Member Info for Monkshood

If you think about the recent story-
'A thumb-size bat that was killed by a house cat in Russia flew a record-breaking 1,254 miles (2,018 kilometers) from the U.K. before meeting its untimely end.'
It is easy to see how you can potentially get both long distance transport of bat viruses and interspecies transfer of their viruses whether there are wet markets or not.

@Timster- we will not get a running commentary. Those involved in the trail -patients/medical staff/Avacta -will quite early on, have a good idea how things are going, this is where it can get 'leaky' especially if you look at the potential value of a positive result.

It is going to be interesting to see how 'leaky' the results from this trial are. It is very hard to keep this type of trial completely secret. There could be some insightful share price movements over the next few months....

Mr A - if you wish to be precise then you should use-
(7S,9S)-7-[(2R,4S,5S,6S)-4-Amino-5-hydroxy-6-methyloxan-2-yl]oxy-6,9,11-trihydroxy-9-(2-hydroxyacetyl)-4-methoxy-8,10-dihydro-7H-tetracene-5,12-dione.
;0)

They were supposed to have published details of the changes (in July) before the discontinuation vote this month. I was told that this document would cover further details of the cost , impact on NAV etc, given the delay it makes me wonder if they are reconsidering this, especially after the failure of Liontrust to raise the funds to launch a similar Trust.
One of the main reasons for picking BMO seems to be the belief that they have a better 'distribution capability' which I assume means they would be better at selling to II's. Personally, I think that if whoever runs it, produces good returns, then investors, be them II's or RI's, will follow with their money.
If you look at the main holdings it would not have been that hard for them to have slowly rotated the portfolio to be ESG if that is what they believe the best investments are. All they have achieved so far is to just widen the discount!

You also have to factor in that they are running down their personal loan book. The net personal loan book was worth £20M in 2018 which was equal to 2/5 the value of the pledge book, this was reduced to £16M in 2020 then £6M last year and is set to reduce further again this year as they phase these out (unless this changes with a change of CFO).

700 may even be a little conservative-
From the FT
The 5 analysts offering 12 month price targets for RWS Holdings plc have a median target of 761.00, with a high estimate of 810.00 and a low estimate of 690.00. The median estimate represents a 34.69% increase from the last price of 565.00.

It does seem to be gaining some upwards momentum again. I top sliced when it hit 690 in late April but have been building up again in the lows as it has clearly been oversold (in my opinion!). Added some more over the past couple of days, however, the Director buy prompted me to top slice my RTO holding and put a good tranche in here first thing. At the time they had an almost identical share price but RWS looks to be on a roll and is already ahead, it could easily make 700 again if the results in October are reasonable.

Proposed for Oct AGM. Not sure it will have much impact on the discount though.

But if you are vaccinated, then the latest PHE data indicates that the risk of hospitalisations is marginally reduced for Delta compared to Alpha.
Vaccine effectiveness against hospitalisation for Alpha and Delta variants
Dose 2, Alpha 93 (80-97) Delta 96 (91-98)

The increase in volume over the past week looks like someone has been reducing. I topped up with some more today as it must be getting near the bottom of this dip, will add a bit more if it does fall further, at some point the discount will reduce as it must be nearly 10% more than its long term historical average.

Nice rise today on the back of the results. It does make you wonder why Aviva and Fidelity sold nearly a quarter of their holdings earlier in the year driving the price down. Still, their loss was my gain so I should not complain.

I should qualify 'a bit less positive' - than perhaps some were expecting.

US and Alsa look OK, so it is only the UK which is possibly a bit less positive, probably not helped by the talk of low cost competition (assumedly this is what Librium was referring to when the dropped their target price to 340).This was addressed in the Q&A’s, they seemed fairly relaxed about it, arguing that it helps promote buses over trains and that Flix (the low cost operator) cannot continue discount below cost in the longer term. They also flagged Nex’s scale (10x that of all of the competition) which is coming into play as more routes are opened up.
The competition in Spain mentioned by Librium is more from rail, but they are looking to adjust schedules and routes and stops to both mitigate and take advantage of this.
They seem fairly bullish about opportunities to expand in several places- something they have clearly been looking at, with Italy mentioned for the first time along with the bid’s we know they already have in in Chile and the Middle East.
Still, rather surprised by the initial reaction, seems overdone, especially with the situation improving here.

Look really good, especially the profit figures.
M&A looks strong, this was also mentioned in Rollins Q&A where they said it was to do with potential tax changes in the US which was generating opportunities.
France work wear etc was better than I had expected, this will help set it up for it's probable sale this year or next.

Surely it will be up today on these results? It is not like they had a bad year last year to make these results flatter.

Rollins results were good today so hopefully rto's will follow tomorrow.

I do not think that you will be getting any divi's until after next April when the grant from the UK ceases. The last full years div was 14 p - the sp has gone up nearly 40p in the past week, I am quite happy settling for capital gain at the moment.
From Rol's interims
'One of the terms of the DfT grants is that bus companies may not pay dividends as long as the grant regime is in place. Accordingly, it will be necessary for the DfT grant regime to have ceased and normal bus operation to have re-commenced successfully before the Board may consider the resumption of dividend payments.'

I kept trickling a bit in during the lows so it has been nice to see it coming back up ahead of the results this week.
The Q1 results were OK but the balance between loss of income from lockdowns (in particular French workwear) and revenues from disinfection services this quarter that is hard to call.

It is starting to look like the UK has passed peak infections, at least before the most recent opening of nightclubs etc kick in.

If you had to pick some countries that had the potential to recover due to good vaccination rates, then those that nex operates in are not a bad selection.
Beyond the UK, Spain is one of the least vaccine hesitant in Europe which should help going forward. The US is perhaps not the best! but it is vaccinating 12+ which is what is going to be the most important for school buses usage. Morocco is the most vaccinated country in Africa, with a structured vaccination program and a relative young population it should be in a better place than many to handle the current wave from Delta.

Early days but it is starting to look like the sentiment, which took a knock with Delta, is changing.
We are now in a good position to meet or exceed Nex's base scenario (see the annual report for details) this was also indicated in their May update and is certainly much better than the worse case scenario they modelled (which would still have left them solvent).
It looks like others may be agreeing as there was not as much profit taking this afternoon as I had expected. It is going to be interesting to see where this is at the end of next week after the results.

I am doubly happy today, one of the small caps I sold the other day to add more here was Trist which is down nearly 10% today.
Almost all down to luck but it is nice when it all goes the right way (for a change...)