Member Info for Kooba

Rhys Summerton is the founder and investor at Milkwood Capital, a long-term, value oriented, global investment company, based in the UK.

Since establishing Milkwood Capital in 2014, Mr. Summerton has successfully driven value realization across a range of investments through disciplined capital allocation and strategic decision-making.

Before founding Milkwood, Mr. Summerton was Managing Director and Global Head of Emerging Market Equity Research at Citigroup, leading the firm’s top-ranked research franchise. A Chartered Accountant, he began his career with Ernst & Young.

Mr. Summerton serves on the boards of various listed and unlisted companies mostly where Milkwood Capital has influence.

Some more info

https://www.hedgeweek.com/edge-fund-the-activist-value-fund-that-thrives-on-market-neglect/

They might just think there is nothing worth saving now…litigation is a dead end , nobody wants to buy the operations after an extensive process and closing down the operations would be costly.

They might be supporting this move but for the life of me i cant see its in their interests to.

Milkwood were interested in getting a listing with cash in it …not sure losing the listing does work for them to be honest and this action might prompt them to block a delist…it leaves the management in a bad position which opens the doors for them to take control as they tried to door last time but were defeated after the management said they would deliver value through a strategic review and operations sale…well they didnt get that done so maybe its time for change?

This only 5 weeks ago from paid research

https://www.edisongroup.com/research/approaching-scale-up-phase-with-asian-partner/BM-3179/

“…the board continues to explore all opportunities to maximise shareholder value”

And what a job they are doing!

I understand he sold out in the tender and in the after market, the whole holding.

Major holders on website is quite out of date but a pretty good reflection of current position as far as i understand it to be.

https://www.nanocotechnologies.com/investors/major-shareholders/

Personally speaking i have not seen good endings to companys delisting ..often that might be because they have no means to raise money to stay listed but also where things are being run down …here we have a business better financed than many with decent net cash and we are told is on the runway to scale up orders in the next few months which could have a positive impact on net cash burn.

There is no compelling argument to delist i can see and a move to AIM with reduced fees and lighter regulation for pre commercial ventures such as this would appear a much better move.

Quantum science has 5 shareholders and was set up as a private company .

Nanoco as a listed entity likely has thousands of individual shareholders who chose to invest in a listed company and enjoy the liquidity transparency and investor protections that affords.

You cannot really compare the two situations or the shareholders involved.

I have seen no argument other than a small financial benefit of becoming a private company Nanoco…but i see many negatives impacting ordinary shareholders firstly the rebased share price on the very idea, but more worryingly the governance going forward and the ability for shareholders to be informed of developments and have a say in very important events which could impact the value of their investment.

Nanonano which maybe begs the question after a change from break even 2027 to medium term they know more about the likelihood of scale up orders from AC1 and whether AC2 is going to progress…or whether this action is an acknowledgement that they need to batten down the hatches as there is no visability.

Whether an executive has a modest holding ( often freebies for immaterial KPIs ) means little they are not necessarily aligned to other shareholders as they take serious salaries out of the business and want that to carry on…they a,so might seek to benefit if the business is sold above and beyond their shareholding. So meaningless especially as they are the ones responsible for where the company finds itself and have approved overly optimistic aims for years that were not delivered.

So pardon me if I don’t feel for the remaining directors who have overseen this failure in commercial execution , communication and value creation. Many past executives have walked away with good money having achieved little.

The board serve the shareholders…they should act in shareholder interests.

Let’s see how the vote goes let the owners of the company decide whether it is in their interests to be listed or lose many of the rights and essential information they enjoyed when they invested.

If anyone seriously believes they will do better holding a delisted investment than listed apart from a small reduction in burn I would be interested to know why.

On a sale front note the company had already dislocated shareholder rights to approve a sale by seeking to sell assets not the company. They also received no offers ..not acceptable offers ..no offers.

On a valuation front I would expect the company to mark down the book value of the IP aggressively as there is no basis for current valuation beyond hope as there is no ongoing income and some of the core patents are expiring.

It’s all down to sensors and personally I would prefer some transparency , if this goes to nothing so be it but not a syphoning off the remaining cash behind closed doors .

I tend to vote on most holdings now the process is simple I have a SIPP with Hargreaves and it used to be a bit of a pain voting now it is easy. Just encouraging the folks who own the company to exercise their voting rights whilst they still have some . Strikes me a delist is a heavy price to pay to lose listed rights and will have little impact on whether the company suceeds ..it might buy six months …but immaterial if we move to scale up stage with AC1 which we are told is months away.

It makes little sense with where we are unless others are right and it’s around delist and sale and a low level. Again I don’t see that , they could sell the assets and IP at whatever they liked and liquidate the holding company shareholders could not stop that …if they do sell shortly after delist at a knockdown does that look any better ??

