirmed that NXP002 satisfies the criteria for orphan designation and that the Company has established that NXP002 has the potential to be of significant benefit to those affected by IPF. The COMP also concluded that NXP002's additive effect in combination with anti-fibrotic agents, as well its potential to be used in patients intolerant to these medicines constituted a clinically relevant advantage."

Good spot FFX, the timing roughly matches the examples we found a couple of weeks ago with approval news coming some 7 working days after the final day's meeting of the COMP committee. We have had 2 days extra delay due to Easter, which I reckoned took us to Monday-Tuesday of this week as our most likely RNS dates. Of course it is quite possible if there were questions/queries from COMP members regarding our application, the answers would be examined at the May meeting, with an approval RNS coming some 7 working days after the final day's meeting on 15 May.

Hi DealBreaker,

The one advantage of the long drawn out strategic partner process hopefully is that the main potential bidders have had plenty of time to digest all the info they have been provided with, & come to internal conclusions regarding eventual bidding parameters (& arrange any third party involvement - ie mining/finance). Thus, I would expect the strategic partners who are in regular contact with the company, to be able to respond quickly in any bidding process. Company's like FMG who might/should be interested, of course have substantial internal resources available to quickly analyse & assess a bid. They reacted very quickly to the Simandou bidding process in 2019 & were able to submit a full bid within a very tight bidding timetable.

Although the March presentation was notionally aimed at informing investors it also provided all potential strategic partners with a clear event timetable & flagged the likely bidding date. Just as importantly it set out the company’s maximum NPV hopes & in what I took to be a clear hint at setting pricing expectations, highlighted the recent Kami deal on P22-23. For a buy-in structure they estimated Kami went for approx 30% of NPV & in a table even set out what that meant for ZIOC shareholders on a per share basis for various NPV scenarios.

There is a very good practical reason why it's highly unlikely the company would get taken private. Namely in the event of a buy-in - whereby a stake in the Zanaga mine is sold to a third party to finance Stage 1 - ZIOC would be left with the ownership balance of the mine, be that 20-80%. The only practical way to realise value in those circumstances is to retain the listing, and wait for the institutions who bought in to the IPO @156p in 2010 & later sold, to return & drive the share price & valuation higher. A buyout of course does not require the listing to be retained, but my reading of the March presentation is that thus far nothing is settled with any strategic partner, including the critical buy-in/buyout issue.

No 5 on LSE Share Risers.

No1 soon hopefully.

And the Ask has moved to 0.16 - I will be watching the final auction with interest!

I was beginning to think we might have been heading for May COMP results, but maybe we are still in with a chance for April's - just been delayed by 2 working days due to Easter & so RNS Mon or Tues?

"They must be eager to seal that deal if the status is granted, right?"

Indeedfully so, that is exactly the scenario we are hoping for. That successfully obtaining ODD status meets the partnership criteria of one or more potential partners & thus leads directly to a partnership deal shortly after ODD status confirmation.

Commercially confidential information like potential partners is not disclosed in any industry, & particularly so in pharma with necessarily highly restrictive NDA's covering the critical valuable scientific info. It is literally impossible to release such details in advance, why keep asking for info that would be suicidal for a company to release & would instantly destroy any prospect of partnership?

Must admit I haven't seen many of those lately Marcus, particularly after the 18 March presentation which gives us a clear pathway to a resolution by the autumn of this year. Zanaga's situation never looked better IMO.

Agreed Marcus we have to be wary of PnD merchants & other pumpers who can damage sentiment.

Well we may find out either way Mitch. Not all PnD teams work via twitter, it gives too much of their game away publicly & people become wary of certain names ie 'The Earl'. Well I certainly dont think GBP150k is a vast amount partic for a team of traders. And besides the key is that in that style of frantic trading we saw yesterday, they can very easily trade between themselves for the same quantities at roughly the same prices - so any net exposure is considerably lower than say GBP150k of trading volume. And why oh why would any genuine investor seeking to accumulate, do so in such a public fashion as if designed to drive the price higher?

".. it was not normal activity.." - agreed on that. Punting GBP150k is exactly some PnD' teams do, besides which as many of those trades could be matched buys with sells the actual net buying would be substantially less than that of course as they are effectively trading between themselves to artificially lift volume.

Heartfelt apologies to any PnD teams out there if I have disrupted your activities & you are stuck net long.

Interesting reactions, I had pretty much the opposite interpretation. Any investor accumulating a position would surely seek to do so as anonymously & discretely as possible, to stop the price running away from them. Here we have a deliberate splurge of high volume trading over a short period, and many of these trades could have effectively cancelled each other out. Could easily be a pump designed to entice in genuine buyers at higher prices, before the inevitable dump.

Saw a similar type of activity in another share I follow a couple of months ago - several days of huge ‘matched’ trading volume pumping up the price, followed inevitably by a dump. The same high trading volume, consisting largely of matched buy/sells, can go on for several days to make it seem ‘real’ with the intention of drawing in investors at higher prices.