Member Info for lordloadsoflolly

The mood is dictated by TEK’s share price. Which is shot to pieces right now.

Who knows how Microsalt will fare on launch. TBH it doesn’t even matter that much. What DOES matter is how Microsalt settles down over the next few months (Crystal? Sounds like Breaking Bad!)

Let’s hope we don’t have another Lucyd on our hands. That’ll be 3 of the 4 holdings listed by then - and it’s hardly been a triumph for TEK’s SP to date.

Thanks for that, Mystic Meg.

PJMaaa - yes, I think the majority on here believe high inflation (followed by high interest rates to try to contain it) have been detrimental to growth funds like SMT.

How long this cycle lasts is anyone’s guess. There are still some hawkish noises from the FED, so the current pause on rate hikes may not quite mark the peak. But I doubt we’re too far off now. Question then is how quickly rates come down. My guess is it won’t be that soon and it’ll also be very gradual even when it kicks in. Within two years, I’d certainly expect global rates to be lower than now. But probably not THAT much lower. Close-to-zero interest rates over the past decade or so were the exception, not the norm.

You talk of losing nigh on £200,000, which I suspect may be slightly inaccurate? Maybe, if you’d sold the lot at the peak. But a loss is only a loss when you actually come to sell & receive less than you’d paid. Just as a profit is worthless unless/until you realise it.

TopCatz - maybe it was just a flashback to your post from Aug 22, forecasting a 25p floor in TEK’s share price. And an imminent rise to 50p+.

With the benefit of hindsight, that really does look dumber than dumb now. Here’s hoping you didn’t take your own advice back then.

The “Tate system” clearly didn’t work. Why else would T&L have ditched their product?

I’m speculating, but Microsalt’s IPO might be to raise funds, as other cash-raising routes have been tried & failed. Due diligence would fairly quickly have revealed Tate & Lyle’s earlier aborted attempt at commercialising a seemingly very similar product.

The location of Microsalt’s new factory isn’t really relevant (given that it’s nowhere in the Middle East). What IS relevant is that global markets are dreading Israel’s imminent-looking ground invasion of Gaza. Quite apart from the devastating humanitarian cost, this would boost energy prices (at least in the short term), keeping inflation & interest rates higher for longer than seemed likely just a week ago.

Lordmakealot - wasn't TEK's low around the 4p mark back in 2020 (not 9.75p)?

Either Microsalt's IPO will pleasantly surprise next week, or TEK's current trajectory is trying to tell us something. Let's hope it's the former, but the timing's certainly unfortunate.

I was ridiculed earlier this week when I suggested the Israel/Palestine conflict could also impact Microsalt's imminent IPO (I think it was by baf3 - in which case, no surprises there!). Now, everyone seems to be blaming it. Come on guys, make your minds up!

Thefrogster - thanks for the link.

Overall, I found their explanation of the processes & governance layers fairly reassuring.

But this sort of thing's never an exact science. And however many checks & balances you build in, there's always a chance you'll get it wrong. After all, most of the assessment is done by humans. Who make mistakes. Often innocently, occasionally fraudulently. Think Carillion & KPMG for example. Or, on a smaller scale, Patisserie Valerie & Grant Thornton.

In both those cases, the discrepancies were down to aggressive accounting or fraud, which the household name auditors either missed or chose to overlook - you decide!. But the same could happen with a company valuation. And of course, BG could always be telling us they have these built-in layers of security, when in reality they don't (or they're less robust they we've the right to expect).

That said, I found it interesting how many different levels of scrutiny these valuations are supposedly subjected to at BG. Particularly in cases where several of their ITs hold the same unlisted share. Meaning several different BG boards are scrutinising the value of the same company, only at different times of year.

I think BG are damned if they do & damned if they don't, putting out a video like this. My own view is that they're reading the mood music and are reasonably in tune with investors' current concerns, hence their attempt at transparency. But you could also see it as DorsetLSE does - i.e. they felt it necessary and have given us little more than waffle. I find that too harsh an interpretation, but I guess SMT investors - partiularly those recent ones - are within their rights not to feel overly charitable right now!

Thanks DorsetLSE - I agree with you entirely.

Buybacks strike me as a "should work in theory" principle - which rarely does in practice!

Haven't seen their valuation video yet, but they've explained their checks & balances sveral times before. Personally, I don't find their explanation waffly, but only time will tell whether it's correct....

I don't believe that's normally how buybacks work!

I may be wrong, but my understanding is they're generally done to help bolster a share price/reduce any discount to NAV?

Thanks Hardboy

As I said on the advfn thread, I too can’t spot any specific reason behind it. Reported LSE trading volume today was just under 54,000, which is fairly trivial. And there didn't seem to be any larger than normal trades within that.

Unless some H&T-specific news subsequently emerges, I suspect this is just a case of the share price playing catch up. H&T's prospects were largely being ignored by investors between early Aug & early Oct, with the price remaining tightly rangebound. I couldn't understand why, given the company's last (bullish) TU. So I added just before September's ex div date.

Over the last week, there suddenly seems to have been a sea change in sentiment. I doubt this will continue in a straight line. These things rarely do. But it wouldn't surprise me at all if we breached 500p again by the time/soon after next January's TU is released. Barring a black swan event, H&T is set for a record-breaking full year. In which case, the dividend is also likely to get a significant further boost, given their progressive payment policy.

Baf3 - it has orders with a few only. My question remains, why not many more by now?

Anyway, no point in wasting further time arguing with you. Only time will truly tell…..

