Member Info for Monkshood

I agree. What I do find though, is that writing posts, makes me focus on why I am invested (well at least some of them do..)
Like today, I went back through the rns's and re-read them and then did some further research. I ended up buying some more -although that was not the original intention!
It is why I wish those deramping would offer something constructive with regards analysis rather than just the bland statements that seem typical of this group of individuals.

In terms of valuation, I think that it would have been around 500 without covid, so a 40% reduction of the sp for the next year to 300p seems reasonable (given that 50% of revenue is from contracts + the government support they have received in different countries), with a 20% reduction for the following year.

This was nex’s analysis in April-
‘The Group considers such a downside scenario to involve revenue recovering slowly from the start of Q3 (and from the current monthly run-rate during Q2 of just over 50% down versus pre-COVID-19 levels), remaining at somewhat lower levels into and throughout 2021 (a monthly run-rate of approximately 25% down versus pre-COVID-19 levels).Under such a downside scenario, the Group's EBITDA in 2020, taking into account the benefit of the management actions taken to reduce the cost base, would fall approximately 40% relative to 2019. However, with the embedded growth in the business (such as the 2019 acquisition of WeDriveU and the significant new contracts wins in Rabat and Casablanca), revenue and EBITDA in 2021 under this downside scenario would recover close to 2019 levels.’ (When the sp was around 400p)

I can see that costs will rise because of PPE, cleaning, social distancing etc. FGP also flagged reinsurance in North America as a significant headwind. Driver recruitment and wage inflation will (unsurprisingly) not be an issue next year, fuel is also relatively cheap (they usually fully hedge this) .
They will have taken a hit with the school buses in the US. From First Student – ‘our effective recovery rate is c.61% of our pre-crisis expectations, based on the agreements reached with customers since March.’
New contracts going forward, however, are going to take covid measures into account.
In the US they will have benefited from the CARES act (mainly indirectly from what I can understand) however there is a more specific $10b Bill currently going through Congress to help Transport Services, if this is passed, I assume, this will be of benefit to nex. (should find out in the next month)
I think that they will pick up further school contracts with First Group looking to withdraw from the US.
cont.

Falk, I am still in, not sure that I ever said 400 though. I do think that provided it gets through the next year (which I am confident that it will) then I expect it to reach 300 and then 400 the year after (there, said it now...).

From the May rns
‘Revenue for April is around 50% compared to the same month in 2019 which is in line with the guidance provided to investors during the recent Placing. Pleasingly, driven by reductions to our monthly operating costs of around £100m along with continued support from governments and customers, we generated positive EBITDA, slightly ahead of our expectations. This was further boosted by strong cash collections to drive positive cash flow for the month ahead of our expectations.’

They have been trying to discourage use of the school busses in my area, last year 70% of the kids at my DD's school used the bus to get to school. A survey for next school year indicated that at best this will be reduced to 60%. I would not be surprised to see this rise in practice as the roads in the area return to becoming gridlocked. There is no practical alternatives to buses for many people, this is why 50% of nex's i income is from contracts.
From the May rns-
‘ In Quebec, Canada, when schools re-opened this week we note that 80% of students signed-up for school buses immediately.
North American School Bus: we have won our first contract (subject to school board approval) that came to market after the previous operator had the service removed following Covid-19 disruption. This contract is for 5 years and follows recent stand-out wins in: Boise, Idaho; Fairbanks, Alaska; and, Oakland, California:’

I do think that the long distance routes and shuttles will take a hit, but, again in the May rns --Spanish long haul: our early experience of the lockdown relaxation measures is demonstrating that we are able to cover our variable-costs with only 15 passengers on-board.

Your statements about there being no information between the oversold low and the following high, are as has been discussed before, is not true as there were two updates and then a third (the May one) after the placing.
f you look, the start of the slide corresponds to the announcement of the CEO leaving which I totally agree was bad news, as were his sale (although this was at 198 and 192 - not 180 as you said). This was compounded by the upturn in covid cases in the US at the same time.
I assume that you short/spread bet this stock or want a low entry price- fair enough, but you really do not need to have a dig at people who are in it long. It would be nice if you offered something more constructive rather than just trying to talk it down all of the time…..

