Member Info for phenomenonnick

Hamilton - suddenly the relative positions of KIN and MORE have changed, methinks. MORE now has more cash, narrower premium, and the time to get a deal done. Have added 2.5m this morning.

You can now - just bought 500k at .328

Hamiltonbro - isn't the problem with this one that it's trading at double the cash value? And the cash value is �500k less running costs, which is just about enough for the paperwork on a deal, but leaves no room for margin of error. Hence in many ways the price seems pretty full. If you were the business reversing into MORE, would you do a deal at a much higher price than the current one? Clearly if it was an amazing business there's huge upside potential, which is why I'm in here at all, but for the reasons listed my exposure is small. Meanwhile KIN is better value in that it's got a �1.25m market cap and �1m cash, but it's also up against it time-wise as it gets suspended this time next month.

I don't see grounds for complaint here. At the AGM we approved the allotment of new shares up to the level of the existing share capital - ie the board were given the power to double the number of shares in issue, without a rights issue. Perhaps we should have been more vocal then, rather than waiving it through without complaint. Additionally given the costs of running a plc, if PRS is to remain an investment company it needs to be bigger, spreading the same running costs over more investments, so the % return we need to cover running costs is lower. All that said, I am deeply unimpressed that a company trading at a massive discount to NAV is issuing shares at a discount to the trading price. Really disappointing. I have 25m shares.

D1, I wasn’t suggesting that, if our Tech works economically, mining companies will deliberately wait 10 years to get it for free. I was noting that potentially 10 years’ time marks the point when royalties will start dropping off as mining companies can exploit the Tech without paying. And I guess I’m just a bit disappointed that the Tech has been around for a decade and we don’t have a Bankable Feasibility Study yet, just some trials and talk about artisanal miners. If one of the big miners thought this had legs, surely within a decade they would have taken it up and be using it? They could have given it royalty free to a couple of global miners five years ago; we’d be no worse off and they could now start charging, having allowed those miners to see the benefits. As I say, I hope I’m wrong but there are a lot of opportunities out there and a couple of stocks in my portfolio just look like the risk/reward isn’t stacked quite where it needs to be.

ICL I hate to pour cold water on your enthusiasm. Having come into this via the placing, my first, I have to say one of the downsides is I had inadequate time to investigate the business properly. Having looked over the RNS history, I'm not exactly thrilled here. Is your �100m plucked from thin air or is there a basis for it? The patents start expiring in 2028. That's a 10 year window to earn money before the opportunity starts disappearing. How much of those 10 years will earn us money? Not this year - as far as I can tell we're chatting to some artisanal subsistence miners in Zambia, and we have a firm doing an initial feasibility study with the aim of producing a full bankable feasibility study. Maybe that'll happen next year? So an absolute maximum of 8 years of opportunity? Doesn't sounds great when you look how many years it's taken to get this far. And I note the board has slashed its salaries. I wonder how they're covering their living costs - are they fully committed here? As with the other situations where I'm a holder with concerns, I hope I'm wrong! But can clearly see downside as well as upside here!

Yes I agree with draft. It's easily done. All the information is there on the same page to work out the correct number. You only have to glance at the shareholder list to see what the right number is. The "percentage of shares not in public hands" is, as I've said all along, a technical calculation. It bears no resemblance to the liquidity of the free float in any real sense. There are plenty of reasons to be sceptical here - or angry if you're a long term investor - but I just don't see this as one of them.

No worries. Looks an interesting one this.

No Chukkers, as I say, that's not what it means. There is a precise definition. You take the holdings over 10% (so for Kin that's NW1's 15.98%), you add the director holdings, 0.63%, 0.24%, 1.00%, gives 17.85%. That's the holdings not in public hands. Which means 82.15% ARE in public hands. Which is why I say the website has it the wrong way round.

Thanks DShox. Actually I've been almost entirely invested in cash shells, investing companies and cash for the last 8 years. 2017 was the first year that strategy backfired, for the exact reasons you cite. Hopefully 2018 will mark a return to the previous situation. They can't all go sideways forever!

