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Noticing today's RNS on Mithaq's holding, it looked initially like Mithaq's holding had decreased (23.26% gone down to 21.18%), but checking the previous Mithaq holding RNS (21st May) I see there that the shares held then was 31,500,000 which they've now increased to 31,707,585. So a net increase, the lower % will be due to the new shares issued for the US listing. We might see some other similar RNS announcements for other large Tremor shareholders with similar confusing lower % but the same number of actual shares held.

Looks like UK PLCs are on the shopping list for CDR: as well as their bid for Morrisons I see they've also just raised (slightly) their bid for UDG Healthcare (LSE symbol: UDG) - not by much, but it does suggest they're likely to stand by and perhaps increase their initial 230p offer for Morrisons even if there's no other bidders.

That said, I rather expect to see a couple of other bidders to emerge before the CDR "put up or shut up" date of 17th July, and likely much sooner than that.

Good spot chasable. Found the podcast, the Ilika part starts at 26 minutes in.

Well I for one want to know all about your cat: How successful are it's investment recommendations, and is it registered with the FFCA(*) ? :-)

(*) Feline Financial Conduct Authority

I was keen to checkout your reference, looks like it's the Telegraph's business feed, esp. the entry at 8:15am, "...suggestions ... bidding war ... American private equity firms Lone Star and Apollo Global Management ... Amazon". So a slight note of caution that it's "suggestions" of other bidders only,

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/06/21/markets-live-latest-coronavirus-news-pound-ftse-100-updates/

but nevertheless this is a share that I feel has been long undervalued and overlooked, I think because it's not got such a strong presence in the south of the UK. I particularly like how it likes to run in a prudent manner - i.e. with relatively low levels of debt and also having its own in-house supply for some of its products as other posters have mentioned.

It's a share I've held for years: The capital returns have always been disappointing, but it's been a steady dividend payer, so taking those together it's been a worthwhile share, and even if no bid materialises, I think the current 235p price is a reasonable entry price for this company. I've therefore added some more shares expecting to make a modest profit in the next few months while this buyout process plays out; if I'm wrong I'm left with a few more solid MRW shares that'll keep paying a dividend etc, and the stock market may have also woken up to the value hidden in the shares so it seems unlikely that they'll sink back to their recent 175p-180p range.

Large uncrossing trade this afternoon: 2.5m shares traded (£4.8m). 78m shares in issue (according to 'Fundamentals' on this site) so that's 3.2% of shares. Alongside Xaar's promotion to FTSE Small Cap taking effect next week this means there might be a "Holding in company" RNS to look out for too, I wonder who's buying those shares... (although as an uncrossing trade it might relate to multiple buyers & sellers so not necessarily notifiable changes)

I suspect it's more about it being summer, but I notice that the company's Twitter feed does get reasonably frequent posts. Frustrating to see the share price falling recently though.

ITV's AGM was on 29th April, so "AGM statement this morning" rings false. A quick search later shows the text quoted to belong to S4 Capital. Mischief or mistake I don't know, but this text doesn't belong to ITV.

Good article on Ars Technica explaining the improvements in Li-Ion batteries in recent years and the different chemistries used with their corresponding characteristics (like longevity, performance etc). Only a passing mention at the end of solid-state Li-Ion batteries, but still a useful summary,
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/05/eternally-five-years-away-no-batteries-are-improving-under-your-nose/

XAR's indeed been promoted (actually takes effect from 21st June I think). I wonder if yesterday and today's rises are on the back of that. Anyway good to see.

The quarterly FTSE reshuffle is coming up. I don't understand it well enough to know if this is only for the FTSE100 and FTSE250 and I can't find any announcement of this possible promotion, but I notice that XAR now has a market cap that would qualify it as "FTSE Small Cap", although it's currently a "FTSE Fledgling" - so maybe it gets promoted next week, in which case that might mean that some tracker funds will need to have a position in XAR. I wouldn't expect that to make major changes to the share price, but it should underpin it - if I've understood that likely promotion correctly. Anyone here actually *know*?

One resource I do find helpful on this is Stock Challenge which lists shares and their current categorisation,

http://www.stockchallenge.co.uk/ftse.php

Tee hee, didn't take long for stt1 to post a response attacking any possible positive being identified here!

Thanks @Radium1 for pointing to yield_fanatic's posts, very helpful reading. In particular re Tosca reducing their holding yield_fanatic writes,

But tosca selling can be attributed to increasing position as % of NAV - if you know much about funds and specifically UCITS funds like Tosca, you'll know that there are rules to adhere to including position sizing (as % of total AUM) - this could likely have been passed post the repricing in March...hence the sale down.