I do not think it is a lost cause. I believe it will be a very good test which in theory should also be able to track changes in sars cov2 . It is quite feasible to multiplex this with a test for other viruses if needed.
Given that the installed instrument base in the rest of Europe 9 years ago was 10 x that of the UK there should be potential there. I cannot find more recent data for the instrument numbers so it is not clear if we were behind the curve (probably ..) or that the base has increased to the same extent everywhere.
With government funding the instrument base could be increased, but so can the PCR base, I think until the test is out in the labs and details of easy of use and costs are known, evaluating how likely this will be is very difficult.
It was originally proposed as an addition to PCR testing, to utilise the maldi ToF's in the path labs - however as more routine work is undertaken in hospitals will their be the spare capacity on the existing instruments?

Trying to keep away from the Avacta thread on this this BB! I get so annoyed with some of the misinformation that I essentially end up talking down my own shares trying to provide some perspective.....

comments I have seen today-

Every hospital has a MS- not true and has been covered previously, also see below.

They have been in hospitals for decades – not true. Maldi ToF’s The ones used for BAMS have been in path labs since about 2008 (there were 23 Biotypers in the NHS in UK in 2011) but only in greater numbers more recently. In 2011, there were 267 in the rest of Europe, so they may be a lot more common there and in the US.

From todays rns -‘The BAMS assay runs on equipment that is already installed in most hospital clinical microbiology labs’ - So how many path labs are there? -from NHS/Wiki 1257 hospitals in the UK, in England there are 223 trusts with 122 individual pathology units, so approx. 122 if they all have maldi ToF (which may not be the case). There may be contract labs that are used outside the NHS so this number may well be higher. The kits could be also used in Pharma and research settings.

Another comment-

‘AVCT’s BAMS tests run on an already installed base of hospital machinery. No specialised desktop machinery need be purchased to run them, unlike various PCR tests. So, potentially: Most accurate, fastest COVID-19 lab test globally, with no new machinery required. Glorious.’-

So, no you do not need a deck top PCR machine – but you do need a Maldi ToF! Hospitals path labs are more likely to have PCR than a Maldi ToF. Depending on the details of the test (which we do not yet have information about) you may need to do various sample treatments prior to analysis ( in the same way that you do with PCR), which may require extra kit.

From todays rns ‘currently unused for COVID-19 testing’ - however they are being used, often seeming to capacity, for non covid analysis.

I do think that it will be a very good test, but lets retain some perspective here.

When I last checked, rfx had a much larger proportion of its revenue derived from currency exchange. I thought that this may take longer to recover than HAT's offerings.

Not sure about funds buying, but I did.
They were a good set of results - up in every geographical region. New products with Byot come out in this half and there will be a backlog of delayed procedures which will create demand for their core products. It is on quite a high P/E but the drop was definitely overdone.

I still think it is a good mid/long term investment and remain invested.
I wonder if the recent fall is a response to the situation at AMIGO, although the two are by no means comparable? If I recall, HAT only had 24m in interest payments on their entire HCSTC loans over the last 6year period. They seem to be very rarely mentioned on Debt Camel which is the main got to site for people looking for refund information, so I take this as a positive.

I was a bit concerned about the failure to reduce net debt but I recommend listening to the conference call for an explanation of this. Also after listening to the call I feel more confident that they can maintain production at current levels going forward.
There was no mention of it but their results indicate that their listed investments increased from 18-35M.

Pleased with these results. I did wonder how the balance between loosing regular hospital work vers surface cleaning would pan out but it clearly turned out reasonably well for them.

