Member Info for ox123

Hi JL, thanks your post - I think I will wait on AVG before taking any plaudits. Not sure recent AVG price moves are much more than a "random walk" - for most AIM stocks I find investors don't reward a company with a substantial share price move until the profit shows up in the Accounts or in a sale of the business (or a part of it).

Notoriously difficult to value a company in a growth phase. It's all about future prospects and no amount of ratio analysis (even PEG) gives a reliable signal, although I have learnt to pay attention to the quality of the management (at least as far as I can tell🤣). For MSI I remember reading a share tip in the early 2000s (which was mostly about petrol stations and fork lift truck parts from memory, rather than Defence products). Liked the analysis but couldn't work out if it was a great buy so just bought a few and forgot about it. It seemed to be a duff buy that I should have sold. Looked again at end of 2022 when shares had suddenly risen to £6.25. Thought it was a bit late to buy more as the share price had risen so much. Hmmm...

Maybe I got this wrong - it could just be that Brierwood still has money owed and has insisted on putting a charge over all SBTX assets so he has a better chance of getting some money back if SBTX were to go under. Surprising in some ways he didn't insist on this at outset - any Bank lending to a company would look for some form of security and arguably lending to SBTX represented a greater risk (they would not have been able to get a loan from a Bank).

Of course the Auditors had to go - they signed off Accounts which were not accurate and hard to see how their Audit did not identify any issues. It is not sufficient to put all the blame on the Auditors, however...

I cannot see how Martin Hunt can remain as Chair. Whilst he did not physically sign off the Accounts (Ashman did this), he was Chair of the Company and a member of the Audit Committee - he carries responsibility for this fiasco. If he didn't know what was going on, he should have done. If he did know , well.....

Harder to judge the position of the current CFO. She arrived April 2025 but not appointed to the Board until January 2026. It all depends on what she knew when and whether she raised concerns in a timely manner.

I'm not sure they will be doing this in a hurry as they appear to have borrowed from David Brierwood sometime in April (or have at least put in place a charge over assets to allow such borrowing to be entered into), if you look on Companies House filing.

You can trade "off market" if you can find a willing buyer/seller. Basically the Dixons bought some shares from Opti.

So far the Dixons would have been better off holding all their FTC shares rather than "diworsifying" to SBTX. Here's hoping SBTX can turn out like FTC over time and their faith is rewarded.

Thanks Pharmhall, having a look, your breadth of research much appreciated.

p.s. Today is a day to take comfort in MSI the tortoise, rather than any of my hares 🤣

Hi JL

I would like to speak up for Avingtrans. If you ever take the London Tube you may well see the "Avingtrans" name as a subsidiary, Booth Industries from Bolton, make the specialist fire/blast doors (doing same for HS2). They also supplied for Channel Tunnel and supply the Offshore Energy industry.

More importantly other companies in the group in their Energy divisions operating in UK, USA, India and China are supplying into a growing market, including Nuclear, and this is going very well. World energy demand is increasing and I suspect the market is underestimating the tailwind for the energy divisions.

However, the real potential here is in the Medical and Industrial Imaging Division. Sales are currently minimal but they have cutting edge technology for magnets used in MRI scanners and Quantum Computing ("Scientific Magnets" in Abingdon), a revolutionary 3-D X-Ray machine ("Adaptix" based in Oxford), and their own entirely new mini MRI scanner which doesn't require helium for cooling and costs much less than a traditional MRI scanner ("Magnetica" based in Brisbane, Australia). I'm not convinced the market is yet fully pricing in the potential of this division as the opportunity is huge (and they have recruited a CEO for this business with a strong track record of building and selling at big profit technically advanced businesses in this sector).

Different sectors from MSI, but you could draw some parallels in terms of a deep industrial base but with somewhat niche products (and a lot of the energy division businesses are selling mission critical consumables with repeat, and increasing, purchases). And bear in mind MSI is also a company most people will never have heard of 😁

Siemens reported today strong demand for automation products. Appreciate the ENSI ASIC is just in early production phase but it is at the very least encouraging that Siemens is seeing good demand in this product area where the ASIC is to be used. Much like the Automotive ASIC and (likely) the satellite/terminal ASIC, we will hopefully see volumes exceed estimates and hence profits will be greater than anticipated on these particular ASICs.

Martyin

UK CGT rates 2026/7 for shares held outside an ISA are 18% (Basic Rate Taxpayer) and 24% (Higher and Additional Rate Taxpayers).

Hi JL, there are some risks you can't escape but individual stock and sector risk is worth mitigating. Have been burnt in the past backing good business propositions where management let us down or good managements where the sector fell out of favour or technology changed (and that can even happen in Defence these days!). I like MSI and the management is (perhaps refreshingly) different from most AIM stocks but can't bet the farm on it.

Pharmhall and Roger have given some good tips and some have done even better than MSI so far so worth keeping a watching brief.

Sometimes I don't have the time or expertise to make a good choice in a sector but feel I need at least some exposure so will buy an ETF, e.g.

IITU for a bit of Big Tech exposure (provided by iShares [Blackrock]) - worst decision Barclays ever made selling iShares business in 2009

BATG for energy transition (provided by L&G)

Other options are of course available and plenty of choice to pick sectors you want some exposure to. I may not be choosing the best options and this doesn't mitigate overall market risk 🤣 but these have done ok for me. Take your point that returns may not be as good but not likely they will fail entirely (and I've had the odd one of those over the years!).

