Member Info for lordloadsoflolly

Bazzao - we'll have to agree to disagree on that one.

Once a small cap starts out-of-the-blue placings, its SP will remain under pressure as investors will constantly wonder when the next is coming.

Of course, it would have been better if neither option had been needed. And Opti could have timed some of its SBTX sales better. But I still think this SBTX route was the lesser of two evils.

Much wider than normal spread being shown today.

As for someone stakebuilding in 100,000 tranches, that may well be so. But if the overall share price is down, it's of little help really (except that things might be worse without it)!

Shareprof1 - I see both sides to the argument here.

Yes, Opti has created significant value from SBTX. And crystallising part of those gains is far better for Opti shareholders than being regularly diluted via placings etc.

On the other hand, you have to question whether Opti has put any capital raised to good use so far. Despite, SOH’s many promising forecasts, it has really struggled to gain much sales traction to date.

Morepen - & possibly Nouri - look like they might finally be starting to turn things round. But it’s taken forever to get here and the jury’s still out as to how transformational even these partners will ultimately prove.

As for Sweetbiotix. Well, we continue to live in hope I guess…..

GoldGirl - I thought scientists normally dealt in facts. Not wild speculation.

With a deal, many multiples of the current SP is certainly possible.

The more important question though is how likely are we ever to see such a deal?

Ignoring the bullish comments from Tim (he has form for bigging things up), the current answer is not very likely. The market shows real time consensus across all investors. If they felt a significant deal was imminent, the SP wouldn’t be languishing below 4p.

Of course, the market could be wrong. But this is FAR from the slam dunk some of the more rampy posters on here are suggesting.

Letitrun - probably not in shareholders’ interests to keep speculating about which beverage companies Sweetbiotix is engaging with.

This type of rumour mill ended up scuppering previous potentially lucrative deals, as the partner then pulled out.

Mol - are you still invested here? Seems unlikely you would be, when you say you can’t see SOH ever making a profit from anything ending in biome. Unless you’re still holding out for a Sweetbiotix deal.

Broomtree - that's certainly how I saw today's AGM.

As 3LittleBirds pointed out, the main takeaway for me was that initial production is more likely to be late summer/early autumn. I think originally Bo had just referred to "summer".

This looks like potential minor slippage to me. Nothing to worry about in the great scheme of things, but it might help explain today's SP drop, though other things could also be responsible.

Tigger - no idea why you're asking GoldGirl (or anyone else on here come to that) whether a deal's imminent or not.

If we knew that, we'd all be sunning ourselves on a tropical island by now.

Fact is, No-ONE knows whether what Tim says is what IMM does. The only thing we've got to go on is his track record, which ain't great.

"Hands up, who asked about a company in East Africa ? Naughty."

It WAS quite funny though! And no, it wasn't me.

Looks like Artemis picked up almost all the H&T shares Octopus sold yesterday.

Goldgirl - as I said before, you REALLY don’t come across as a scientist.

Perhaps we could pop Tek's CEO into said trash bin.

Trouble with social media influencers is that they can be in fashion one minute and out the next.

You do also have to be pretty careful who you choose. The Tate brothers are influencers & role models to some (more's the pity). Would they make great brand ambassadors? Er, no.

Even Steve Bartlett of Dragons Den fame has run into trouble, accused of harmful health misinformation claims:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gpz163vg2o

Personally, I'd favour gradual brand building opportunities from commercial partners any day over get-rich-quick schemes from fly-by-night influencers.

Full credit to Chris Gillespie, H&T's CEO. Following yesterday's webinar, I emailed him with my questions.

Not only did he reply at length that same evening, he's also arranging a hosted local store visit - at my request - to learn a bit more.

That's what I call private investor engagement! Chris authorised me to post my questions and his replies below, which I hope others will find useful:

Q: Since year end, has pledge book growth been sustained at a similar level to Q4?

A: No. We don’t tend to see much growth in January or February, and there does appear to be greater seasonality than was historically the case. For example, some of the business borrowers who stocked up pre Christmas have repaid their loans. But we expect them to return. Loan demand has remained strong, which is the main thing, with - as we anticipated - higher redemptions.

Q: What proportion of N.I. & business rate cost increases for the current FY are you hoping to mitigate against? And how?

