Member Info for okenia

OK SharechatAIM, I'll see if I can answer your question. The changes are three-fold. a. changing from a failed biotech company to an investing company (nominally in resources, but as we've seen from OCT that can be a very broad church and change at a later point). It'll be doing something completely new as a business going forward. Old EVO is dead, the new one will be a fresh start doing something completely different. b. they're raising a bit of money in order to be able to buy some resource shares and thus comply with AIM rules. This is actually a bit of an administrative red herring. If this business makes money going forward it'll be because of something else, not the return on a piddling £200k portfolio where any returns will be eaten up by BOD fees. c. David Lenigas and his track record. This is the key and in particular his ability to take failed companies (Zest, 3DR etc) and use them to generate new companies. And if I wanted to be even more specific, what people are looking at is REM, which had a 3000% rise when it went from where EVO is now to being established as a proper REE investor. The REM story was splashed all over the place, so I think there's probably not much more by way of sophisticated thinking here than "DL returned 3000% with the last of his cash shells, I want a bit of that, ooh look EVO is his latest cash shell". What's interesting to me however is why PLMO never spiked yet EVO has. They're both almost identical (well DL has stepped down from PLMO) but PLMO never had a massive spike when DL came on board and they did the change in investment policy and fund raising. Bizarre. So in answer to your question about why this is rising, the answer is rainbow chasing.

Troajan ... yes, the placing was put together first, and at the time the SP was around the 0.2p mark. It was the usual "placing at a discount to current SP" that you might expect for an attempt to rescue a failed company. The announced plan is to issue equity that will double the shares in circulation and at a 0.12p price. And then they announced it (together with the news of the proposed new investment policy, and DL coming on board) and the market went completely bonkers-mad. It spiked to over 1.2p, slid back to 0.5p and is now heading northwards. Amazing. As you rightly say, you'd usually expect a placing like that to have spooked investors. What I think is happening here is that the "DL factor" has out-weighed that. If DL can now get the placing terms changed then he will have played an absolute blinder.

Since the meeting is at 11am this Friday, would it be usual practice to release an RNS of the outcome on the same day (and if so, would they wait until after market close)?

Oops, should have been more exact with my words. "If I had bought in at 0.8p then I'd be gutted if it feel to 0.2p". I am pleased to report that I didn't buy at that price (and indeed, don't hold EVO). I did buy the other week when the RNS was released but then bailed at what turns out to be a decent price (1.21p, go me!). Since then I've been sitting this out and I think I will do so until this meeting on Friday has taken place.

I'd be delighted for the company and current shareholders if they are able to fund raise at a higher price. I'm just not happy about not knowing as yet, and the risk that this time next week my 0.8p entry price (which is what it seems to be atm) is now closer to 0.2p. That's gonna hurt. Call me a scaredy cat but I'm going to sit this one out and watch the events. Good luck for those of you with the skills (and cajones) to trade this.

handybrownone - yes it's a punt but if that floats your boat then why not! I like the idea of "flutter money", nice phrase.

cadis - I know as much and as little about this as you do. What we do know is that they're voting on a 50% dilution and 0.12p placing. It's hard to see that being supportive of the current 0.65p share price I am sure you would agree. It could ("might" "maybe") be that shareholders vote it down and they re-negotiate a placing at a higher price. Unfortunately there's zero clue or hint from the company that such an option is on the table. My gut feeling (and that's all it is, which is why I called it that) is that they won't go down this route. Thus the hard news is that a 50% dilution/0.12p placing is being voted on (fact). The pure speculation is that this might be revised (guesswork). The trouble is that the 'fact' scenario would hardly be supportive of a 0.65p share price in teh short term (50% dilution takes it to 0.37p, and then there's a placing of 0.12p shares).

cadis - several people (me included) have speculated that the equity placing might be voted down on Friday by existing shareholders. Let's think what might happen here. The problem I think is that they've found investors who'll do the placing at 0.12p. They can't force a higher price on them. So they'll have to cancel the placing and start fresh negotiations for a new (higher price). Not a negotiation I'd like to do, tbh. The only argument you'd have for the higher price is that there's been a recent speculative increase in the SP (which could be transient). Thus might go something like this. - shareholders vote down the motion, tell company to try harder and come back. - RNS is issued saying shareholders voted against it. Company now in limbo. - Market doesn't like that because now it has no placing agreed at all. SP falls. - EVO have to negotiate a higher placing price just as the SP is tanking. My gut feeling is that there is too much risk associated with backing out of the placing and trying again, and they really do need to get a move on to rescue the company. I'd bet more than even odds that it goes through.

atrb If I knew how to short a stock I'd be in here like a flash, I can tell you ...

You do know Friday will see a RNS announcing a 50% dilution of the stock, and a placing price of 0.12p? Buying at 0.7p for anything other than very very very short-term illogical momentum is totally bonkers in my view.

