Member Info for lordloadsoflolly

Friedman - agreed.

A salary cut at one of Opti's spun-off companies would still benefit Opti though. As it has holdings in these companies. But the benefit would be watered down.

That said, I find it odd people are quibbling over this, when if SOH had kept his salary 20% higher, there'd have probably been less complaining.

I get that it's important to be clear in your messaging and not say anything which might mislead investors. But I still think this is largely a smokescreen for dissenters to stir things up unjustifiably in an attempt to sow doubt & bring about change that would solely benefit them.

Charts are utterly meaningless here.

If Tim EVER releases a game-changing deal RNS, the price will rise.

If not, it'll continue to drift - with possibly the odd speculative flurry along the way that'll equally quickly be dashed.

Brentw1 - at the risk of raining on everyone’s parade, I don’t think you can read too much either way into today’s tweet.

All it tells us is that drilling continues to plan. That in itself is good news. But it doesn’t shed light on the eventual result.

Stas20 - suggest you read what I wrote in context. I’m not talking about the companies themselves. Of course they’re totally different companies.

But they’re all still relatively early stage, capital-intensive outfits. So unless TEK crystallises value by reducing at IPO stage, we’re just going to see the same outcome as Lucy & Bell. Dilution through a sequence of fundraises. Or if you prefer, death by a thousand cuts.

Martinu - I can’t see any on that page with more than 40 ratings in total.

Could you confirm which one shows “top brand” & “10k+ customers”?

I normally discount a rating where no review is left, as they tend to be less reliable & can even just be from lazy malevolent competitors. An 89% overall positive rating is pretty good, but there are some products on that page with quite poor scores (albeit from < 5 reviews).

MaximusD - Of course TEK’s holdings are all very different. The issue is not so much portfolio diversification or how they’re run, but how TEK manages its holdings in them to extract shareholder value.

With Lucy & Bell, its “float & hold” approach has failed miserably, destroying any likelihood of future shareholder value.

Microsalt remains heavily loss-making & highly capital-intensive, meaning future raises are almost inevitable. And with it, TEK’s stake will be further diluted. I do think it’s valid to look at Tate & Lyle’s foray into this market with a very similar product which sadly failed to gain traction. They’re no Mickey Mouse outfit, yet despite their sector expertise & substantial resources they failed to make a go of it. Sure, Microsalt has made some inroads, but nothing like enough to cover its costs - and it’s already well over a year since it floated. More like seven since it was founded.

As for Lucy, well let’s not go there.

Couer & MaximusD - bottom line is, TEK was always marketed as an incubator.

If you’re arguing that it can never sell a significant chunk of its holdings without causing them SP turmoil / lawsuits / the sky falling in, then it’s not an incubator at all. It’s a bank.

PS: I’ve given factual, NOT historical accounts of Lucyd & Bell’s SP movement. Why would anyone believe Guident & Salt are going to behave so radically different?

Stas20 - that explanation might sound vaguely plausible in theory.

But in practice it’s been shown to be disastrously value-destructive, with pretty much zero chance of TEK ever recouping its losses in LUCY or BELL.

MaximusD - there’d have been nothing to stop TEK buying back in lower down.

Aquae - Opti's value is partly comprised of its holdings in PBX & SBTX & it benefits as these companies grow.

So yes, I'd say any remuneration SOH received from PBX (or SBTX) IS relevant in the salary reduction calculation.

Span - once the Marionnaud deal collapsed (& INC's SP subsequently fell to below 6p), IMM was never going to exercise those warrants anyway.

Once again, Tim has squandered IMM shareholders' cash - this time on multiple costly warrant extensions. All for nowt.

Letitrun - I briefly wondered whether Obsidian & TW might be related.

But probably not, as Obsidian's argument & analysis did at least have some logic to it.

Aquae - if we're only quibbling over an 18% v 20% salary reduction, then hardly worth TW making such a big deal over it.

I sense he's purely using this as a smokescreen in a desperate attempt to parachute his wife onto the Board. Can anyone highlight exactly how she'd be qualified to address misrepresentation & governance issues? Thought not.

Wonder who’s in charge of this board?

The whole TW v SOH thread has been silently airbrushed overnight. And with it, Obsisian’s weird psycho babble.

Odd that.

Alas_Smith - interestingly, Ramsdens CFO sold just over 23% of his holding just before you on 18th June, at an average 340p a share.

Of course, there could have been any number of reasons for this. But I still think the price got slightly ahead of itself following the last excellent set of results + the knock on effect from H&T’s takeover deal. I wouldn’t be surprised if it drifted another 20p-30p over the summer to around the 300p mark (at which point I’d seriously consider buying).

Incanthera’s RNS alleges new “breakthrough research”, but is peppered with language such as “may”, “potentially” & “suggesting”.. So perhaps not quite such a breakthrough after all.

Oh - and Skin + CELL has a good safety profile. Which is exactly what Tim keep stressing with Lupozor just before it failed to meet any if its endpoints in the first P3 trial.

This has Tim’s fingerprints all over it. And smacks of desperation. Yet again.

By not reducing TEK’s stake in SALT at IPO stage & instead continuing to stand by its full investment, TEK’s been diluted by their subsequent fund raise. Not sure how I can be any clearer about that frankly.

Couer - it’s not an example of funding, rather of holding dilution as I thought my post had made clear.

Hardboy - best of luck with RFX.

I’m expecting their current FY to be pretty strong.

Assuming no H&T deal hiccoughs, I might put some of the proceeds their way. But I’d want to get in sub 300p, as even after its recent retrace, I feel it’s still a bit toppy currently. Could be wrong though, but my gut feel as to when H&T was oversold or overbought generally served me well.

Thanks Letitrun

Far easier to wean peeps off Amazon if you fulfil in-house.

You can then include promo codes / flyers etc in the parcels. Amazon obviously won’t do this on your behalf with FBA.

Otherwise, you’re pretty much limited to printing something on the product packaging itself. Which would need to be very discrete (so far less effective) in order to fly under Amazon’s radar.

I suspect Opti may be calling their techniques “commercially sensitive”, as they fly close to the wind in terms of Amazon compliance! Good on them if so!

Letitrun - think you’ll find that’s not how it generally works with Amazon.

It’s so easy to order from them, with next day Prime often offered as standard too. Most customers are simply too lazy to shop around when Amazon makes it so easy to shop with them. I know this because I’ve direct experience of it with my own business.