A: Market expectations are unchanged so I guess the answer to this is ‘all of it’. The growth we have seen has been delivered with no increase in store FTEs and being more efficient is a key priority for us.

Q: Is there a significant difference in redemption rates & loan duration between personal & business customers?

A: Redemption rates are a bit higher on larger loans. Duration is about the same.

Q: What were the results of your Sunday trading trial in c. 10% of stores and is this being rolled out / kept to the current trial stores / dropped?

A: We are still learning. Some which we have opened we will cease. Some we did not open we will do so. In areas of high footfall, it has delivered incremental business for us, often with new customers. We will have a proportion of stores open on an ongoing basis where it is right to do so. A success overall.

Q: Has the reported national increase in shoplifting & staff abuse been felt significantly by H&T? And what measures are in place to try to counter it?

A: The former, no. We have fairly elaborate security measures in place, which helps. The latter, sadly, yes and we make sure we look after our people when it happens.

Q: Whilst presenting a "strong investment case" for H&T, Director share buys have remained negligible this past year, despite stronger results and a weaker share price. I raised this with Simon Walker at last year's webinar and was told it was a shareholder concern the company was aware of and that he was looking to address the issue.

Significant Director share buys are viewed by many investors as a clear sign of confidence. And vice versa to some extent. So why do you think this buying reluctance continues, particularly given H&T's confident outlook statement?

A: I increased my holding in 2024 (it is now around 200k shares). As did Di. The board is aware of this issue and is looking at ways to address it. I will raise the matter and your very valid points once again.

TotalWealth - whether justified or not, fact remains in many people’s eyes GB News is seen as far right drivel. It has also breached Ofcom regulations on several occasions.

Which makes it a dangerous choice for brands that aim for broader, rules-based appeal. It may work for a donkey sanctuary (who knows?), but Opti should - and no doubt will - steer well clear if it knows what’s good for it.

Oh Tigger - weren't you predicting £2-£3 just a few weeks ago? Now it's "won't fetch more than 50p a share .. from my calculations".

Perhaps you'd care to elaborate. What exactly ARE your carefully considered calculations (other than comparison to current SP)? And which back of ciggy packet did you write them on?

Bk2011 - I'm sure some people watch GB News. But it's VERY polarising, so featuring your brand there would likely turn off as many as it encouraged.

Also, a "100% increase in interest in purchasing" is pure ad-speak, meaning precisely nothing. Either you purchase a product or you don't. Sadly, an interest in doing something doesn't pay the bills.

Friedman - I sell on Amazon myself. They might "charge a fortune to be high up on .. search" when you do it using their ad service.

But if strong demand develops for your product over time anyway, you'll get there on your own merit. I agree, those subscriber numbers are currently small . But it's a good inertia-selling model. Even if you have to pay a certain amount upfront to acquire new customers, once they're onboard some of them will stick without additional acquisition costs.

Unlike last year, none of the questions I submitted this time were read out or addressed.

So I've emailed them to Chris Gillespie and will update here with any response (assuming he replies & is happy for me to share the answers).

I thought we'd done the Lanstead agreement to death already.

But it seems not. So - my take on it is:

Whether Lanstead want to sell or not to fund their monthly repayments to IMM depends on where they thinkthe SP's heading.

Offloading now would certainly help suppress the SP, thereby reducing their monthly repayments.

But if they buy into IMM’s big pharma deal story, why would they want to reduce their holding now, when their shares are likely to be worth far more in the near future?

Unless they believed they could sell on spikes, then pick them up again cheaper before any deal is announced. But if they bought back in, that would likely send the SP up again, so a bit self-defeating.

How they fund the monthly repayments between now & December boils down to whether they believe Tim’s predictions this time round.

Martinu - I see this update as positive overall. It finally sounds as though they've a few partners with the necessary NPD experience & marketing budget to create decent, growing sales.

Goes to show how useless most of the initial tie ups were though, despite SOH's prediction of great sales years ago.

Not sure how they can be losing money on Amazon (which mainly charges a relatively affordable commission per sale). They must be throwing a huge amount at customer acquisition ads. Hopefully - as you suggest - this is a temporary measure. If they can keep growing the subscription model (akin to a snowball rolling downhill!), the future should definitely start to look brighter.