Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
re...Go through your posts, if you can cast doubt or find a negative, you do. R
Isn't that just what some people are apparently paid for?.....to do just that at every available opportunity.
re..Big Brothers on over drive this morning. Gets worse every day.
It's dreadful....maybe we should communicate using other channels?
Myles McNulty
@MylesMcNulty
For me, the dramatic sell off in #AVCT’s SP is a result of @avacta
having transformed from a pre- / modest-revenue ‘story’ stock into (what should be!) a profitable growth stock.
https://twitter.com/MylesMcNulty/status/1414554597415325697
this sounds like borderline disemblement,add in a bit of the contortionist.....must be good for credibility eh?;)
SP will now be driven by sales, as opposed to product development, validation, etc.
pt3
Incompetence, corruption, and outsourcing to the private sector are the hallmarks of the UK government’s approach to both testing and tracing during the covid-19 pandemic. The extended authorisation for Innova tests and the basis for the extension must be published immediately, along with all of the evidence of performance and evaluation of these LFTs, if a modicum of public trust is to be restored.
Allyson M Pollock, professor in public health, Population Health Sciences Institute, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Newcastle University, UK.
Competing interests: AP was a member of Independent SAGE.
Peter Roderick is a principal research associate in the Population Health Sciences Institute at Newcastle University, UK
Competing interests: none declared
pt2
Yet in the UK millions of them are being used for twice weekly testing of asymptomatic people in schools, communities, nursing homes, workplaces, and for attending hospitals and clinics—in other words, not in accordance with the real manufacturer’s instructions.
In addition, it is clear that the tests are being used not only outside their instructions for use, but also as a “test to enable,” which the original authorisation explicitly states is not supported by the MHRA. This is because there has been no scientific evidence to date that supports their use as “green light tests” to enable activities such as attending school, nursing homes, football matches, workplaces, or public hearings. They are at best “red light tests” to detect infection when used by health professionals.
All tests can do harm, and key issues with LFTs are that performance is markedly impaired when they are not administered by experienced professionals. This results in false negatives, including in symptomatic people who opt for a home LFT as a more accessible alternative to the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test. False positives will outnumber true positives when prevalence is very low, as occurred in initial testing of schoolchildren. For example, recent evidence suggests that at very low prevalence, testing a population of 50 million twice a week would produce more than 200?000 false positive results each month, with relatively few infected people detected. A recent evaluation of the community testing of asymptomatic adults in Liverpool was published, but there is still no evaluation of the sensitivity of LFTs when used as unsupervised self-tests in asymptomatic people. There are no data for testing in children. The current regulatory framework is deficient in having allowed tests to come to market without adequate evaluation of their clinical and analytic performance in the settings and populations for which and for whom they are intended.
Even an excellent test is valueless unless followed by an effective intervention. In the case of a positive covid test, this is contact tracing, quarantine, and isolation. Giving billions of pounds of public funds to a private equity firm for poor tests is of a piece with the government’s allocation of £37 billion for contact tracing carried out by Serco and other providers. The public accounts committee highlighted the absence of evidence that test and trace had altered the course of the pandemic, yet Serco has recently predicted increased profits, having given bonuses of £5.5million to its chief executive, Rupert Soames, and its chief financial officer, Angus ****burn.
pt 1
Why all the secrecy around Innova lateral flow tests?
July 11, 2021
The basis for the MHRA extending its exceptional use authorisation for Innova lateral flow tests must be published immediately if public trust is to be restored, say Allyson M Pollock and Peter Roderick
Last month, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) announced that it had extended for just over two months its exceptional use authorisation for the NHS rebranded Innova lateral flow tests (LFTs). The authorisation for them to be used by asymptomatic people testing themselves will now run until 28 August. The original six month authorisation expired on 22 June, and so without an extension the government’s covid-19 mass testing programme, Operation Moonshot, could not have continued. The extension came, however, just one week after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said the tests should be put “in the trash.”
Unlike in the UK, no authorisation had been given for their use in the US, and the FDA has expressed its “significant concerns that the performance of the test has not been adequately established, presenting a risk to health,” along with warning that their labelling was “false or misleading.” Innova had earlier recalled the tests in the US in what the FDA described as “the most serious type of recall.”
The MHRA has said that it conducted a review following the FDA’s action, which reached a hardly resounding “satisfactory outcome,” allowing the authorisation to be extended. It is not known, however, what this review consisted of, what evidence the MHRA has as to whether the conditions of the original authorisation have been complied with and which justified the extension, why the extension is only for two months, and what the terms of the extended authorisation are. This is because the MHRA has refused to disclose this information, despite freedom of information requests. The recent publication by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) on the test performance of LFTs is very limited. Why has this completely unacceptable state of affairs arisen?