- interesting to consider that Tosca may not particularly wish to sell Tremor shares but be bound by rules around what proportion of funds can be invested in a single company: If that's the reason then Tosca is confronted by Tremor doing *too* well recently! That's a good problem to have, esp. for the rest of us who aren't bound by those rules.

I think many on this board are conscious of the progress PFD has made recently but I'm sure that the wider world hasn't fully grasped this yet. I've been looking at the company's results going back 3 years. Don't necessarily trust my figures without doing your own research, but for me the highlights are,

* Tidier corporate structure: Hovis disposal, pensions merger addresses iceberg of high Premier Foods pension scheme deficit.
* Combined pension scheme setup now sustainable
* Debt down to 1.9x EBITDA at 3.5% from 3.56x and 6.5%
* Better execution; focus on branded vs. unbranded so better profit margins
* No longer struggling to stay above water so able to invest in e.g. marketing when needed; also in a stronger position when negotiating pricing with retailers.

I recognise that there's a temporary boost from the pandemic for PFD's products but I feel the company has used that boost very prudently with paying down debt and the latest refinancing to go alongside the pensions merger benefits: It's no longer a debt pile and pension liability pulling a company along - notice the combined effect of having lower debt and lower interest on that debt, so the total interest is now less than a third of what it was 3+ years ago (and PFD has stated that it has a medium-term goal of getting that debt down to 1.5x, it won't take it long given it's current momentum).

So at some point when the pandemic boost has passed I'd expect to revert to trading at levels closer to historic sales, but without being hobbled by high debt and a high pension scheme deficit: This will be Premier showing its potential.

I've been disappointed that IQE isn't making a ton of cash at the moment, so I certainly get the frustration expressed by the posters in the "Sinking" thread here on Wednesday. It has however built up a substantial CS business and with some strongly differentiating features in terms of patents, processes and know-how. On that basis I topped up a few more shares this week - either IQE will indeed come good once these features/advantages feed through to profits, or they get taken over (at a premium to the share price) by someone who sees that potential. That's how I read it at least.

Given today's announcement, and the other announcements from IQE in the last 12 months it seems like IQE has quietly adopted a more differentiated path that plays to its strengths rather than rely solely on third parties to build products on top of its 'raw' offerings: IQE's announcements in those 12 months do seem much more focused than previously, here's a quick list of them (results announcements excluded, and there's a couple of others there one might categorise as "consolidation" actions that strengthen IQE), (I hope these don't get mangled when I post this message...)
5th Oct 2020 7:00 am GNW IQE plc: Acquisition of minority interests in IQE Taiwan Corporation
2nd Nov 2020 7:00 am RNS IQE plc: Development of IQGeVCSEL 150™ technology
11th Nov 2020 7:00 am RNS IQE plc: Development of IQepiMo™ technology
11th Feb 2021 7:00 am GNW IQE plc: Settlement of Legal Dispute
17th Feb 2021 7:00 am RNS IQepiMo™ delivers improved BAW filter performance
9th Mar 2021 7:00 am RNS IQDN-VCSEL™ technology reaches key milestones
20th May 2021 7:00 am RNS IQE IQVCSEL™ product line expands VCSEL portfolio

Really? Strange that I can't find any such announcement: Please post details of where you've found this info.

Given that Inspired is continuing to grow by acquiring other companies redundancies are certainly possible, but that would likely be due to job roles overlapping, not a sign of poor company performance. Also I notice that Inspired are actually recruiting at the moment (checkout their career opportunities page https://inspiredenergy.co.uk/careers/ ).

Score (for posting a web link):
Me: 0 LSE: 2
So yeah, just follow Twitter there!

The bit that's been starred in my previous post is *************************** , happy reading (but maybe easier to just go via the Twitter link that takes you there anyway)

Just seen that the company's Twitter feed has a new items pointing to a "Director's Talk" post - this being particularly pertinent since it looks at the recently announced Comau tie-up,

https://twitter.com/Ilikaplc

https://www.***************************/ilika-qa-continuing-to-improve-goliath-technology-and-scaling-up-with-the-apc-grant-lonika/412976816

Whilst I agree with the main thrust of your post, that having more money doesn't suddenly mean that QuantumScape's tech is ahead of Ilika's, I am feeling pedantic enough to point out that Ilika batteries are still basically Lithium-ion ones but in solid-state form with the advantages that brings.