Polsk/draft/chukkers - "lying" is a strong word but yes I'm going to stick my neck out and say the Kin website is wrong, they've got it exactly the wrong way round. The shares not in public hands is the holdings over 10% plus the directors' holdings. Look what they've shown on that page and work it out. Then look at the AIM Rule 26 page of ANY other AIM company and you'll see it's calculated the same way.

Luke it's the other way round - 18% are not in public hands.

Draft you're asking the right question. This is what I was talking about previously. The 2016 accounts of NW1 are at companies house; they show roughly £8m of assets being Fitbug investments, and £8m of liabilities. The assets are now 15% of not very much. They presumably still owe £8m. No notes as to who they owe it to or on what terms, but no charges are registered so it's unsecured. And they haven't gone bust. Therefore you can bet they've borrowed it from a related party. NW1's 2017 accounts will be filed soon and should give an update. In the meantime, someone acquiring their stake would have de facto control of a quoted shell, albeit one that has to move quickly to do a deal. I wonder if they're sellers...

Polsk I don't understand your comment about who owns the majority of shares not in public hands. The "shares not in public hands" are the shares held by directors plus shareholdings of over 10% - in this case, the NW1 holding. All other shares are "in public hands". Those of more than 3% have to be declared. They're on the website. The rest of the company is with people who each own under 3%. To my mind the interesting question here is, what happens to the NW1 stake? They're just taken a massive write off and, from their last filed accounts, I don't see how they cope with that. They may need to sell their stake - and whoever buys it has de facto control of KIN, as the largest shareholder by some margin. Though with only two months left to do a deal, the situation looks risky to me. Even by the standards of this kind of thing!

"They have a habbit (sic) of talking about nothing for ages". Whether that's meant seriously or an attempt at humour it is totally misplaced on a public forum. That aside... anyone seen NW1's filed accounts? Makes you wonder how they'll surivive what's happened here. Do longer term holders with long memories have any more info to share on NW1's background?

Thanks Babbler, interesting find. I wonder though WHY the herd arrived? Did they randomly show up or is it that Vela suddenly looks impressive and like it's making progress? I note it's got as many RNS announcements this quarter as YOLO's had in the last 18 months, and they're investing in Blockchain, one of the few LSE routes to accessing the current fad. As I say, I hope I'm wrong about MMW, and if it floats YOLO could easily look amazing. Personally I prefer rather more certainty about my investments - I like undervalued stocks, but I want to be clear how and roughly when they're going to become at least fairly valued. With YOLO the most obvious route also seems unlikely, which worries me.

CV7 - why? I'd love to think you're right but for as long as it remains an investment company it's surely going to trade at a hefty discount to net assets. Larger investment firms have running costs of around 1% of net assets, and trade at a 10-15% discount to what are mostly quoted liquid stocks. With running costs of 6% of assets Yolo rightly trades at a steeper discount to their mostly unquoted portfolio. They should quit dabbling and pick one investment and be an RTO vehicle for that firm, IMHO.

Babbler I'm not sure the profit makes a difference - as an investment company it just reflects the movement in net assets (exc share issues). There's no underlying business and a further profit requires further gains in the value of the investments. It's far from clear whether that will happen. I'm not a fan of the MMW investment as I've said before. It's pretty opaque what the NAV of YOLO will be at the end of the current financial year. I hope I'm wrong and MMW floats, in which case YOLO will soar. But I fear it'll be written off. If so, the NAV will start to look a lot closer to the current share price.

In fact those accounts showed it lost a cool £1m. And the balance sheet is such that, even adjusting for the conversion of our £1.3m debt into equity, the business would still have an insolvent balance sheet. The market is clearly pricing Yolo as if Electric Jukebox is worthless. I hope they're wrong, but you can see why there's scepticism.

Scotty is Nick really so awful? Isn't he doing a pretty decent job of managing the underlying assets? That's at least half the job done well. One of the problems of AIM is that everyone seems to be looking for the next "ten bagger" - what's wrong with an investment company that grows assets by double digit percentages every year? At some point the market will see the value in that. Surely?