Member Info for Maxi19

I think the messaging needs a change of tone.

BT's stance for the March results was highly defensive and came across as gaslighting. There was no acknowledgement of the share price crash, no acknowledgement that the settlement was far lower than what the vast majority of shareholders were clearly led to believe.

He should have said "Yes, the settlement is lower than we would have wanted, but having cash helps our business for x,y,z reasons and will ultimately lead to a higher share price."

If we get large commercial orders and particularly if we get into Apple products and start generating hype then the dissatisfaction will disappear pretty quickly.

BeContrarian, I'm not actually that fussed about them buying more shares, I think they're incentivised already. And Nigel Pickett has 10m anyway. But I do wish that they would stop insulting our intelligence as you say.

Ddubya you echo my thoughts.

I reread the Hamoodi presentation today and I was actually more persuaded by it than I was on the first read. The RNSs on 6 and 9 January are crying out for an explanation but all we've received is obfuscation. And BT's claim in the video to Hamoodi that he hadn't seen the damages reports looks to be a blatant fib.

So I'm swaying towards voting for the resolutions as a protest vote, simply because I don't see how they can win. And I too have a reasonable holding, just under 0.5%. Until the board actually address the concerns in the presentation and until we get some transparency rather than gaslighting about the damages reports etc then I think they need to be put on notice.

Blahblahdoh, I think it's different this time (I know I know) because the language about anticipating orders is stronger and narrower in scope i.e. during 2023 and because everyone knows STMicro is the European customer and because STMicro obviously know that themselves, if STMicro have actually been telling Nanoco not to expect orders until 2024 or late you have a clear case of directors misleading shareholders.

I don't think all of the board would really be that unscrupulous and risk being sent to jail on that basis.

Some details of the letter sent to the board here:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.prolificnorth.co.uk/news/tech-news/2023/06/exclusive-nanoco-revolt-shareholders-concerns-and-demands-full%3famp

I do agree with the concern that the pushback to break even in 2025 was slipped into the capital reduction RNS. I think a trading update is required to clarify this.

Apparently there's going to be a call/presentation tomorrow at 2pm where TH will answer questions. That should be interesting.

So the board are saying they anticipate orders in 2023, that we're nearer to commercial production than at any point in the last 20 years, and they say Nanoco have been increasing raw material stocks, upgrading equipment and hiring more staff in preparation for those orders...

And *now* TH wants to change not just one director but the whole board?! Rather than just wait 6 months

I wonder if LOAM will buy some more to shore up the position. For a few million quid they could get 5% of the shares.

If they can't get that much without driving up the share price too much at least the share price would be higher and give more optimism to shareholders.

On a related note, after the capital reduction I think the company should start buying back shares immediately given how low the share price is. They already have the power to do it and for a couple of million they could buy back a few % and still have plenty of cash.

I'm not sure if they really believe they can do it anyway as LOAM will vote against and they've got 12%, you'll probably get 30% if not more of people not voting, which means TH will need over 60% of the remaining votes to win. Which if you look at the ratio on this board of people who would vote for and against it doesn't seem remotely likely.

FFS not good timing. What couldn't they leave it until the end of the year?

Going to vote against it, whereas if they'd waited until the end of the year and no orders had been received I'd probably have voted for it.

The more I think about the Samsung settlement, the more I think it was driven by the sensing business rather than damages and the display business.

The board said they were expecting "visibility" of orders by the end of 2022. If you look at the Interim results RNS there are clues that the board already had some visibility. It says "Our contracts with customers also include mechanism to give Nanoco advance notice of significant changes in demand that should be adequate to ensure that Nanoco has appropriate raw materials on hand when production needs to be ramped up." In the same RNS it says they are increasing raw material stocks. Put two and two together and it suggests STMicro have given Nanoco advance notice of significant orders, otherwise why would they increase the stocks of raw materials?

Also in the RNS on 28 March it says "The Group is maintaining its investment in working capital in preparation for potential commercial productions orders by the end of CY23. This is to ensure that the Group is seen as a robust part of the supply chain by its major customers." This suggests that there may have been pressure from STMicro to settle the case and take the cash.

In short, if on 3 January BT had been given advance notice of big orders by STMicro, and STMicro were also keen for Nanoco to settle so that they could be relied upon for the supply chain, then you could understand why a low offer was accepted. Although the share price has cratered for the meantime, if big orders do come in it should send it sky high.

Why?

First story on Saturday that Apple have kicked off the supply chain for th iphones. Not sure how long it would take orders to get downstream from Foxconn to STMicro to Nanoco but it would presumably be fairly automatic. So we'd probably see something this Monday or Tuesday.

If we don't see anything this week then I doubt we'll be part of the iphone models this year.

I agree that it's tight, but I think that's how the iphone supply chain is.

Re: guidance/assumptions of a low volume case, they said back on the March presentation that they have no idea what the first case use will be. Anyway, let's not reopen that argument!

Did they steer expectation away from this financial year end for orders? I'm not sure they did, as we're already in the calendar year. That's probably what STMicro have been telling them anyway, because there's always the chance of a new product being delayed by something serious.

That's a good point about the delay for the headsets and I haven't thought about it like that. Maybe you're right.

Kooba, thanks for your post. I've been trying to find out exactly how the iphone supply chain works, but it's really hard to find details.

What I've found suggests that the iphone goes into Engineering Validation Test in Feb/March, finishes early June, Apple place component orders in late June/early July, in July they have the Production Validation Test and then they start mass production in August.

So it's only in late June/early July that the order contracts get signed by Apple. Until then I don't think STMicro would place orders with Nanoco, because why would commit to tens of millions of expenditure until they had certainty of orders.

Nanoco and STM already have a production contract in place. It would simply be a case of STM placing an order under that contract and getting the wheels rolling.

As for the AR headset, I haven't found anything to suggest it's in final validation stages and nearing mass production. Maybe it is but the iphone definitely is.

Agreed screenlearner, we would probably get to break even this year. So the expectation of break even in 2025 is inconsistent with any big orders coming soon and requires an explanation, which could be conservative assumptions given the current lack of orders.

Ok, this is just for a laugh and to get some anonymous board street cred in the unlikely event that I'm right, so please don't think I'm ramping and please don't buy any shares based on this post.

I've wondered before whether the first application could be the iphone based on various bits of information. I still think there's a chance it could be, in which case we could see order news next week or at the latest by mid-July. If I'm right don't forget you heard it here first! (Also, please don't think I have inside info if I am right - I would hardly post it on a forum if I did)

I see where you're coming from nanostory, but let's agree to disagree.

Just been looking at STMicro's Q1 results. An interesting quote from the CEO's script:

"Moving now to Personal Electronics.

During the quarter our products were selected for flagship smartphones, watches and other wearable devices. These included NFC controllers and secure element solutions, wireless charging products, MEMS sensors, and time-of-flight ranging sensors."

Also, in response to this comment:

"Back to my point #1, I don’t see how changing “visibility of orders around the end of H1 FY23” to “actual orders by the end of 2023” would delay breakeven by one year."

What I think may be happening here is that they are assuming 2025 as the break even year to justify the retention of £20m. Because if they expected break even in 2024 it would be difficult to justify that amount. I don't think it can be interpreted as an expectation of the first order size (although I may be wrong about that, and actually my first reaction was to think orders had been delayed or were likely to be v. small).

@nanostory, 2019 was before I invested but I'm fairly sure the break even in that was year was about payments under the Apple contract rather than commercial production orders, and it wasn't that the company would break even going forward, but just break even for that year.