Member Info for Noise

Hi Bob

This still remains my best investment on the stock market, although I have entered and exited a number of times.

My original £800 @ 6p sold between 60-80p and I've been grumpy about the price for my remaining shares for years ;)

Well, the obvious solution that the market would usually prefer, would perhaps be an auto deal to buy the EMH half of the company. Leaving CEZ + auto.

It would partially explain the occasional hostilities and conflicting interests at play in the market. VW + CEZ would be a nice one, in which case you would expect a modest multiple of the existing SP....possibly within 1 year?

More newsflow likely now that the election is over?

EU can ramp up interest without being seen to interfere with the election?

What is today's bounce related to?

Tentative signs from Erdogan about Russian withdrawal comments in Ukraine, derisking the Czech mine project?

Crap, sorry guys, I totally misread the date! (it was 2021)

https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/czech-state-cez-push-ev-battery-plant-plans-partner-search-continues-2021-07-27/

"July 27 (Reuters) - The Czech Industry Ministry and majority state-owned utility CEZ (CEZP.PR) on Tuesday pushed ahead with plans for an electric vehicle battery plant in the central European country as they look for partners in the more than $2 billion project.
The Czech state is also looking to attract a partner from the car or battery industry for the project that could have annual capacity of 40 GWh. Industry Minister Karel Havlicek said talks have been held with Volkswagen, which owns Czech carmaker Skoda Auto, and also South Korea's LG."
On the talks with other partners, Havlicek said that it could not be ruled out that a second plant project would emerge in future but that was not the goal of the state at the moment.

"Our goal is to build one plant but we are in talks with two partners," he said.

Havlicek has said the state was ready to offer incentives for an investor. read more

The country is one of the locations that the German auto group Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) is considering for one of six battery cell plants it aims to build in Europe by 2030.

A VW executive said this month the group was in "deep" discussions on a plant in the central European region but no decision had been taken yet."

On that CEZ presentation, there is an odd slide I am struggling to interpret.

"Proportional EBITAD of battery related activities - CZK billion".

1bn CZK = £35mpa EBITAD by 2025, 2bn CZK = £70mpa by 2030.

Is this an indicator that value of EMH is something in the 10+ year window of 10x £50m - £500m?

"he concern wanted to be clear about the construction of a Central European battery factory at the end of last year, but postponed the decision by about half a year. The current Russian invasion of Ukraine also influences the assessment and negotiations. "I am convinced that we will reach a decision in the first half of the year," Schäfer said. If that happened, the group would still decide during Schäfer's work in Škoda, because he will lead the Czech carmaker until the end of June."

Tidal is making slow moves in the UK. We have had the SIMEC-Atlantis project operating at pilot scale in Scotland for a while. But the barriers have so far been down to cost. The revolutionary cost reductions seen in offshore wind farms simply mean that offshore wind is currently 3x cheaper than tidal, where even the hardest minds would agree that market is hard to ignore.

In the latest government CFD round they did allocate £20m per year to developing several tidal projects, but the Welsh barrage ideas have been complicated. As a proud Welshman myself, my gut feeling is that the politicians, bankers and construction companies really hammed up the project requirements and costs. When they started adding on a cycling racetrack, "floating eco homes" and arts gallery, you had to wonder if this was a power plant or a tourist destination for Guardian readers..

Putin has various economic and strategic interests in Ukraine. But personally, I do not seriously think he wants war. He communicated the changes in a very public way, it would be unusual to put your enemies on high alert in such an obvious way. Imagine Trump giving Iran two weeks notice that the US was putting 100k troops on its border - it just wouldn't happen.

Although saying that, as far back as 2008 Putin had publicly stated his opinion. "[Putin] at a NATO-Russia summit in 2008 stated that if Ukraine joined NATO his country could contend to annex the Ukrainian East and Crimea" which is exactly what he ended up doing.

Russia has a deeper EU problem than the Ukraine per se. Russian exports are roughly 70% oil and gas. It has essentially limited green projects in the pipeline. The current green energy revolution is an existential crisis to the Russian economy and balancing the government books.

IMO, what will occur is some kind of renewable energy negotiation, probably supplying Germany (and possibly the Ukraine/Baltics) with green hydrogen.

Germany has significant opposition to building wind turbines near populated centres, while in Russia they have good wind resources and the Kremlin can force the planning permission through.

Yeah, they have probably hired BNP and JP Morgan to trickle buy these shares for 6+ months. They probably recently triggered (or intentionally delayed their purchase) the 5% limit. It's a classic way for a fund to manage a large purchase.

Buying 5% of the company in one day on the market would be ridiculous as it would raise their buying price obscenely. They waited it out.

What it means, hard to tell. They're either in it for the long haul (excellent), or in it to gain voting rights for a cheeky takeover bid for the company (not terrible).

I note there describe themselves as a "long only" fund. That's positive.

I do not know how you guys see the next steps, but having seen the shenanigans of historic AIM companies, I wouldn't be surprised (after all this interference from government and EU), that given the problems Rio Tinto have at Jadar, that Rio may swoop in with a cheeky £1.50 to £2 offer.

Unfortunately, being an AIM company most of the big funds/institutions are just limited from investing in AIM, so the big fund holders do like to push shares like this into a bigger FTSE listed company. Not saying this is really happening intentionally, but I could certainly see Rio having cheaper debt financing options. Also Rio is listed on the FTSE, Aussie and NYSE markets, so frankly the world is your oyster for financing an EU lithium play. Rio are valued @ £200bn market cap and could build 3x Cinovec's with change found down the back of the CEO's sofa ;)

I wouldn't complain, although I was looking forward to the 2025 £5 party! (my entry point was 6p, so cannot grumble too much).

Am I correct that today's PFS values the share price at roughly £3 to £7, depending on market price of lithium?

Yeah, it's odd right?

Either Valirx have signed a literal "we promise to talk to you, but nothing else" contract with a literal non-entity shell of an organisation. Orrr... the yankees have literally had a 5 years psyops campaign to shift the Valirx assets into US companies. Based on the info I can see, it could be either of those options, but the former seems more likely.

Although there does appear to be a Washington patent examiner involved with the human genome project who could be another possibility

Sooo, either:

1) The big deal is a LoI with a company that either barely exists, has no website or discoverable details?
OR
2) We have signed a LoI with a 1-man pharmacy consultantancy firm of the same name?
OR
3) The head of Sunrise Securities (Ken Sorensen) life science NY office has setup his own company called TheoremRX?

For what it's worth, I think there will be regions where hydrogen vehicles will take off. Largely in the UK, probably Wales and Scotland (windier places might decide to use hydrogen, particularly for industrial and farm vehicles).

Electric cars, trains and eScooters will dominate.

PM, what is your source for "confirmed VAL201 deal on track to be announced shortly"?

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/czech-president-milos-zeman-taken-to-hospital-reports-say/ar-AAPkUdt

If you believe the reports, Zeman walked into a meeting with Babis the day after losing an election, but then promptly exited the meeting in a wheelchair to be ferried to intensive care. While a quirk of law means that Babis instead of Zeman rules over the transition period.