Member Info for LordAdam

Stormy market today and probably for the next few days following the Chinese devaluation. Traditionally these smaller cap stocks take a day or two to follow the general trend and this time appears to be no exception. I don't see Trakm8 being a magnet for speculators so I don't anticipate a panic sale and a major buying opportunity in the short term ... which is a pity because I'll have some spare investment cash by then :( Interesting that there's not been an RNS saying who took the 5% holding from the directors ... the AGM meeting is in four weeks and maybe we can look forward to a statement regarding what happened, why and what the future holds? The AGM is being held in London, not locally here as I had hoped. Is anyone around the City on that day and intending to attend? If so we could prepare a specific question to the Chairman ... Still the omens are good ... Mike

From what I recall the need for an RNS statement of holding is triggered at 3% and each 1% level above that ... so acquiring 4.9% would need an RNS, then increasing to just over 5% would need another one. But the process is slightly convoluted. First the owner of the holding has to notify the company registrar that they've crossed the threshold and then the registrar/company has two market days to issue the RNS. Whilst most companies and investors play by the rules, some naughty ones either don't report their holdings correctly to the registrar, or delay doing so. It's a bit of a mine field ... but overall its in Trakm8's interest to increase the value of its shares here and this is a positive situation so I would hope/expect them to be very open about the RNS situation. Mike

No cause for concern here as these are just the administrative notifications of the placement that was announced in the RNS stream earlier in the week. The overall position remains strong with the likelihood of a close co-operation with a new institutional investor who may well take a semi-active role in the board. I wouldn't be surprised to see a significant financial restructuring either late this year or early next to provide an extended capital base for expansion or acquisition. Looks good. Mike

I'm in here and yes I've lost on paper ... of course selling would crystallize that situation and make it real ... staying in (and the brokers are now targeting 180) gives a chance for recovery and profit and the dividend. But leaving all that aside I just love the way the market makers work ... there's *TWICE* as many shares being bought as are being sold --- and the MMs are still marking the price down. So what are they up to? Mike

Remember the placement of a few days ago? Well the actual trades that moved the shares from the directors to the institutional investor took place at 17:15 today after the market closed. The price to the II was 157.5 and the price the directors obtained was 155.53 (so about 2p per share, £24k for the market makers). I would think that with just over 4% of the equity the II would trigger one of the disclosure rules and Trakm8 will have to post an RNS with the details by the close of business on Friday or possibly Monday. It will be interesting to see who it is. Mike

... and it goes on ... another buyer just took 80,000 at 150 (the market closed officially at 138) ... now that's someone who's keen. Mike

Well look at that ... five minutes after the close of the market someone bought over 500,000 shares ... There's been a lot of selling today, but every sell (and more) has been balanced by a buy. Despite the negative sentiment there's a lot of folk have confidence in the longer term and a lot of bigger players who want in at this price. Tomorrow I get the cash from some sales placed today (I'm ashamed to say they were some unit trusts) and at this price I know where I'll be putting some of it. Mike

Interesting to look at the trade lists this morning ... Lots and lots of small trades ... mostly sales ... interspersed by some largish buys. There's a lot of small players in this share who, not surprisingly, are being shaken out by the marking down today -- there's also a number of bigger players who are taking advantage of the lower price and the selling to top up their holdings. I'd expect this thing to be unsettled for a few days before coming back to a more sensible level -- I'm staying in. Mike

2-3 observations ... 1. The time between the placement being announced and the announcement that it had been completed was very short ... I strongly suspect that the deal had been agreed before the first RNS was put out. So I suspect that the whole parcel of shares was picked up by one investor. 2. Overall 1.22 m shares equates to 4.22% of the total in issue ... I suspect that there will need to be an RNS in the next couple of days announcing who has the holding. 3. The new investor is someone that the board of directors very much want to have alongside them for the future. My reasons for this are a) the directors acted in consort to release their shares (10% each), b) they released them at 157 when they could have got 160-190 recently, c) if the new investor had had to fight for the shares in the market the price would have risen dramatically thus increasing the managements holdings worth considerably, and MOST IMPORTANTLY ... d) with 5% the new holder will have a significant say in matters of the board. Overall the board seems to be rejigging things for the medium term ... possibly for a period of signifcant expansion when having large institutional investors would be a major asset. The future does indeed look promising. Mike

Nope, I don't think anything's changed here either ... and I'll be holding onto my shares. BTW just finished having a look through the trade lists for Trakm8 ... it's a strange quirk of the data, but nobody, absolutely nobody, has actually ever sold shares in Trakm8 for 188 ... interesting that isn't it? Mike