Try this article too, which states "With SODA-LO®, food manufacturers can reduce salt levels by 25% to over 50% in various applications without affecting the taste."

https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/pharmacy/news/archive/2013/spin-out-company,-eminate,-awarded-us-patent-for-university-salt-reduction-technology.aspx

Badsterman - your claim about the daily salt intake with Soda Lo is at odds with the following article (linked below), which states "results in bread have been particularly encouraging, enabling plant bakers to cut salt by more than 80%."

Whilst this would have only been one of many potential applications for Soda Lo, bread would also have represented one of the most significant & lucrative sectors of all. And "more than 80%" is a far cry from your "around 10%":

www.bakeryandsnacks.com/Article/2012/11/16/Soda-Lo-Tate-Lyle-s-novel-solution-to-sodium-reduction-clue-it-s-salt-only-much-much-smaller?utm_source=copyright&utm_medium=OnSite&utm_campaign=copyright

Baf3 - at least you're consistent in pursuing your fake news agenda. Trump would be proud of you!

The here & now is kind of more important to me than future promise (which in my experience sometimes - though not always - turns into never never land). Sure, patience can be a virtue that ultimately reaps reward. But it can equally be a way of kidding yourself that something will eventually turn up when perhaps it never will.

You COMPLETELY miss the point with Soda Lo. Of course it doesn't have major food companies placing orders for it. As I've explained (more than once, but let's try yet again), Soda Lo appears to have been a commercial flop, with Tate & Lyle dropping any marketing of it some years ago. And that's my concern. Because Soda Lo was very similar to Microsalt (check out the way it was promoted at launch and the claims that were made about it - they're pretty much IDENTICAL to Microsalt's current pitch).

Yet a multinational food manufacturer with very deep pockets apparently couldn't make it work. So what's likely to be so different this time round?

As a TEK holder, I sincerely hope you're right and that I'm proved wrong. But just repeating parrot-like - & incorrectly - that I'm a shorter, instead of trying to present any valid counter argument, just shows you up I'm afraid.

Mine's around 12%. But overall as a family, it would be considerably more.

In our case, the different generations have different timescales for when they might want some/all of their money back (assuming SMT delivers on that, of course!).

IMHO it can be misleading to assess any "optimal" maximum holding % without knowing people's circumstances. An 80 year old, for example, almost certainly won't - & shouldn't - have the same risk appetite & investment timeframe as - say - a 30 year old.

Hardboy - your talk of the share price wallowing has worked wonders.

Could you do the same every day now please!

Ta

Martinu - anyone's guess really. Hasn't SOH been promising us a Sweetbiotix announcement for some years already?

Presumably, like buses, one will eventually turn up. But whether anyone's still waiting expectantly in the queue by then is debatable.

Badsterman - my analysis of Microsalt is based on the here & now. I suspect no-one has ever addressed my concerns full on because they simply don't have a convincing answer.

What makes you the sudden expert on Tate & Lyle's Soda-Lo? How do you justify it being a "poor quality comparison product"? As opposed to a similarly conceived product to Microsalt, which simply failed to gain commercial traction?

Yes, Microsalt has gained some corporate interest & is now looking to create a manufacturing facility. But to my mind, it would have been better to wait until many more contracts were firm (as opposed to a few firm, plus a few "expressions of interest") before proceeding with an IPO. Unless it's hit a brick wall in terms of potentional new partners for the time being of course.

Yes, Bell has potential. However, despite all the known contracts & the royalty agreement, its current share price has barely exceeded its all time closing low of 24p on 2 June 23. There has to be a sound reason for that. And I'd argue it's not that the market hasn't woken up to its potential yet. It's that the market wants Bell to show it the money before any re-rating can begin to happen.

I've never said there's no potential in Tek's holdings. Indeed, I still think there's plenty. But facts speak louder than words. And facts (in the form of Tek's current share price) show we're still some way off any significant potential being realised - & more importantly, any value actually being created for Tek's shareholders.

Given time, Lucyd's new launches may help resurrect its current languishing share price slightly.

Whilst many viewed it as the weakest link in Tek's chain, most on here still regarded it as a valuable asset in Tek's portfolio and were highly excited about its (& by association, Tek's) prospects pre-float. Yet here we are, barely over a year later, and many are talking about getting rid of Lucyd at any price.....

Now we're hearing similar euphoric predictions about Microsalt, which never fully address the reservations I've expressed about how much of a commercial USP (if any) it actually has. It has competition from several low-cost potassium chloride containing producs (which most customers say taste fine), has experienced relatively limited uptake/ongoing trials to date & is highly priced (though in-house manufacture may improve its cost structure). Its patents may also only have a limited moat effect, given how easily a similar product was launched by a global food manufacturer years earlier - Tate & Lyle's Soda-Lo (which seems to have been a commercial flop, as it's no longer marketed).

Here's what TopCatz predicted on 16 August 2022:

"Sounds like the LUCY SP held up when taking into account the warrants. Once the book is closed it should theoretically only go one way but that remains to be seen.

To be honest LUCYD is just a side show for me. I'm just glad they got it away. Remember a year or two ago, we thought out of the 4 portfolio companies that this was the worst. Still do so, great things to come here.

I'm still predicting 40p inbound shortly, with lots of news once the LUCYD float is concluded. 28p should be a floor with 25/26p as a flash crash sale."

Let's hope for greater accuracy this time, post- Microsalt IPO.

Realist1 - true. Though important to remember your money could currently be earning around 6% p.a. in a no risk* fixed savings account - *no risk up to £85,000 FSCS limit.

There's an opportunity cost to any investment. And the longer your shares take to get into the black (assuming they aren't currently, but eventually will), the more important it is to take that opportunity cost into account. Particularly when inflation is eroding your capital, as currently.

Still, SMT has shown slightly more resilience of late. So maybe - just maybe - we're starting to turn a corner. Which would be particularly welcome for those who bought in at higher than current levels.