Member Info for Nanonano

From an earlier RNS.

"While we are pleased that the independent valuation exercise has confirmed the Board's view that there is significant value in the Company's intellectual property, it is important to be clear that this is an accounting exercise based on accounting methodologies. Realising this value for shareholders will depend on a number of factors, producing a range of outcomes and valuation scenarios.”

Have you read the annual report? I couldn’t find any reference to Nanoco at risk of not being a going concern.

It’s seems the main bone of contention was factored around the original £46m valuation which was based on forecasts with inherent risk, and have now placed company valuation at a much lower enterprise value of £12.1m, although I’d expect that to rise a bit with the LG settlement.

I got this at the link-

Nanoco Group plc filed its annual report on November 26, 2025, for the period ending July 31, 2025. In this document, its auditor, Forvis Mazars, LLP, issued a qualified opinion, expressing doubts about the company's ability to continue operating as a viable entity.

Perhaps they are referring to this? From page 68 of the report

Impairment assessment of the valuation of investments

Having identified potential impairment indicators per IAS 36, the Committee considered the potential impairment of the investment in the main trading subsidiary, Nanoco Technologies Limited.

Nanoco built forecasts supporting valuations between £nil and £46 million using a WACC of 19.0% (2024: 18.5%).

Management appreciate that there is inherent risk in the execution of these forecasts, and so have impaired the valuation of investments down to £12.1 million, which also reflects the enterprise value at 31 July 2025.

Following discussion with the auditor we understand that management have been unable to provide sufficient evidence to support the underlying assumptions in the valuation model and as such they have qualified the audit report in this one matter.

"That would imply Shoei being permitted to continue on supplying LG would it not?"

Well that's what happened with Samsung, in their case Hansol continued to supply post settlement- Nanoco's share price would have gone through the roof if they'd got a supply deal with them.

I can't see Lg wanting to change horses at this stage, would mean halting production recalibrating for different dots etc. In addition surely Nanoco would be obligated to update the market if a supply agreement was inked or pending?

I don’t know what the secrecy is about. I agree $5m seems pretty paltry if Lg are able to continue onwards, just supplying Apple alone with QD laptop screens is fairly significant business and Nanoco have settled on 3.5% of the amount of the Samsung.

Seems a strange thing for LG to do. Compared to Nanoco they are huge so can easily afford the legal costs, and if they considered themselves in the right would have thought they’d counter sue Nanoco. Also strikes me it would be a bloody silly thing for Nanoco to even try and take on LG if they weren’t sure they were being infringed. Isn’t it supposed to be fairly straightforward for scientists to tell what synthesis method has been used to make the dots?

“You agree Hansol use Nanoco's seeding process to produce CFQDs?“

Yes, otherwise Samsung would not have settled with Nanoco. What I was addressing was in relation to Nanosys/Shoei ability (or not) to produce cad free QD’s without infringing on Nanoco IP. Some are saying here that Nanosys/Shoei have technology which gets around Nanoco IP, that should be addressed in the action in Virginia.

Nanoco have previously stated they were not interested in legal action against other QD producers.

The thing that is frustrating, is that the two companies so far sued by Nanoco have both had long established relationships with them, and yet they chose to use QD’s from other companies in their products who are infringing Nanoco IP.

Legal action might redress the balance a little, but Nanoco as a company is still left with insignificant commercial revenue, as in each case it appears a settlement is a one off payment with no future income from either a recurring license or material supply.

A couple of things I bear in mind.

Re Samsung, they were Nanosys investors over some time, if they had the best tech that didn’t infringe Nanoco IP, then it would seem an odd choice to rip off Nanoco’s patented methods.

Second thing is Apple Mac Pro’s are said to represent around half of their annual computer sales a year, which is equivalent to around 11m units. If LG are supplying the QD screens to Apple, that’s considerable volume not as much as Samsung, but meaningful.

Regarding the tons of material Nanosys claim have shipped up to 2023, I wonder if they included the carrrier medium for the dots too? I believe QD’s are shipped in a solution to prevent oxidisation before being encapsulated in film. I don’t know the ratio of dots to carrier, but I expect it adds considerable weight.

Bearing in mind pretty much all the display OEM’s have worked with Nanoco at some point, it does beg the question why they chose an alternative supplier, especially when they get sued. Perhaps LG expected to Nanoco to be insolvent by now?

What is it about competitors QD’s that makes them more appealing. Is it price, performance, geography of the supplier or have they simply got a desire to see Nanoco fail? LG like Samsung got as far with Nanoco as an expected production order via Dow, then dropped QD screens in favour of OLED, only to play a similar game years later now with Nanosys/Shoei somewhat like Samsung did with Hansol.

I do remember Nanosys claiming to have shipped 140 tons of QD material. II don’t recall them saying it was cad free. If it was cad free, then why haven’t Nanoco found more sets and OEM’s infringing?

I also recall that Nanoco’s process was easy to spot in infringing products.

Someone is being economical with the truth in this affair, I guess truth will out.

Regarding Apple Mac Pro screens, I believe they're supplied by LG, and as they've come to a settlement not sure they can expect any further payments there.

I'm certainly not qualified to comment on the differences (if any) between Shoei and Nanoco's processes for making CFQD.

I do believe when it comes down to the science Nanoco do have a good record of choosing their battles and not making rash decisions, and perhaps this may be a last attempt by Shoei to remain in the CFQD game. Perhaps other OEM's are less keen to engage with them for supply if they consider they're likely to get sued for infringement.

Seems to be a falling knife at present. Perhaps the base will be the 52 week low of 6.45p.

Relatively low volume of shares being traded compared with average, and company once again trading below cash if we take into account the recent LG settlement figure. Funny old world.

Speculative gamble on a sale of £45m+?

Nanosys certainly weren't backwards in coming forwards in suing any infringers in the past. So I'd agree this either looks like Shoei/Nanosys trying to queer the pitch by throwing some shade at Nanoco.

How well did Nanosys really do? Doubtful we'll ever find out the price Shoei paid to absorb Nanosys, but for a company doing well they seemed to need a lot of external venture capital ($267m) and still didn't remain independent. Their last independent funding round of $50m was little more than year before they were sold.

QD display has scaled over the years, but has fallen well below earlier expectations in volumes. Independent analysts predicted half or more of the TV market would be QD based in some form or other, but I believe it's much lower at around 10-15%.

QD based IR sensors does look like something that could seriously scale assuming that technology path is chosen by manufacturers. Until a company commits to it however we won't know. STMicro walked away after eight years of R&D, which seems a strange decision when they clearly had a technological lead over competitors.

Possibly pricing in risk that Shoei's argument might obtain validation in a Virginia court?

Nanoco have demonstrated they can defend their IP in a legal setting very well, but there's always a chance another jurisdiction with a different judge may see things differently.

This doesn’t look like it’s gone down well with the market.

The real risk with this company is that like with display the company does the hard miles, then finds themselves with no customers after the third party OEM's get someone else to supply their dots.

CEO says he believes it will be more difficult to do this with sensors than with display, but they've been proven wrong many times before.

I still find it hard to swallow that any Asian OEM will want to purchase materials from UK, for manufacturing devices in Asia, I believe they'll want a supplier more local assuming the JDA's reach completion and a market has been found.

If it's so lucrative and high in scale, it begs the question why STMicro walked after going so far down the rabbit hole?

Didn’t answer the question though.