Strange ... ? .... no I think it looks pretty normal/predictable. Trakm8 is a very thinly traded share, big spread, low volumes. I've looked at detailed lists of the transactions (see the advfn site) and can see no evidence of big share trades behind the scenes. With such thin trading any big trade would immediately move the market quite a bit. And with such thin trading any slow rise in the market would slowly cost the market makers some money ... And that brings me to what I think is going on ... I think this slow decline is the market makers 'shaking the tree'. The share price actually wants to rise ... but by decreasing it anybody with a holding that is not feeling 100% gets shaken out of the share and then the market makers have a chance to fill up their books again at a lower price. So, basically, hold on in there ... once positive news is again posted the whole thing will pick up again and onward it will go. If all else fails the real, physical, AGM will provide an opportunity for the management to re-affirm progress. Mike

I'm sorry that you feel that you're about to fall out of a roller coaster car ... with you selling your holding you probably won't be following the company or posting here in the future. Rather than a 'roller coaster' I see the share price history as a direct relationship to the companies actual real life fortunes, hopes and aspirations. I live not too far away from Trakm8 ... I knew the company before the flotation, was actually offered shares in the IPO (and declined), have a close friend who accepted ... watched their fall from grace (and my mates despair) and the winter period that followed ... was aware of the restructuring ... saw the right signs, heard the right things and bought in. A lot of the shares are in safe hands, the CEO etc ... there's only one biggish investment company ... the management is cool, calm and collected -- I really don't see the sky falling in on this one. Mike

Top heavy? ... Nope, doesn't seem that way to me. Good solid management, relentlessly and consistently making progress in building an established ongoing set of contracts and orders, integrating manufacturing facilities (Box) and adding extension products and technologies (DCS). Literally, with this approach/team and the fragmented market for vehicle telematics (and other applications), the sky is the limit. I think this company has a long way to go ... and I'll be holding for a long time yet. Mike

So ... ANOTHER ... major re-alignment of shares this afternoon ... What's going on here? 10 million shares were traded at 63p outside the normal market mechanism at 15:45 this afternoon ... so the normal market price doesn't reflect this transaction. Has anybody got any idea why the bigger players in this share are shifting shares around amongst themselves? It's clearly not a dumping exercise -- they were traded *above* market price -- its almost as though there were some background deal going on to give someone or somebody a significant holding in the company. I can't help but think (perhaps cynically) that the timing here is significant ... late Friday afternoon of the weekend of the Greek referendum .... maybe the ideal time to stockpile shares for some kind of corporate activity? Mike

Well, may you live in interesting times as the old curse goes ... It's been very interesting to watch the trades in Trakm8, and its price, over the last couple of days while the GrExit situation has been raging. What will be *very interesting* is how the result of the Greek referendum (held on Sunday 5th) and the posting of our beloved Trakm8's results on Monday interact with each other. Now I don't think the FTSE (let alone the rest of Europe) is going to be visibly moved by Trakm8's results compared to the Greek situation ... but I do hope that the rest of the clamour and noise doesn't drown out the subtle sound of the managements expectations for the coming year. I, for one, will be reading the announcement carefully and looking for the signs. Mike

Yes, I agree ... There's not a lot of liquidity in Trakm8 and the spread is really rather large -- these are two things that put short term traders off a great deal. When you're relying on getting in and out quickly and turning a profit one way or the other you've got to work extra hard under these conditions. But for folk who are in for the longer term these are not real issues. Mike

Yes, a very nice RNS ... and as you might expect a number of news items posted around the place reflect and comment very positively on its contents. With the annual results less than 3 weeks away now my belief is that the current price does not adequately reflect the immediate future prospects and I suspect there will be a 'step' in the chart once the details are confirmed on 6 July. Mike

I don't think there are definite dates in the public domain yet ... But last year the Final Results were posted on 7 July, the Annual Report was 12 August and the AGM was on 4 September. I would think that it will be much the same this year ... so allowing for the day of the week being the same .... it's likely that the Final Results will be posted at 7am on 6th July. Indeed I do recall someone recently suggesting that date as well. Mike

So ... the new major shareholder is Fidelity ... having taken just over 5% of the company's equity at a price of 65p. That's about a £12,000,000 investment ... more than I can afford. Clearly there's a significant amount of confidence in the company's future prospects. Mike

So now we know where the 16.5m shares went (actually 18m+) .... See today's RNS. Does anybody know anything about the new share holder? Mike