It's a plane gliding on sentiment. Unfortunately at the moment it's gliding downwards and it's over a week before we can parachute the new captain in, squirt some more fuel in the tanks, and set it on a new path. How far will it glide down ? Impossible to tell. The only metric you can use is the company's self-valuation, which is 0.12p post-dilution. If this falls to that then I might have another conversation but until then I'm sitting out, I don't sense anything that will stop this continually slithering down in the meantime (but wtfdik)

2cvguy - not so, all input and expertise welcomed as far as I am concerned.

Worth a read of today's RNS at OCT. They have the same investing policy as EVO (natural resources). They are now changing that to financial services. Key bit: "Despite considering a number of investment opportunities and acquisitions in the natural resources and agriculture sectors, the Board has been unable to identify suitable investments in those areas which, in the Directors' opinion, could potentially add value to the Company."

yeah, same here TC. Let's wait until this settles and then re-evaluate.

These rescue situations are rare and you are quite right that I don't know of any such revisions (but that's not a big dataset). It may also be a moot question, as it looks like the price may be close to the 0.12p by the time 12th Sept turns up. If it had re-rated to 1p and stayed at that level for the next fortnight then there could have been a discussion at the shareholder's meeting. Since it's dropping I fear the argument will be that this is a short-term speculative bubble that shouldn't influence the placing price. In some respects it's becoming a self-fullfilling prophesy ... the feeling that a revised placing price isn't going to happen is driving the SP down, which in turn means that it is less likely to happen. I don't know what will happen any more than you of course, but I can't help feeling that the more this slips back the less likely a revised placing will take place. And like you, that's why I prefer to invest not trade. Once the shareholder's meeting has taken place we'll have a better idea. I don't think this is one that should be "buy on gossip, sell one news" because it's the wrong way round. The current SP is (as you say) seems almost based on an expectation of a re-rated placing, whereas the public position is that this won't happen. The risks are thus to the downside, not upside - it'll either be the same or worse. I think time to sit out and watch what happens methinks. Cue re-rate to 2p tomorrow and it stays there followed by a new placing at 10p! Do people actually make money from this day trading lark? Cleverer than me if they do.

To get the full picture I would recommend reading the full circular sent to shareholders regarding the whole restructuring and fundraising. I can't seem to get a direct URL to the PDF but it's the second link on this page. http://www.evocutis.com/news

Formally speaking, there is a shareholder meeting on the 12th Sept where they can vote yes or not to several things, including the placing. Subscribers may well have agreed to buy at that price, but the shareholders have to agree to issue the equity. They could vote "no" and tell the BoD to go away and try harder. From the RNS: "he Circular contains proposals (the "Proposals") for: · the Capital Reorganisation; · the proposed Subscription to raise £210,000; and · the adoption of a New Investing Policy under AIM Rule 15. "

Sid Apologies in advance if this sounds unsympathetic to anyone who has lost money on the spike. These things are self-fulfilling and self-reinforcing in both directions. Sentiment arrives, SP rises, people see that and jump on the bandwagon hoping to ride it and make a quick buck. That drives the SP up and attracts yet more waves. Sentiment then leaves, Sp starts to drop, people see it dropping and flee the sinking ship, driving the SP further down and making more people bail. There's no stable 'top' to this because people are chasing momentum. When it stops at the top (ie when even the daftest person realises it's overpriced) then there's no movement, and those people who bought in because they wanted to ride a wave then bail out (take profits). As that happen guess what happens, the SP starts to fall, and that triggers a snowball effect on the other side. It's a totally unstable situation. We've all seen these spikes before, up and down in a few days, speculative feeding frenzy on the way up and mad dash for the door on the way down, everyone hoping not to be the last one out. I would suggest that anyone who jumped on this spike knew exactly what they were getting into, and if they lost money then that was an occupational hazard that they walked into with open eyes. If they jumped on naively then to be honest they really should think twice about their investment strategy and maybe their losses will be a useful wakeup call.

Punt? I guess it depends on your timescale and patience. GCM for example. It's basically a binary stock. Either it will get the go-ahead for the coal mine in Bangladesh (SoD is currently on hold) or it won't. Yes would mean it re-rates 5-10 fold from current levels. No means dead in the water. Could take a couple of years or more for the complex politics of BD to work through the system. You've essentially got a call option on a political event. I'd give it 50:50 personally, which is more than enough to justify it given the upside (50% chance of a 5-fold increase versus 50% chance of being wiped out, I'll take those odds in a mixed portfolio any day). However, you will need patience to catch the re-rate if/when it comes. There will be long months (years!) in the wilderness where you doubt yourself before then, there's no deadline for a decision to be made, no certainly that the answer will go in our way. It's the nearest thing I have to a punt in my p/f but it's probably a bit longer time-scale than you'd want I guess?

mervingoose - glad to see some legacy holders finally made good. Never nice seeing a decent company go down the pan.