So why now and in whose interest?? I think it’s just to remove regulation and accountability…and I hope they lose the vote personally.

It’s easy at Hargreaves Lansdown now and I suggest shareholders vote.

We have a non compliant board of two executives and one non executive (7 years in ) proposing this action.

The company has stated there is no immediate cash pressure and appears to have sufficient to take us to a stage where we will know if commercialisation is likely.

The company is looking to save about £60k a month cash burn so to £190k instead of £250k a month and has halved the market cap in the process! They still retain Edison on £60k a year so some of the savings can be made without delisting !

Such relatively modest savings will not be a factor in successful commercialisation but will be a small factor in how long it takes to get through the cash and string it out.

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And again …how does this make any sense

“The reason I will still vote yes is that I think the current market value already reflects extreme pessimism and gives very little value to the technology, the IP, the JDAs or the possibility of eventual commercialisation.”

It doesn't they are all feelings around the market value not on potential completely lost liquidity and the massive loss of shareholder protections in London listing rules and MAR.

If it goes well the market cap would have reflected that and present an exit for those who chose to do so if a listing was retained. Now likely locked in for a very long haul without that choice and with very little information or any vote on what transpires.

Say the company decided to do a private placing at 1p diluting every shareholder by 90% would you still feel happy and looked after??

How do you position ahead of an unexpected announcement …no news was expected so soon after the interims except on any progress with JDAs.

So it’s ridiculous to position against a total unknown.

You clearly stated position ahead of this announcement specifically.

Anyway i doubt there was any insider dealing because they would have to be the most stupid investors if they knew this was coming out and bought aggressively ahead of such a negative liquidity event. To suggest so leads to the same assumption on ability.

I doubt this will be a formality and it’s difficult to see how they van be confident of over 75% support most of the larger holders are just PI nominees.

The EBT should not vote. Milkwood and Cable Car i doubt are friendly so being sure of 75% seems quite impossible unless someone wants to explain how that can be possible?

Hargreaves Lansdown stockbrokers 41,476,132 21.31

Interactive Investor 24,901,740 12.80

Milkwood Capital 16,000,000 8.22

Employee Benefit Trust (“EBT”) 13,102,486 6.73

Barclays Smart Investor 9,366,795 4.81

HSDL 8,315,249 4.27

Dr Nigel Pickett 7,450,694 3.83

AJ Bell 6,727,492 3.46

Cable Car Capital 6,538,626 3.36

Dearly me terry lets wheel out some other comments today to add to the mix.

“The board would not risk a 75% vote unless they were confident of winning. A failed vote would be a disaster for them. That confidence will have come from private discussions with major holders.

The trading over the last few weeks has been unusual — higher volume, larger blocks, genuine two‑way activity. That suggests positioning ahead of this announcement, not just retail noise.

It is possible that someone has been building a stake in support of the board's strategy. It is also possible that the selling we are seeing now is short‑term holders exiting. Both could be true.”

What does positioning ahead of the this announcement entail exactly??

Oh yes it is

“…accumulation by investors who see long-term value in a post-listing scenario.”

There has never been any comment on official communications to indicate a company in relatively good financial health was to consider delisting especially hen they had just released interim results that didn't nod to that in any way save for

“ We continue to monitor our cost base to assess whether further reductions can be made”

Which in no way points to de-listing and the reaction today quite clearly demostrates such action was not discounted ny the market.

So how did these investors look to buy for the post listing scenario without being inside exactly?

You could try to argue that the news today was expected and not price sensitive…would be keen for you to try.

Let’s just think this one through.

“The delisting vote probably passes because the board is unlikely to have initiated this process without first sounding out major holders privately. The unusually elevated trading volumes over recent weeks may also indicate accumulation by investors who see long-term value in a post-listing scenario.”

You think that people have been made inside and have decided to deal on that information and have decided to buy more ahead of news that anyone could see would collapse the price..interesting but makes absolutely no sense. Firstly why buy before the news drops and second why when you have been wall crossed making you inside.

That naturally for terry not you Nanonano , i think something came out in disclosure that Hamoodi raised think Samsung ran $80m up the flagpole but Nanoco said no. Would have been a better outcome save all the nonsense over years and years …we could have moved on and not held out for all the disappointment delivered up to today.

Terry saw it all coming but held on ….i would have never bought back in post tender if i thought they could get it all this wrong.

Wrong thread again…it’s not that difficult to follow is it???

Your posts are largely incomprehensible and add up to you have no view but if they execute …blah blah blah

..at least respond to the correct point. You might be very confused but dont evidence it so often.