The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode featuring Jeremy Skillington, CEO of Poolbeg Pharma has just been released. Listen here.
Good luck to all, a sorry day, im out now, had high hopes the last 3 years and a significant position which led me to ignore the red flags. Got rid of it all on the open, Justin (aberdeenman) has a big position along with CPI, Dr Alan, dave and Dan. With almost all commercial opportunities now dead in the water and Anne putting chicken feed in, I can no longer support and its likely the other holders that can liquidate, will liquidate. Much love to all and I wish you the best of luck in NFX and elsewhere.
Rudey, you have hit the nail on the head, right on all counts, those that are looking for a new TR1 thinking that someone has taken the other side of Acacia will be waiting a very long time, we all collectively took those 25m as we topped up as they unloaded on us.
Lots of love
Plums
RNS on SNG confirmed acacia took the assets, my guess is its a matter of time before the ORPH RNS comes out to confirm transfer of assets.
Lots of love
Plums
Team, I follow but seldom post. I think people are looking at this the wrong way. Someone dropped 25 mio shares (on top of the other large delayed trades and clearly the smaller PI's cutting alongside) in one session and the market which was due to correct as momentum had started to stall after a stellar run only sold off ~15%, the 25 mio in itself would make one of the highest volume days in the companies history, so a little perspective needed, the fact the market held up as well as it did I think is a massive positive.
For those that aren't really au fait with market convention its likely the order came in late Friday which allows brokers to post the deal on the date the order was received, the fact that it wasn't posted till ~6pm is completely above board, the 25 mio was being filled against the market (all of you big spenders topping up was more than likely helping fill the 25 mio order fill). Considering how big that ticket was it would have taken all day, once they fill they need to fill the client and the last part of posting the clean 25 mio on the exchange, patience my friends, the trade shows up and only confirms what everyone knew anyway as the market is down 15%!
In terms of who was behind it, while I think its kind of naff to speculate as the company has done the talking thus far so second guessing who is coming and going is very much short term noise, my 2 cents around the link/acacia deal and where ORPH sits in the equation, happy to be wrong here but if ORPH makes the cut in the portfolio sale, those shares don't need to hit the market to transfer to acacia, its just a transfer of beneficial owners, so a change in the share register job done. In terms their intentions, I would find it hard to believe that if ORPH is part of the portfolio sale that acacia would take the securities then dump them on the open market, buying just to dump them makes literally no sense, so I think in this regard I think we just need to stick to the CF line that Link are staying put so long as they still have them and if they transfer to Acacia then they are likely to make the cut until the ORPH story changes or there are internal changes at Acacia, at the end of the day Acacia are cherry picking the assets, any which way it turns out I think its still good for us.
Hope all are safe and well
#keepthefaith
Love
Plums
Afternoon team, I think there might be some misinterpretation of the NSB payment delays, without looking in detail this would be a concern but with context (for those that believe management, I am one) as explained by Dan in podcasts and the placing RNS, they were looking to do a JV with NSB/yatai, JV's will cost money unless unless you want to dilute your commercial terms. Reading between the lines and what has already been said about their relationship with said entities, they would have been in discussions about this JV for some time using the milestone payments as NFX's capital investment (whole number or partial who knows) in the new joint entity as they would ideally want to be equal partners if it suits them, no doubt that 2.5 would go a long way, so I believe the "delay" is due to this JV not getting off the group where that money would have been deployed locally rather than being repatriated to NFX.
Think bigger team.
Merry Christmas all
Not doubt there will be plenty of other people caught up in this sell off, it would be churlish to suggest otherwise.
RE Novum reputationally I'm cant say but to say they can't recommend stock to clients without owning themselves is categorically wrong, this would represent a serious conflict of interest which in these days would need to be managed very carefully, while I'm not saying it doesn't happen, jamming your clients into stock you own is a serious issue ie.boiler room.
For those that are interested, since volumes picked up on the 21st (when it appears that the news of the placing got out), there have been 49 blocks posted for a cumulative count of 14,527,847 shares (8.4127 ave price). While everyone can make their own hypothesis around these blocks, I would say that if 50-80% of that is down to forward selling against the placing we would still have some time to go irrespective of news flow to see these supposed forward sales cleared.
My opinion is the SP has held up very well despite this
Chin up team
Plums
Dr Joanne Holland was asked what she was most excited about, as a scientist she said the cannabidiol structure was incredibly exciting from a science and commercial perspective given how little the market really understood, the NFX had a huge amount of room to apply their technology which had the potential for a huge range of unmet medical needs.
Dr Holland was asked how the decision making process was formulated in terms of science led or commercial opportunity led. She said its a delicate balance of both, their critical goal as a firm is to improve medical compounds to address the unmet medical needs market wherever that may take them however it must make commercial sense to do so, so they wont invest burn cash on a folly.
Dr David Tapolczay spoke well and took control of a great amount of the commercials particularly around the Chinese having worked with NSB and members of their staff who had worked elsewhere before NSB. He understood the patent process in China extremely well and reiterated the need to have NSB in our corner for the China market who will protect their IP as there is a huge thirst for western medical treatments.
