Member Info for lignumvitae

Big reductions in holdings by Aviva & Lanstead but the buyers have soaked these up & more.The question that will be answered in due course is who is Hero & who is Zero !

Clearly very disappointing news in that the trial results did not demonstrate a significant & unequivocal benefit over existing Standard of Care. On the other hand i do not think that holders should, as yet, abandon all hope. The data from this study & the open-label extension will need to be mined & studied to further depths. Lupus is a very complex disorder. I am intrigued, as will be others, with the patients who went into complete remission & this subset where the clinical differentiation was most marked. These were, presumably, long-term sufferers & i do not know, not being a clinician, whether such cases of remission are common. Also, it does need to be recognised that placebo did mean existing Standard of Care only & not no care at all. What therefore was this placebo response & would it have continued longer term. These are all questions to be asked & answered over time. Potential partners will do their own exploration of the data & a joint-venture may yet emerge. Time will tell but it may well be that, from here, those holders who do not "throw the baby out with the bathwater" may yet get their reward, even if not quite as gilded as hoped.

I think the investment decision here is based upon whether you trust the management or not. On the face of it we have a near term mining production company with highly attractive operations in energy metals. 2018: Copper / 2019 Lithium / 2020 Mineral sands. Lots of funds - equity & debt, to be raised but lots of opportunity too. One to buy & hold i feel.

OK - are you pursuing some sort of vendetta here ?

Very kind of you to have such consideration for your fellow man - even though you, presumably, are not a shareholder. Yes, of course risks remain but the sales trajectory is firmly upwards. As for the RNS's they are simply statements of fact - shareholders must interpret them by doing their own research.

Second solid contract win in a matter of weeks. Seems the business is gaining traction and, when it comes to contract wins, success does tend to breed further success. Interesting potential at this level - possibility of a multi-bagger.

Some small crumb of hope following the C&C deal. Impossible to make sense of the whole picture with limited & unreliable information to hand but not impossible that a drastically slimmed down & refinanced business may return to market at some point. We would, of course, be talking pennies, not pounds.

Don't feel very convivial towards this company but maybe i go to Bargain Booze stock clearance, buy myself some bargain booze & maybe my "spirits" will improve !

So, a placing at equivalent of �1.00 per share to existing shareholders but non pre-emptive & to so called sophisticated [ie insider] investors. Quite typical. So it is quite alright for private shareholders [mugs?] to buy in the open market but not to be allowed to buy at a 20% discount! After all, how sophisticated do you need to be to make that decision. It private shareholders need that level of protection from this company then the shares should not be quoted.

If this company needed a MINIMUM of �125m to continue to trade there is still much that has not been told. Accounting systems can only function and produce accurate figures if there is competence throughout every level of an organisation. Directors and auditors are appointed on behalf of the owners of the business, ie the shareholders. Far too often they seems to believe that they are appointed only to enrich themselves. Auditors should be terriers but too often are little more than poodles. This country has little cause for optimism, post Brexit, without a fundamental change of attitude and adherence to basic competencies. The full story has yet to be told in the case of Conviviality but will not make pleasant reading. Utter disgrace!

The other question is: Do the institutional holders have a good idea of the level of Stobart's offer and, if so, have they given a "nod & wink" to Flybe to reject it? If not then i have no doubt that the undisclosed valuation will soon be known to them and, if they do not agree with the Flybe rejection, they are in a position to put pressure on the board.

My reading of the announcements is quite simple [maybe like me!]. The companies have been talking/negotiating. Stobart arrived at a valuation they were not prepared to go above. Flybe believe [hopefully not hubris] that the valuation is inadequate and a bright future ls ahead. Fine: if you were only in for the bid then sell - if you believe in the new management team then hold. There are, of course, get-outs for Stobart whereupon they could return to the fray and, herein is my only quibble - shareholders are entitled to know what Stobart's final figure was.

Basically the company is valued by the market at it's cash balance. So the decision is simple, you either believe in the management or you do not - or you are prepared to give them time to prove themselves. I am in the latter category.

My solecism, not Applegarth's. I stand corrected & am duly humbled !

In the retail sector at the moment, it might be a good idea if the term TRADING UPDATE were rebranded as TRADING DOWNDATE !!

So, by 5pm tomorrow, we either have [1] An offer [2] No offer or [3] An application to extend the timetable which would, of course,mean that negotiations are taking place. No point speculating - we will know very soon.

With respect i think they have, to all intents, admitted that the information upon which the fundraising was conducted was flawed. What is more, as the CEO participated in the fundraise, they fooled themselves as much as outside investors. The business is not that complex that they should not have been able to identify contract terms, input costs, labour costs - the effect of direct cost movements against fixed cost contracts [shades of Carillion here] - FX effects - debtor ratios - creditor ratios, etc. All the basics really. I very much hope that they do recover & wish the management well, after all they have had a "baptism of fire", but they do have their work cut out.

The fundraising at 50p in December was obviously conducted on flawed information. So, it is now apparent that "creditor stretch" - creditors long overdue to you and me - was much longer than previously understood. What a shambles - do companies not, as a routine, have aged debtor & creditor reports every month? This is pretty basic. This company may recover & prosper. Even so it may need to raise money on a market cap that has been savaged. Certainly it will require a laser like understanding of the financial situation on a week-by-week basis. I wish the management well but any investment is very much a bet on their competence.

A big fall from grace. The share price is little more than one-third of it's November high. The CEO has gone to concentrate on another opportunity ! Maybe an opportunity to sit on a deckchair somewhere cushioned by the ample pay package he has enjoyed. The market loved Microfocus and a lover scorned is an unforgiving beast.

Today's news is a shocker. Delving at the back of the filing cabinet the management have discovered more bad news. Has nobody ever heard of a calculator, pen & pad of paper! Only very brave souls will put money into this company - it is at the mercy of too many imponderables.