Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
Just a private individual buying shares in a limited company shell. Poor sod probably thought he was buying in cheap back in early jan ready for the THX deal which is now never likely to happen.
Still 2p raise next, she won’t be giving the position up any time soon, not on 170k a year, you will need to drag her out kicking and screaming frankly.
I wouldn’t be surprised if some vote to maintain the status quo either.
Exactly:-
H2 to the end of the full Financial Year end completes 30th June 2024
In H1 they burnt over £2m of cash and following the .5m R&D Tax credit they had £2.1m left to get through H2
They are expecting to reduce cash burn in H2 but equally they were expecting to deliver £3m of revenue in the full financial year and only invoiced £300k.
Looking highly likely a further raise will be required shortly, if not in June shortly after. IMO Its not just a case of winning a big contract it's them actually being paid on it before the year end.
@ripley94
The broker reports have proven accurate every time without exception for when the cash runway runs out. I have zero reason to suspect it will be any different now. Hence on current trajectory they will need to raise in September.
Lots of what IFs until we know exactly what the resolution is requesting but let’s assume it’s to remove Suzy, let’s assume EGM called and let’s assume she fails to defend and let’s assume she is removed from the post end of March. In this situation we don’t know what the liabilities are, nor what she is entitled to, three months pay,?
IMO costs would increase during this period and cash runway would be shorter, a new BOD would be coming in to turn this around and likely need more cash to do it.
Hence, I actually think a raise can’t be avoided and new inbound BOD need to get cashburn under control, back to 350k a quarter, clear route to the lab breaking even and that may involved sacking the current BDM and building a new sales and marketing team, taking the business back to what they originally stood for, ie 10 new evaluations scheduled.
As I say, long term the BOD have to be replaced but this will get ugly before it’s gets better, I think a 2p raise as Nick suggested will actually become a reality. That being said, once sorted, new BOD with clear direction the future would be significantly better imo.
But as I say a lot of “what IFs” we don’t know what level of support Suzy would get or what her defence is yet, so anything could happen. Those on the fence waiting on THX may vote for her to remain giving her more time, you never know. There are no guarantees here.
@LTbeliver
That’s the million dollar question isn’t it?
The initial pledge was to a) get spending under control under £3.5m for the year and b) on the basis they meet a revised revenue target of £3m. Costs in H2 to be lower that H1 and cash runway to last until the year end on that basis.
However, they just delivered a mere £300k of revenue in H1 and burnt over £2m of cash. Market not impressed and understandably so.
So that’s your call isn’t it, obviously if the revenue doesn’t come in in H2 they will burn more cash and need to raise more sooner. Personally, from my own experience in my portfolio it’s stocks like this that cost me the most money averaging down to early, my view would be not to average down but to see if they deliver. Don’t buy into hype, buy on actual declared figures. If H2 comes in strong and BE in sight and they have enough cash then to meet it, buy then, buy into when it’s starts recovering not trying to catch a falling knife but that’s your call to make.
Good luck
The devil will be in the detail at this stage. We don't know what the resolution requests yet.
IMO for LTH the short term most likely could get ugly before it gets better so I wouldn’t make any knee jerk reactions.
If the resolution is for Suzy to be replaced she has the right to defend, once the resolution is verified as genuine she has 21 days to call an EGM to put her case forward and defend her position. It would then go to vote . So we could be looking at an early March EGM. Hence no rush.
Whilst a lot of SH are fed up of the situation there is no guarantee the vote would be passed, I would hope that it is for the long term future of this business but some are still holding on for THX in blind faith like @PM2022 and others and a percentage might want her to have more time. So again what date would she go from?
Also, I don’t know what the terms of her contract are, are we stuck with a three month notice period or more, so like Stella we end up still paying for longer. There will be liabilities to be met. Also as @PM2022 keeps reminding us, she is integral to the 201 THX deal. My view is that deal is dead anyway so no loss but it’s not official yet. Also Suzy has a big chuck of personal ownership in 301 so would that be affected by this?
Also a new team may also need to raise more cash as current funds run out in September if not earlier now if there are additional liabilities and costs to meet as part of this process. This also needs careful consideration.
As I say, let’s see what is on the table and see what she has to say about it and go from there but ultimately something has to be done IMO.