A shareholder had asked about market volatility, he said it was unfortunately something that goes hand in hand with being listed on Aim given divergent trading strategies by some more unscrupulous traders however he wasnt concerned, it was simply part of being a member of Aim, he said the commercial results will ultimately do the talking however he did say it was worth remembering we were trading at 2 at the start of the year and this was a multi year company strategy.
Broker update: He said it wasn't a requirement however he did hope to have news about that in due course as they would like to have more of a voice in the market.
Asked about the genesis of the Ebers deal given most here on this board possibly werent involved prior to this RNS. He said they solicited them as they had investigated cannabidiols from an NFX cocrystal tech perspective, they surmised that Ebers had the best reach to quickly go to market with any products that they are able to patent. Dan said that Ebers was at the forefront of the Cannabis market and was plugged in a large vertically integrated US producer/Manufacturer that would allow them to scale while Ebers Canadian law know-how would allow them to navigate the legal structure around patents.
We covered some other things im sure but i think its pretty inconsequential otherwise i would have remembered.
Biggest takeaway for myself - i cant comment on the rest of the shareholders present - the company is in good shape but it is still very much in its growth phase, getting more commercial agreements in place, there is far more science to be done and they would love to do alot more but they need to balance their ambitions with cash-flow.
TBC....
My take on their presentation was that it was very slick, each member gave a good account of themselves and personally gave me little concerns for my holdings, but i am biased as I said earlier, i do hold a decent position.
This being said my only misgivings is around the CPI disposal, while i don't doubt Dan, he has no control over what they do in terms of how or if they dispose of the balance of their holdings, given the state of the UK and enterprises such as the CPI I do find it hard to believe they will stop their profit taking at this juncture, given its effectively a government body and they are quids in, i suspect they will liquidate the balance and given the recent price action it is possible this could be them but its only speculation.
Dan is aware of this problem as i mentioned in the previous post which is why he specifically mentioned about him having spoken to them about other methods in which they could dispose ie place with other shareholders, while he didnt comment on who would/could take those, he was keen to express to shareholders that he was on top of that.
My take on the whole thing is exceptionally positive which is why im a holder and i dare say most of you are, however we could get tested much as we had in summer if CPI choose to dispose of their holdings in the market despite Dan offering to facilitate an off market transaction.
The flipside to this is if a home is found for this holding off market i would expect the market to rip once the RNS dropped, while i dont really want to draw the parallel as the two shouldn't be mentioned in the same breathe but it would be similar to that of ITX when the RNS dropped that Woodford was cleared of his overhang, that is the last i will mention of that charlatan.
This is likely the last post from me simply because i'm not a fan of writing when i'm not paid to do so, also trolling isnt cool.
Hopefully some of you will find this useful, for those that don't, that is fine also.
Plums
Brief Rundown from today.
Disclosure: I've read these chats for over a year, my holding is >2 Mio, this is a new account as i don't usually participate on boards, its not a conspiracy.
All resolutions were passed with little fanfare, simply a product of necessity with the exception surrounding Kirk Siderman-Wolter, this was down to "personal reasons", obviously that could mean many things but I dont believe any real value needs to be assigned to it given his position within the firm.
Once resolutions were passed, Dan addressed the room about the past reporting period, nothing new that isn't already in the public domain.
The floor was then opened up to questions:
China Payment: Update in due course, no cause for concern but the concern itself, he understands the market assigning a negative value to the protracted nature of the payment however he indicated that there were more commercial discussions surrounding this, the payment is tied to other potential commercial arrangements. he went to on explain about how the patent process works in China and how partnering with the Chinese protect's Nuformix potential patents so this is a very much de-risked proposition now the science moving in the right direction. He understood the markets misgivings but the team was working as hard as possible to get through the Chinese bureaucracy - i might add that having experience in doing business in China & Asia broadly this is very much the case. As per all interviews he will update when he is in a position to do so but there is no cause for concern but understands that it could impact the SP.
Capital Structure: No intention of a fundraise, they are funded and exploring further opportunities with counterparties given the precipitous drop of GBP, this makes nuformix attractive in terms of cheap Intellectual Property, a shareholder asked if there was a chance of pre-payment of milestones etc to take advantage of a cheap GBP given counterparts are based outside of the UK. Dan confirmed this was an option or something structured similarly to take advantage of current GBP weakness and was quick to point out this was already discussed as a possibility, he couldnt go into details.
CPI Disposal: He chose his words carefully however it was clear he was not happy with how the reduction was handled but he had indicated that he had discussed with them that if they wished to liquidate that other options were available to them as opposed to the open market which they have taken on-board. In terms of the profit taking itself he said it was natural given the relative success of their holdings with NFX being political capital for them as they are under a great deal of pressure to show their program is working, unfortunately as the program is under scrutiny short-termism is taking centre stage at CPI.
Dan was asked what he was most excited about and he said NXP002 had huge potential commercially and it was their most exciting "public" product.
TBC....