Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
No real surprises either way. The update more or less confirms and expands on the outlook given in September, which makes you wonder why the SP has drifted down by 1/3rd since that time – except of course that with such thin trade, SP is an unreliable indicator of value. So I think, depending on what Allenby have to say, it’s now more likely to slowly drift back up than down - all the more so if/when the “large” software contract renewal is confirmed - and if I weren’t already invested, I’d be buying at this level. I won’t, because it’ll be reward enough for me to see my existing Trak loss eliminated.
dc2 - my thinking was that it wouldn't necessarily take a material change for the SP to stay down in the doldrums. After years of losses, a lacklustre performance this year, eg missing the expected almost token profit of £300k by even a relatively small margin, would probably be enough.
And no amount of jam tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, would make up for it in the short term.
We need news that they're actually exceeding expectations - what a novelty that would be!
"Re the sales, it could be staff that have recently being moved on selling their holdings - no clue"
Or existing employees - low-ranking, given the relatively small size of the trades - who know something, or strongly suspect something based on body language even!
That's always the worry - that there is something well-founded (and illegal!) behind the selling.
But we have been here a number of times in the past, and the shares have always bounced back, so who knows this time...
"Buys outweigh the sells - if reported correctly".
They have been reported correctly.
Out of curiosity I did a dummy buy earlier, and was quoted 14.7p for 50,000, so I don't know where 13.7p has suddenly come from, but this could tempt me to top up, even though already overweight.
KBYK - I was out and about, so missed Friday’s share trading action, such as it was. However, it was only one relatively modest sale at 14p, i.e. at the same offer price realised throughout week. Not particularly significant therefore?
As regards the nature of the news likely to land next week, we can only go on what we’ve been told by the company, and extrapolate from there. In particular:
14/9/22: “The Board is pleased to announce that the Group remains on target to meet market expectations for revenues and adjusted profit [£300k per Allenby] for the current financial year”.
22/9/22: “We expect that the number of connections will continue to grow significantly in the second half of the year, which will be the driver for increased recurring revenues”.
They can only have made those statements because they were confident of H2 contract awards/renewals, or that contracts were already signed, or about to be signed.
If those clear, rather bullish statements were no longer true, eg because of the loss of a significant contract, they would need to inform the market straightaway, i.e. bring forward the half-year RNS (or make a separate announcement), rather than delay it.
So I still think they’re true, and as dc2 says, there’s Raza’s continued support - and that of all the other substantial shareholders - so I’m not too worried about the update, though you always have to brace yourself in these situations…
Good news about One Call - and Ticker.
However, the way the SP has been drifting down again indicates that the market is not yet convinced that 2023/24 will be transformational for Trak.
The slight delay in publishing its half-year results - which will give us a better idea of the likelihood of achieving the anticipated c£2m adjusted PBT for 2023/24 – probably isn’t helping.
At the very least we need a strong indication (in next week's RNS?) that adjusted PBT for 2022/23 will exceed £300k, following (hopefully) an encouraging start to the all-important H2.
Otherwise I fear that Trak will have the distinction of being the dog of my portfolio for about the 5th year running!
ML must be feeling almost as frustrated as PIs...the difference being that ML is in a position to do something about it. They must surely be close to taking a conveniently newly slimmed-down Trak by the scruff of the neck. But a watched pot never boils…
203p to buy at the moment. Not too bad, given their typically over-cautious outlook.
Yes, ports, it means dilution, but it’s not really news, because it’s always been hanging over us, so at least in theory it’s already been taken into account by the market.
The biggest chunk is Lloyd of course. He already owned 11% of the company when he left, but this will potentially increase to roughly 16% if/when he exercises his options. He’s done nothing (material) so far (exercised/sold), otherwise it would have been RNS’d.
@email, I think it's tomorrow.
The sudden interest in DX on Friday was, presumably, investors placing their bets in advance of next week’s full year results announcement - which will also allay any residual fears of another share suspension - and the resolution of the Chairman/CEO issue.
All being well, we should therefore soon be back to pre-suspension levels. If so, that would be an incredible outcome, given that most shareholders had written off their investment earlier in the year.
Just back from a long holiday to find a change of PM and - more importantly! - this latest intervention from Gatemore.
I give up trying to understand what has been or is going on at DX’s HQ. But as Gatemore know the inside story of the GC issue, they are probably right when they say Series should go - unless they are just using the issue as a convenient excuse for ejecting someone they didn’t get on with.
The problem for PIs is that we still don’t know the full story, so we can’t tell. In particular, I’m not sure what Gatemore are getting at when they seem to be blaming Series’ handling of the GC enquiry for the resignations of 3 NEDs, Lloyd and the co sec, unless it's just (intentionally) ambiguous wording. And the fact that Gatemore are now giving unalloyed praise for Lloyd seems to imply he wasn’t involved in the bribery or its apparent cover-up, despite his abrupt departure.
At the end of the day, Gatemore will no doubt get their way, and hopefully Hammond will be a worthy replacement. Some continuity is provided at least by the CFO. Whatever happens, trading performance is certainly not yet reflected in the SP, so I see no compelling reason to sell up any time soon.
I wrote in July: "Approx £5m HSBC term loan 5.1% over base. An increase of 1 % - 2% means a hit of £50k - £100k this year. Obviously unwelcome as the company looks to go from breakeven and into profit, but not a complete disaster...."
Since then, we've had the convertible loan announcement, which referred to annualised savings of £2.4m. This changes everything: against those savings, (almost) any hike in interest is insignificant.
If the correct price is 10-15p, it'll open at that, not 30p. But judging by the share performance of the sector as a whole this year, I'd say a 20% drop to around 25p is nearer the mark.
We already are listed, it's just that trading in the shares is suspended. With Lloyd gone, there's little reason, if any, for the suspension not to be lifted once the outstanding accounts are filed after the general meeting in October. I still think the end of October is feasible.