Most of the info was released in December5th rns. The main difference is that with the higher POG they have reduced the economic cut off grade to 0.6g/t which is probably why the ASIC has increased. Still a nice 5% rise today.
Daily gross shorts on the asx for last Friday below 1m (0.7M) - first time I have seen them below 1M since I have been checking (last September).
Results later this week, these will be really what determines the SP going forward.

Rivaldo, thanks for the Times info.
A good start to the week with both this and SCE.

Thanks Forensic/Martin
Have you seen the 2020 investor presentation, where they cover unrealised/realised revenues?
https://vimeo.com/386252528

Information from a local school with regards school buses-what is interesting is that 'social distancing is not required on school buses' and the issues with shared student/public transport. I would imagine that the former is likely to be a policy adopted in many countries.

'Government guidance suggests there are two types of morning bus. Buses that are solely for the usage of students and buses that are public transport. Social distancing is not required on the former, but is on the latter ', ' ... are not designated school buses, and can be accessed by the public and, therefore, at this current moment, should be subject to social distancing as it stands today. This will have to change or the overall bus capacity will reduce by two thirds.'

I was not convinced by the Share Prophet report and thought the rebuttal yesterday was reasonable in the context of previous information from the company. Took advantage of the price drop to top up with a few more.
Looked at Share Prophets website today and was rather shocked by the language that they use, very hard to take anyone seriously when they resort to such measures.

I thought it was OK- will be interesting to see how it is viewed by the market. Significantly, net debt was reduced by £5M (to 35M) from the early April update which is pretty good going under the circumstances. Some increases in expenditure on social distancing measures and technology costs going forward.
It will be interesting to see to what extent the a strong bounce back in June (+20% YoY) is maintained going forward. The companies mix of online and large spacious shops should be a good combination with covid still casting a shadow over retail.

This should be a fascinating update. They have a good online presence now (which I tried and it worked well) and the shops were open earlier than many. The car park by our local one has been reasonably busy since the store reopened. People seem to be doing up their houses during the lockdown which should have been good for them. I am sure they will have taken a hit to revenues but how much of this has been able to be offset by the furlough payments etc will be interesting to see.

I was unsure of what to do, crl has been a good holding for me, I generally like the company, the way it is run and the people running it(from their webinars). Given its ups and downs I do trade it a bit whilst keeping a core holding. I last topped up the other week when it dipped to 50p but have not sold any since.
The ' over-all performance remains on track' was enough to keep me invested but unless it drops to low 40's I will await the results before purchasing more.
I am trusting that it was rather more of a question of a poorly thought out response to emails about the publication of the results , tacked onto the directors options rns which they needed to put out; no one would have thought much about if the latter was not at 7.00am

Today, from our County Council, about refund of school season tickets for those who purchase one through their discount scheme.
'The situation is complex because of the nature of how we subsidise the schemes and how
people choose to pay for their pass. Consistent with Government advice, we are also
continuing to pay bus operators to protect future services, meaning our costs to provide this
scheme have not reduced. '

The drop to 66p was all about whether it would go bust. Once it was recognised that 50% of its income was from contracts and that, as it is an essential service, the governments of the regions it was operating in, would underwrite some of the costs, then it rerated. This was backed by several rns's detailing the companies finances followed by a placing which provided further capital.
I think that the recent fall is a mix of , 'risk off' because of the covid situation in America, the departure sf the very good CEO (and the sale of his shares), plus some profit taking.

Yesterday I had a survey about transport to school for my kids for the next academic year. It started with '70% of the children travel to the school by bus's - and therein is the reason that nex will get through the next year and covid and then resume its trajectory.
The school were concerned about enough students being able to get on the busses with social distancing, but at the same time were trying to discourage parent driving them as the roads are clogged already. However, in practice, walking/cycling is not going to significantly increase because of either the distances, or safety. Many parents are also working so dropping off is often not feasible. This is going to be the same in all of the countries nex operate in. They will want the kids at school, buses are the only way many can get there. I can see the social distancing rules being watered down for school buses, if that is what it takes to get them into school.