Member Info for Nanonano

Samsung had the opportunity to buy Nanoco back in 2019. Had they offered $150m for the company I think shareholders would have voted it through, but they didn't bite.

Nanoco have publicly stated that they see it's preferable future as part of a larger entity. The only logical reason I can see for taking it private is they have a buyer lined up, but they want a straightforward sale without shareholder interference blocking any deal that disappoints. I really don't think the board are going to be concerned about PI's getting rinsed out, they will seek a deal that leaves them in the pink and potentially provides a future for employees.

Nanosys got into bother because they sold their product so cheaply they couldn't make a profit from it, but in the process it made Nanoco look very expensive, which is likely to be why they got serially dumped by all the major OEM's. What's surprising is how easily Dow rolled over, clearly they had bigger fish to fry, but something stunk to high heaven there.

QD Vision sold to avoid litigation costs from Nanosys. Nanoco shareholders could only dream of a $70m sale especially if you account for the fact it was nearly a decade ago- closer to a $100m now.

The value of their IP has been brought into question more recently with the Shoei litigation.

This was in effect a counter litigation against Nanoco’s earlier litigation against LG. They settled with LG, but the award was less than defending the counter action subsequently taken by Shoei, which resulted in a net loss to Nanoco.

In addition Shoei came away with the ability to carry on supply of cadmium free QD’s, thus really closing off the display market to Nanoco as Shoei have much greater scale.

Nanoco JDA was extended to 3 years in November 2025, so that takes them through to 2028, assuming they get that far.

That’s a long period of development. The company has a little over £10m in cash with a burn of £0.3-0.4m per month, that should leave the company about £9.3-9.5m by the end of FY2026, perhaps a little lower with costs from circulars etc.

Cash burn per annum £3.6-4.8m per year, so by the end of FY2027, without additional income that leaves £4.5-5.9m cash so they are running close to insolvency for the following year and even reducing cash burn by around 19% by delisting won’t make much difference. Added to this if they did get any chance of an order additional costs would be incurred to scale up, as facilities are mothballed at present I believe.

Do they have a deliverable plan, from the current team or any other. Edelman left the company in tatters, requiring two shareholder bailouts and loan notes to get the company to the settlement. Loam did well out of Tenner, but most holders were rinsed with the tender offer, and subsequent STMicro contract loss. Shashkov took on a poisoned chalice, and justifiably moved on once he realised the rough diamond was really just a bit of jagged glass.

I don’t know if you look at the wider market in sensing technology, but for Face ID, there’s a sensor coming to market soon called Polar eyes by Metalenz, which can reportedly be used under display, and from information available does not require QD’s. The sensor is tiny and very inexpensive to produce.

Until now with their use of structured light sensing Apple have held the gold standard for anti spoof Face ID, but that is about to change. Perhaps this was the catalyst that resulted in STMicro backing out?

I did find it meaningful that in the last conference call with the former CEO last year, he seemed to be focusing more on the use of sensing in automotive platforms than mobiles (although they were still included as a potential use)

We know the large II’s most notably LOAM, were steering the ship leading up to and post Samsung settlement, they even put one of their guys on the board for some months. They wanted an opportunity to liquidate their holding, and an early settlement allowed them to do precisely that. They must have considered Nanoco were in with a shout with sensing commercialisation, but one it became obvious STMicro had thrown in the towel and post tender offer they exited below the 3% threshold and Nanoco have been treading water with ‘wonders to come’ since.

Post Tenner, the new broom looked promising at first but turned out to be uninspiring, although to be fair he did inherit a company that had been stripped of a large amount of its financial assets, limiting his options somewhat.

I do believe the molecular seeding patent expiry in November last year was far more important than the company has communicated and it has left them less valuable than they cared to admit. The fact that Shoei challenge was lodged at the same time seemed more than coincidental to me, and I also believe the action against LG was more about trying to get Shoei to make a meaningful offer, but they simply looked at Nanoco’s books and correctly identified they were battling from a weak position e.g. dwindling funds and no meaningful income. Despite all the noise about other companies taking a peek at purchasing Nanoco, I believe Shoei were and remain the sole seriously interested party in acquisition, if there us anyone at all.

If someone was building a large stake in Nanoco then we would have heard about it by now.

Something shifted after STMicro walked away. More recently the narrative shifted from near term to medium term commercialisation, more kicking the ball down the road and it became an ambition rather than an expectation.

If the market was as substantial as indicated and Nanoco’s IP as secure as they like to claim, I don’t believe they’d have difficulty raising cash from II’s.

Almost certainly an offer on the table for the company, but it’s low and unlikely to get a vote from shareholders, however there’s probably some nice golden handshakes for the BOD if they can get it through as a privately held entity.

Rational when you want to line your own pockets at shareholders expense.

Reading the RNS, I would say that the board have a buyer ready to buy the company, but at a price much lower than may have estimated, and that buyer doesn’t not want any scrutiny.

“If they had any clear line of sight to revenues they would not be doing this”

Agreed, a company would not worry about saving that amount if they expected any reasonable revenue within their cash runway.

I wish the pair of you would just disappear.

When a company goes through three CEO's in six years, it's not generally a sign they're executing well.

The company has run out of the road, if it fails this time then it's game over.

Medium term language is appropriate in 2025, as the company would still be two years away from a breakeven strategy. Not so in 2026, I consider the shift meaningful.

If costs are cut further, how will they scale-up materials production? I'd expect costs to go the other way assuming progression in the JDA's.

Further JDA's may help with cash runway, but I suspect not by much.

Sensor commercialisation has been extended by another year, and the company is now using different language to a few months ago.

I think also that the company will have ended up financially worse off following the LG and subsequent Shoei litigation, so the cash runway has been shortened.

The market can barely be described as nascent for sensors let alone mature. Display is mature, however we know the share of the market Nanoco have there, a nice round figure.

If there was tens of millions of pounds in back business third party funders would probably be falling over themselves to step in. However cad free has got seriously important in the last year or so, and thus the potential is going forward especially with the likes TCL and Hisense getting in trouble for supplying QD screens minus the QD's, and Shoei now know they can push as hard as they like without fear of litigation.

Nanoco won't get a look in. Not buying it about the sensor IP swap in exchange for display either- reads like face saving bs.

“Obviously, the scale of Shoei's infringement was too small to make it economical to pursue further”

Reall, going by what metric? Clearly having cost £3.2m to get to the point of discovery taking it to trial would have been significantly greater, to the point of bankrupting Nanoco I suspect.

Quoting in full context pal.

“It's endless performative hypotheticals.”

From the character who suggested £200m would be nothing to many companies to acquire Nanoco. How about that royalty you felt sure was hidden in the details of the Shoei litigation agreement , or the carefully contrived trap Nanoco had set for those infringing now reaching its conclusion, with Shoei on the backfoot.