Well that was a turn up... well done indeed.
I suspect the BOD will be in total shock, they were likely feeling smug and safe that they are secured in the job for at least another three years. The response tonight to the resolution about legal referral is just standard issue. They will need to check that whoever issued it has enough voting power to call it.
At the AGM last year the Shareholders voted to re-elect all of the BOD members for a further 3 year term. See the comment bottom of first page on resolutions 4-8 : Reappointment of Directors. This was what was passed:-
http://tinyurl.com/4t2rjzfp
So to reverse that the first step is to force a resolution on them to remove them. That step now taken, tick box. Happy days.
For shareholders to mount that action there must be more than 5% of SH in favor of the resolution backing it. We have 132,348,673 shares in issue, so that's a minimum backing of 6,617,434 votes to call it. Adam alone has just over that so could call it in his own right otherwise it has to be a collective.
If its Adam, they just need to verify his holding but its TR1 declared so that's easy. If its a number of people together making up the numbers they all need verifying to ensure the 5% is reached.
The proposed resolution would then accepted by the BOD as verified and they would have 21 days to issue the resolution to shareholders and call an EGM where the BOD would then try and defend against it.
BUT, we are not out the woods at that point. In order for the resolution to be then passed successfully it would still need a majority vote. So its one thing getting a resolution proposed but no guarantee it would get passed afterwards.
There are many here still on the fence thinking THX will deliver. There is a risk that those SH on the fence may vote to keep all the BOD in place, frightening thought but still possible. It will be interesting how this goes.
SH May face some initial pain due to the uncertainty but i believe this needs to go through the cycle. They all need to go IMO and a new team elected to drive the business forwards.
Good luck all, stage one in, very impressed.
@Fredd1eboy, LOL, Sorry its just such a waste of an opportunity. Annoys the hell out of my to see this...
Once this goes through the pain curve and the BOD get voted out, it can then be rebuilt but until then unfortunately it will get a lot worse before it gets better. There are still SH left here giving them more time for THX to deliver. Meanwhile, they continue to squander your money. They don't give a flying fig about you but why should they, they have no skin in the game and drawing massive salary and benefits at your expense whilst this total nonsense continues. Its just a cash cow.
The BOD are 100% culpable for the dire situation and wasted opportunity they have created and the dealing of 201 has been nothing short of a total shambles from start to finish.
I'm just awaiting the day now for when Adam calls time on this and puts through a resolution to vote them off hopefully in time for the next AGM end of June, can't come soon enough.
I really can't believe there is anyone left mug enough to buy at this price. There is absolutely nothing of any value left.
Once either EUDA gets struck off or its confirmed THX LOI for 201 is DEAD I estimate the Mcap will drop back to about £2m to £2.25m a share price sub 2p. Once Suzy is sacked or voted off the board the SP will drop again until a replacement found.
Only the mentally insane would buy now with that on the tracks ahead of you.
The future of this business can only improve once we get a BOD clear out. Meanwhile, its business as usual.
@Colbaltblue
It could go the way of RENE if SH failed to support a raise but i don't see it. more likely it will just be another highly dilutive raise.
Valirx are absolute veterans at raising cash, they are bloody brilliant at it, i don't think there is a listed business anywhere as good as Valirx at raising cash. This is the one thing they are great at. I mean don't get me wrong, they might run out of brokers that will take them on having rinsed the client bases of SP Angel, Cenkos, Turner Pope and now we are onto Shard Capital but i think come September they will get another one away, why not.
I think some here lose focus of the bigger picture, regarding the fact that VAL can raise capital at ANY price, if the SP fell to a penny and they wanted to raise another £1m to squander on staff salaries and benefits they just issue more shares, once they have too many in issue they just do consolidation number 4 and reduce the shares in issue again, another 125:1 consolidation then rinse and repeat again. Its worked every time. As long as they are getting good salary and benefits it doesn't matter if the shares trade at 50p 5p or half a pence it doesn't affect them one jot.
The BOD have next to ZERO skin in the game. Suzy purchased £4k of stock to hold face in the placing whilst drawing 170k out the business. Does that sound like the actions of someone in a business that is truly confident that 201 is going to get signed and the SP rally to significantly higher levels? you know it doesn't. Come on. IF you were CEO of a company about to make it big time you would filling your boots with stock like a man possessed.
