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TB - as I feared you don't seem to understand what will happen if there is a sale of Nano. If there is a sale we will sell our shares to the buyer at whatever the deal price is - and that's it. We will no longer have shares in the business and we will no longer have any claim for whatever monies Samsung do pay; they will go to the new owner. The sale price will, therefore, have the buyer's expectations of future legal claims priced into it. The only way we will get a claim over any future legal proceeds is if the deal involves shares in the buyer or we choose to buy shares in the buyer ourselves as individual investors.
TB - I'm sure you realise that you won't get both the sale price and the lawsuit settlement; the sale price will have the lawsuit built in and you can only sell your shares once!
I'm not sure why coronavirus would slow things down; people can still watch TV (in fact probably more will if they're all in quarantine!).
Possibly, although I don't think Samsung will end up paying anything like $400mn to settle the case; with an amount like that they'd sooner let it get all the way to trial and then appeal.
There is a chicken and egg situation here. Without the IP there is no sustainable earnings stream (at present) and potential buyers won't know whether there is a valid IP until the court case is finished. I can't see a sale (except to a hedge fund or equivalent) until the court case is finished and in the meantime there are the recurrent costs of the business that need to be paid. I think anyone planning on making a quick fortune here is likely to be disappointed (but we can all dream!!)
Jonesy - It may be valued at 25m but that doesn't mean that it's worth a penny to our business. To them it was a sunk cost (add your own joke here) because they'd already spent the money; therefore it cost them nothing to 'sell' it to us.
Nige-W; how do you know the board wouldn't discuss offers below 50p? Is this based on information/knowledge or is it just a hunch? This is a company that has not yet reached commercial viability (it has never made a profit) and unless an income stream is found soon will need further cash injection to remain viable for long enough to pick up any 'winnings' from the court case. I'm not convinced the BoD are in a position to demand any particular price.
Troublesome; I accept your point. If the case gets to full trial there is 67% chance of a guilty verdict based on past experience in that court. However, PPE used the term 'guilty' and I would still suggest that there is a 98% chance that Samsung are not found 'guilty', mainly due to the likelihood of an out of court settlement.
PPE - the key section in your message is 'assuming Samsung are found guilty'. If the technology used by Samsung is not Nano's then the rest of the claims for IP value do not hold. As for guilty; there is a 2% success rate for claimants in the Texas ED and they only uphold in full 42% of their own decisions on appeal (and we know from past experience that Samsung would appeal).
But who would want to buy Nano? I can't see a firm buying Nano as a commercial 'dot producer' with the costs and risk of the legal case hanging over everything. A hedge fund or similar investment vehicle with a high risk appetite might go for it but they won't enter a bidding war for the privilege. Samsung might do 'the honourable thing' but as PPE has been keen to point out their ethical track record doesn't suggest that they will. I think they will hold out for as long as possible (and it is worth noting that the Texas ED court only uphold around 42% of their own IP decisions on appeal). The Chinese might want the IP but they are generally conservative in their investment decisions and probably wouldn't want the uncertainty either.
Wouldn't a breakeven financial position mean no dividends would be paid? This would mean the shares would be effectively worth nothing (aside from possible dividends earned from completely new revenue streams). A sale would seem to be a better result for current shareholders to me.
There are the costs of the case itself but the bigger issues around a loss in court would be (i) possible counter-suits by Samsung, which could be very (probably terminally) expensive and (ii) failure to protect IP, which would indicate that there may be little value in the company given that the IP is their most valuable asset at present. Any company buying Nano at this point will want to weight the risks and potential pay-offs against their own risk appetite.
Except that the latest RNS says 'the Group worked collaboratively with Samsung on developing enhanced quantum dots based on our unique and patented CFQD ® Quantum Dot technology and associated IP.' The key word is 'collaboratively'; I imagine Samsung's defence will be along the lines that they were jointly developing Nano's IP to a commercially exploitable product and that their inputs were instrumental to getting the product to the stage where it could be used in TV's.
From a personal viewpoint I hope that the excited talk of £1 and £1.50 turns out to be true (my average is 14p) but I think that the fact the share price hasn't doubled since Friday indicates that there is a downside risk here which the market is aware of. Someone previously wrote that they see this as a binary investment and I agree; it's either win or bust, and I wouldn't like to guess which way it will go at this stage.
As ever, DYOR!