Just some thoughts to ponder over - after decades I'm still only starting to figure out that my time horizon is longer than I think, "missing" a few good investments doesn't matter and there are always more opportunities out there 😁

Hi Roger (+Pharmhall & JL)

As far as MSI goes, I'm holding in the hope that the management are underpromising and will overdeliver. Hopefully still a good bet but always wise to be diversified so appreciate the tips from posters on this board.

Pharmhall's approach of diversifying makes a lot of sense - not sure I have the stamina to match that breadth of research though. My way round this a bit for exposure to defence/space diversifier is to hold Seraphim Space Investment Trust (SSIT) - noting they held Hawkeye 360 pre-IPO and still have other private companies like ICEYE so great way to get exposure to stocks you can't otherwise access. Inevitably if/as these companies prosper the SSIT share price appreciates to reflect the higher valuations they gain but I still believe there is significant opportunity here for the patient investor.

p.s. Have held ENSI for some time where it went nowhere (and now it's taken off - excuse the space pun 😁). It is difficult to stick with a share when it goes nowhere. "Don't just do something, sit there!" - just following this and hoping winners outweigh the losers...

Thanks Roger - the potential new business is a great spot! and especially as MSI are reticent in terms of information to say the least (this is, after all, publicly available information).

I guess we might eventually get an RNS but only after an order has been booked - such a contrast to some AIM businesses that announce every stage many times over! 😂

Thanks Roger.

I remembered that in 2025's results MSI had already noted they had started supplying weapons systems to the German navy.

Do you think this is just a follow-on from that or does it represent a significant increase? In which case one might expect an RNS (but possibly not - this is MSI 😂).

Xhita, since your posts are relevant to the company I don't mind so feel free to carry on (but maybe slow the pace if it helps).

Agree with other posters that the share price doesn't reflect fundamental value. I suspect there are limited buyers as most investors are concentrating on US assets (outside of defence, semiconductor or space related stocks which is a very limited universe of stocks in Europe). So I think some European shares are being unjustifiably overlooked simply because they are European.

Will have to wait for the fundamentals to force a rerate in this share.

p.s. Did anyone notice that Freeport's giant Grasberg copper mine in Indonesia is struggling to ramp back up after a mudslide resulted in fatalities last September? So even if demand stumbles a little bit, supply is constrained. And that's assuming all the mines round the world can get the supplies and energy they need to keep running given the Iran war...May well be a problem, especially for some mines in Africa which I understand sourced supplies from the Middle East. My take is ATYM is better placed than many others.

I remain convinced of the need for terrestrial defence systems hence a hold for MSI.

However, as per my previous postings, the real big money just now from governments is being spent on space related defence systems (including and especially surveillance and comms) so that is where I have focussed new investments, as per the link I posted a while ago on the Rheinmetall/ICEYE joint venture:

https://www.londonstockexchange.com/news-article/SSIT/iceye-and-rheinmetall-sign-eu1-7-billion-contract/17381606

The "hares" of defence related stocks have been in the space domain. So for UK listed, that is stocks such as FTC, ENSI and SSIT, rather than terrestrial-based defence stocks. The only question is whether the fast growth here will be sustained (but I'm guessing it will for a while yet).

With the current management style at MSI, it is definitely more the tortoise than the hare. But maybe, just maybe, the tortoise could prove itself the ultimate winner. In the meantime, backing a few hares for good measure may do no harm...

Yes agree that if the copper price just stays where it is (and assuming production of about 50,000 tonnes), profits will be much higher in 2026 than in 2025. If costs didn't increase the bottom line could be double 2025's result as rough calculation. Accept that some costs will be going up so profits won't double but agree that any cost increases likely have much less impact versus the significant benefit of the higher copper price.

The issue here may be that European stocks are being sold off and money reinvested in US stocks rather than the price being determined by the fundamentals. Hopefully over time the fundamentals will drive an increase in the share price.

In February I posted:

"Whilst this share has done very well, if you factor in they got Telfer on the cheap, gold has spiked and there remain significant operational upsides (albeit there is always potential downside risk on resource estimates) in some ways it is surprising the shares have not done even better. I'm guessing it is probably the level of uncertainty in developing a new mine (albeit near to the existing mine and with processing mill in place!)."

Since then the company specific news has been very positive (including increased Telfer mine life, Havieron mineral estimates and O'Callaghans). If you ignore the share price falls from geopolitics and short-term gyrations in gold price, the share price hasn't increased that much since February. Maybe the brokers have got this one right and, based on fundamentals, the share price still has room to grow. Perhaps a better understanding of the costs of developing Havieron is needed before the market gives more value to the potential (and O'Callaghans is just an unknown potential upside just now).

There are always risks/uncertainties but they seem smaller than 2 months ago.

Hi Toyin, if there is some sort of "milestone volume/value" before any royalty is paid (even if it is then paid on all the sales accrued to date), the Board may be in a position to make a reasonable assumption of when that milestone might be passed and that it is unlikely to be passed in the company's current financial year.

Ashman "accrued" income from royalties which clearly have not been paid. Either he was making the whole thing up and the other Board members and the Auditors did no checks whatsoever or there was some plausible rationale for calculating this "accrued income" even if it was wrong to count it at this stage. Some major shareholders are relying on the latter explanation being closer to the truth as opposed to Ashman completely fabricating the royalties with no basis whatsoever.

I guess we'll find out eventually!

If I am not mistaken, AFC/H2 Power would be looking to use imported "Low Carbon Ammonia" for their Ammonia Crackers and there is a lot of capacity being built in the Middle East where energy is/was cheap. The war in Iran is making these imports difficult. They could buy from elsewhere but either way the cost will be higher. That said, so will the cost of diesel be higher.

Do these two cancel each other out or will this be net positive or net negative for the Ammonia Cracker? Anyone got a view on this?