DYOR but until you get a complete BOD change and Change of business direction as i posted nothing will change. This does however unfortunately need to get worse before it gets better. Those on the fence like @PM2022and @Iceman here i don't think will support any change until 201 is confirmed as dead and VAL will be in no hurry to chase that one, that's for sure. EUDA will probably get delisted before THX confirm they still cant complete and the deal off.
@Iceman
You SAY:-
Share price is a joke. Market cap = £4.01 million, cash £2 million + Lab + Val 201 + Kings + Val 301 + Val 401
I agree the SP is a Joke, its insanely OVER PRICED, the market cap is just shy of £6m it should be three times lower!!!
* They will be out of cash by September and will need raise number 18 to continue trading
*VAL 201 deal DEAD just awaiting confirmation of same
*VAL 301 is Suzy pet project and linked to 201 so equally outdated and likely superseded, no deal in 14 years so don't see that changing anytime soon.
* Kings - agree that has value potential but it wont get interesting until another 18mths plus, thats if VAL still trading. so i can wait.
* 401 - you can write that one off, passed to another start up coy on effective LOI that will never get executed.
So as i say, its all about the lab and nothing else. If you want to invest in a lab business there are better ones more established in the market. The best can deliver about a 20% bottom line.
Sorry but until this BOD is replaced this remains totally uninvestible
Because there is nothing of any value to invest in. You are dreaming.
All you are doing is averaging down to get hit with a massive share price drop once its confirmed that THX wont ever complete on 201 (i estimate that's only a few weeks away now) and further dilution when they try and raise again later this year.
I suspect either EUDA will get delisted as they cant meet the minimum NASDAQ listing standards, that will kill it off or they simply confirm the merge didn't pass due diligence. either way 201 is DEAD.
The only thing of any value is CLX and that needs at least 18 mths of dev work and £400k has been put aside to develop it so that one is going nowhere anytime soon
So unless you want an investment in a lab start up that cant add business and is burning cash at a rapid rate you are wasting your time.
Fair value for this, where they are as at today is £2.25m Mcap at best and that is a SP of £1.75p to 2p - the massively over priced recent placing is not relevant, most of that stock covered short positions from those in the know short selling prior to the issue.
Only a blithering idiot would buy this stock with this BOD in situ. Sorry but that is the harsh reality
@OB
Quality Post
Problem is @OB there has been far too many “lies and promises” but I know you still have some “love in your eyes” for this stock.
A lot will never find the “Power to forgive” her after this and don’t anyone tell me to “Sit down & Shut up”, frankly the Telegraph group have come up with nothing, sounds like they need to find a “Magician Man” to replace her but I’m not “In the loop” over there and it’s probably “Too much trouble” for anyone new to want to take it on at the moment.
Had to be done @OB
Pork’s
If you make a pledge to deliver on something (Reduced revenue forecast of £3m and reduction in costs) and you don’t carry out what you say it destroys your credibility.
Revenues here have absolutely fallen off a cliff, clearly millions of pounds of revenue lost from clients either no longer doing business with them or not paying for new contracts, they can spin it all they like but yesterday the figures did the talking.
Something not quite right here imo. My best guess and I could be totally wrong so take with pinch of salt, the comment about requiring items to be worked on from the client before they start? Is it that switching to this tech is a) inconvenient because clients have to ship stuff to them before work starts rather than on the clients premises and b) cost prohibitive and risky to switch from something that is working ok to something new that is not totally proven? As I say I could be miles out not knowing enough about their process so ignore, just feels odd to me.
They have burnt through £2m of investor cash in six months since they had the cash injection and invoiced a mere £300k - that really was a shocker.
