Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
Let's just not forget the positives - that we have hit profitability and cash generative, even in the weaker half of the year.
It was expected, but it has been confirmed and it should be pushed out into investor circles to find more investment.
The number one thing for me is to raise the share price. There's still almost £1m to spend in the buyback and with low volumes that could do an enormous job. The lack of commentary as to why the execution of it so far has been near non-existent is more fuel to the fire for long term holders and the lack of a plan as to how to raise the price is very frustrating.
Let's hope that waiting for the results was part of the plan and they kick into action now.
They seem to be priced very low (£1-2) with a renewal price about 10 times higher.
As a result they seem to be used heavily by spammers, with people looking to block .icu domains specifically - which gives you an idea of the scale of the problem.
I suspect the real test will be to see where they are in 1 years time and how many are actually renewed or just switched to another random .icu domain.
Clearly, our VIP domains are our biggest, but that has a good renewal rate so I'd take that proven model any day over a spammers paradise.
I remember posting that perhaps we would move our domains to Affilias, now that they were a shareholder that could give us a good deal. SJL said that the deal we have is very good and it was unlikely that Affilias would beat it, so I can only see that this will all make the deal cheaper for us (and easier to manage). The relationship on the other hand... we'll see what he has to say!
From my view, the big review (for investors) was all about selling the company. We don't know what offers they got and I know some investors were hoping for way more than the 15p I was aiming for... but anything other than a sale was always going to result in a big drop.
Whilst it makes sense from the business perspective to buy ICM and it's profitable (if declining) adult TLD's, the decision set the share price at least 18 months back and us long term investors have already had one setback after another.
Up to now, the purchase of ICM has not benefited anybody because holders in both businesses are down by 50%. We are only 2 weeks away from what should be a golden RNS that says "We made a profit and we will continue to make a profit from here on out".
The London contract should be sorted, removing a rather large obstacle from anyone interested in buying the company and the adult block might bring in some bonus revenue. I'm not sure the same fear factor is there now as there was 10 years ago, but hopefully sales will be significant over 2020, or at least appear significant to any buyers.
To underline the point, management need to make sure that we continue to make a profit, but all within the backdrop of selling the company for a fair price. That is the ultimate aim for everybody invested.
And don't forget to tell us why the buyback was an absolute failure, despite the rock bottom prices.
The website does look better, but I wonder how well they will keep the registered domains updated. That decision must have taken some discussion as it's an important factor in the overall success of the business. They must believe that the ntldstats.com site is a bit too misleading and it is indeed around 140,000 lower than the mmx.co website lists. It also shows confidence in the business to make it public and the clear claims of profitability.
So, very almost at the 2m mark. I'd expect an RNS were the results not right around the corner - hopefully this will finally be the one that list shows all positivity and profits. It'll need a good answer for the failure to spend any real money in the announced buyback.
So, it looks like the buyback has continued, but with some small numbers. I said at the beginning, I hoped that they produced a steady stream of buying pressure to raise the price before the results come out. That would be the perfect scenario for me.
It just seems that they've left it quite late and the buys are too low at the moment. We'll see what the next 3 weeks brings.
It is very strange that there has still been nothing else reported. An explanation is a must in the results.
I do hope they didn't employ FinnCap to do the buy back at a set fee, otherwise it'll be the most expensive 500k trade in history!
I think an explanation is definitely required. There's 4 weeks left for the buy back, then I expect the H1 RNS to arrive very shortly after that.
The buy back could have been significant for the share price (especially with such a low volume of trades and permitted buys up to ~12p) ahead of what should be our best RNS yet, with clear profit, cash generation, hopefully the .London deal done and dusted (with an accounting profit due to the write-off) and perhaps the boost of the AdultBlock.
I'd hope it will come along with announcement of what to do with the profits (ie dividends), since we already have plenty of cash in the bank.
Henry actually has a good history of buys (that best at MMX, I would say). The one time he did sell a lot, he was just moving them into a family account. It was strange for him to sell the 500k earlier, but he's almost bought them back now.
So that means (with reported trades), he's almost bought as much as FinnCap since the buy back started...
http://domainincite.com/24647-porn-block-retail-prices-revealed-wow
High priced for sure. Let's see what the take-up is. This initial period is basically 50% off which may encourage some with the fear factor.
I think the fear factor was a big part of selling that many domains. I'm almost afraid to ask what proportion of .xxx websites are defensive registrations.
We could potentially make a lot of money out of them, but it's not morally ideal to have the majority of domains bought just to prevent others buying them and abusing a brand name.
Still, we'll see how many we sell with the adult block. I wonder how good the incentive will be to make them register early (now) rather than waiting for them to expire (in 2021 I think SJL said?).
I do also agree that it's disappointing that we have not yet heard anything more about the buyback, but I'm not convinced everyone follows the same rules. We still haven't heard who bought SJL's 32m shares yet. The buy back may very well be under way, but just hasn't been reported.
As for SJL taking over, he's already stated that it's not something that he'd be too keen to do and hasn't been actively running things for a while. Looking into a new house broker certainly does seem like something to look at. Our use of brokers and advisers has not gone well recently!
But, the business should be running well and profitable. Less than 6 weeks for the big update.
With the buyer taking 32m of SJL's shares it wouldn't be a surprise if the ~16m shares from the buyback was mostly already lined up.
It'll probably 7-8 weeks before we get the H1 results, so there's no point worrying about buyback at a day to day level. Ideally, they'd buy shares up to the release for momentum and then the results, alongside the price rise would start getting investors taking notice.
The last time they did a buyback it was also to help prop up the share price whilst there was a known big seller.
The price has held again, but I expect that's the buyback benefits gone.
Are you expecting more than $8m profit / year?
Well, remember that those options introduced were 50% based on cash generation for the next 2.5 years.
Their targets are essentially telling us what we should be expecting from a under-performing total ($17m) to very good performance ($22m). There's not much to spend that money on now, and with cash in the bank already it seems pretty clear that dividends will be introduced.
Unless ICANN rush through the next batch of gTLDs!
I understand how it would normally work, but are you suggesting that we'd benefit more by keeping the price at 6p and wiping off 1-2% of the shares, or by moving the price up to 8 or 9p and wiping off less shares?
There's no demand here and £1m buys should be significant.
I hope that the board have ordered finnCap to use the buyback in a strategy that raises the share price and not a large negotiation with the MM to buy at the best price. They're just as likely to free up shares by dropping the price and panicking investors as they are to raise it.
With such a low volume of trades over a long period of time, a sudden demand of 16m+ shares should be significant for the share price. Especially when < £15k volume can drop the price by 3%!
I'd be looking for a new house broker if they fail to achieve this!
Well... dollars.
Although the company have never confirmed it, I believe it is extremely likely to be the .london contract.
We made £7.2m accounting loss at the end of 2018, so if it all goes through, then we should see an accounting adjustment of +£2m.
I'm pleased that they have put the RNS out - I think it was very important to get that good news out there early and start creativity some positive momentum.
Cash generative in the weaker half of the year and also saving a couple of million and removing the bad contract will be better for us going forward and a more appealing option.
A buy back is a good idea too - I just hope that they spread it out over time. Buying in bulk doesn't seem to have much effect on the share price, but constant small buys creates a consistent rise. A rise in the SP will be more beneficial to us all than a small dividend.
This is the point where it looks like plain selling and we should be making money as a company and shareholders until that takeover finally occurs.