To put that into perspective; my local subway sandwich bar delivers more revenue than that and you can buy it for £120k. I jest but good grief the results were dire and that’s understatement of the year. If they can turn things around in H2 I will consider supporting the next raise but it will take a lot for new investors to Get past them just invoicing £300k after the massive cash raise secured. Good luck
Broker Note from Turner Pope:-
"Aptamer has provided a first half trading update to 31 December 2023 in which it warns that the current year revenue target of £3m it set with release of its full year results to 30 June 2023 is now expected to be missed. Clear progress has nevertheless been registered since the Group confirmed its £3.6m (gross) fund raise and boardroom changes on 31 July 2023. Presently, it has over £1.4m of signed deals being processed through its laboratories along with c.£1.5m of pipeline opportunities considered to be at an advanced stage"
AND more specifically:-
"The principal issue appears to be one of timing. Aptamer’s customer base is one that cannot be hurried, although the extent of high-level interaction encompassing a wide range of industry leaders through to smaller sector innovators suggests it is not a case of ‘if’ but ‘when’ more sizeable uptake of its highly specialised services gets underway"
So there you have it, the results are nothing short of dire with a big dollop of Jam tomorrow sprinkled in. The reality is they invoiced £300k in H1 which frankly was VERY poor. They gave us a £3m revenue expectation in this financial year which will be MATERIALLY MISSED and was already significantly down forecast on the previous year.
IF the R&D tax Credit is £500k that means they had only £1.6m left of £3.6m they raised. Without doubt they will be back for more cash shortly. I find it totally shocking that they need to spend this much cash for just £300k of invoiced revenue.
What i personally wanted to see was IF they could get cash burn and spending under control. I always fear that where you have directors with a history of drawing obscene levels of cash out of a company that they will quickly revert back to type once money is available. Frankly nothing in these results makes me think the situation has changed.
I dread to think how much discount will be required to get the next raise over the line - this really is disappointing.
Good grief, the MMs have increased the MCap by 14% because they confirmed they had renewed some business.
You couldn’t make this up
Jesus, how do you burn over £2m in six months and only actually invoice £300k?
Waffle doesn’t cut it, cash into 2025 reads like total fantasy based based on cash burn in H1, they would be burnt out by end of June. Assuming they do actually slash burn in H2 by a further 50% and they stretch the cash to end of year they will need another raise for sure in a few months time anyhow.
Not surprised market unimpressed by these results, I said previously let the figures do the talking and they have spoken.
As for pipeline, it’s just that and as for lab orders signed to be processed on delivery of products I assume then that nothing is invoiced on signing a contract, no deposit or anything? only any revenue invoiced when work later starts on that Contract. Crazy.
Have to say I don’t think anyone expected revenues invoiced to be this low. Also, What a lot of waffle, massive double dollop of Jam tomorrow. Interesting to see what they can secure the next placing at, shocking.
Well they have done the talk, now they need to prove they can deliver.
At 30th June 23 year end restructure they had burnt out. The £3.2m Raise gave them a 12 month cash runway to turn the ship around with a promise of massive spending reductions.
My personal experience of these sort of companies is when you get directors on eye watering salary packages, the two of them were previously sucking something close to £1m out the business, it’s really difficult to change that culture. Now here an active pledge was made to refocus and cut costs, so these H1 results to end of December 23 need to prove that, they need to illustrate solid fiscal control and they can do what they say. The figures will do the talking this time.
So as I see it, if they demonstrate a a solid H1 with the massive cost reductions promised, those sitting on the fence will back them and the current penny share price a gift. On the reverse if they deliver poor results with no meaningful cost reductions the SP will be toast and you will be facing another discounted raise in July with lame excuses as to why they need another £3m to spend.
Jury out for now but proof of delivery essential IMO
SAB Members as detailed on VALS website at 30th June 2023 (archive)
https://web.archive.org/web/20230630131045/https://www.valirx.com/scientific-advisory-board
SAB Members as detailed on VALS website as at 29th Jan 2024
https://www.valirx.com/scientific-advisory-board
Adam has now been removed. So you have your answer. Adam Hargreaves is no longer an active member of the SAB. Either the guy had had enough, didn't see any value in supporting it, had better things to do with his time or was pushed out by the BOD. Whatever the case a loss for the business albeit this SAB didn't have any teeth anyhow IMO.
On Q, expected a few days back, you know how the game plays.
Play them at own game if you can get out with reduced losses take it.
BY end of June i can guarantee that 201 wont be executed, they will have three months cash left and thinking about the next raise.
Expecting some ramping sh@t posts now, here, twitter etc about deals being signed with EUDA blah blah blah. Both as equally potless as each other, to try and support the pump.