The MHRA is an agency of the DHSC and has no independent legal status. Bizarrely, the authorisation is given by the secretary of state for health and social care (acting as the MHRA) to themselves (as the DHSC and deemed legal manufacturer) to supply the tests. The DHSC has entered into several contracts with Innova Medical Group for the tests, valued at perhaps as much as £3.2 billion. Innova is owned by Pasaca Capital, a California based, Nevada registered, private equity firm. It is reported to be setting up a manufacturing plant in Wales. Currently, according to their instructions for use, the tests are manufactured for Innova by Xiamen Biotime Biotechnology, based in Fujian, China, and are intended to be used on those “suspected of COVID-19 by their healthcare provider within the first five days of the onset of symptoms.”
re...can you give us an update?
Would suggest that this information is kept confidential.
...take a look at the enclosed link...https://www.shorttracker.co.uk/manager/jupiter-investment-management-limited/
most of these positions are hideously out of the money...................
Following the recent AIM listing @150p, 9 institutions hold 72.3% and 4 directors hold 18.0% of the shares. Shareholders received £17.6m from the listing and retain £19.7m at yesterdays closing price, which is a reasonable ratio of existing shareholder cashed up profit/longer term investment at an IPO.
Institutional Shareholdings
Premier Miton Group plc: 12.00m: 17.1%
Liontrust Investment Partners LLP: 11.55m: 16.5%
Ninety One UK Ltd: 5.32m: 7.6%
Cannacord Genuity Inc: 4.77m: 6.8%
Hargreave Hale Ltd: 4.77m: 6.8%
Harwood Capital LLP: 4.27m: 6.10%
Chelverton Asset Management Ltd: 2.98m: 4.4%
Threadneedle Asset Management Ltd: 2.70m: 3.9%
BMO Asset Managers Ltd: 2.16m: 3.1%
Sub Total: 50.52m: 72.3%
Directors Shareholdings
Paul Young 10,97m 15.67%
David Brind 1,54m 2.20%
Stephen Smith 50,000 0.07%
Gerard Murray 40,000 0.06%
Sub Total: 12.60m 18.00%
AIM listings have a habit of flying under the radar, and this week’s admission to the London market for established independent wholesaler, Kitwave, is no exception. The day turned out to be a success and shares have moved up since the flotation.
IGTV’s Jeremy Naylor spoke to Paul Young, Kitwave founder and 15% stakeholding CEO, about the flotation and what next.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4q_YMNDj84
Kitwave
KITW, 159p
Kitwave (KITW; 159p), an independent delivered wholesale business, joined AIM on 24 May. The business is the brainchild of chief executive Paul Young, an accountant who bought a small cash and carry confectionery business, M&M Value, in 1987. The business grew fairly slowly until 2011 when it completed a round of private equity and Young has since put the pedal to the metal with the acquisition of 10 wholesale distributors, which has helped sales leap four-fold to £399m, making Kitwave the no. 14 in its market. At the same time, the business has become professionalised moving from being family run to having a full management team.
The shares have just joined AIM following a placing of 54.4m new shares by Canaccord Genuity at 150p, raising £64m for the company, which eliminates its debt. It also raised £17.6m on behalf of selling shareholders. At the placing price, Kitwave is valued at £105m
I think there could be great excitement about its plans for expansion. As Young explained to me, his market comprises 450,000 independents in the UK of which 80,000 are convenience stores and 370,000 are foodservice outlets (pubs, clubs, restaurants, hotels and the like). At present, Kitwave only serves around 38,000 of them, delivering a huge range of products from soft drinks and cigarettes, to chilled frozen and fresh foods and saving them the hassle of going to the cash and carry themselves. Tobacco used to be a big product line back in 2011 when it accounted for almost 52% of sales but it is now down to 7%. Alcohol is again a bit of an also-ran now.
Two new hubs opened last year, taking the total to eight. These distribute to a network of 26 local depots and allow Kitwave to deliver most of its products, if ordered by 10pm, the next day. And this is all part of the plan to strengthen Young’s business so he can target the foodservice sector with gusto, just at the time when the sector starts to enjoy a recovery in sales.
Distribution tends to be a fairly low margin area. Based on sales of approximately £399m and EBITDA of £17.5m, it has EBITDA/revenue of c.4% but this is now going to climb as the foodservice sector has a gross margin that is closer to 30% versus 15-18% for wholesale by virtue of the high level of service in the form of fast delivery times.
Growth is to come via a buy-and-build strategy. Young talks about buying at the rate of one or possibly two a year in foodservices, with a business making £1-2m on sales of £20-40m in its sights. At that rate of expansion, deals will be funded from existing cash resources without further recourse to the market. I think the shares are worth buying.
Block Energy-Scirocco statement
After I wrote the piece yesterday on the Block 303 resolution I understand that there was some discussion on message boards that someone other than GP Jersey had something to do with the situation and that Scirocco was to some extent involved. So I missed this statement by Scirocco issued later which clarifies things in no uncertain manner.
‘Scirocco provides the response to erroneous speculation on investor forums regarding its intentions with regard to corporate activity in the oil and gas sector generally and with Block Energy PLC (“Block Energy”) in particular.
The Board of Scirocco wishes to categorically state that it has never had, nor currently has any intention to engage in corporate discussions with Block Energy. Scirocco has clearly stated a strategic intention to focus on the sustainable energy and circular economy and will therefore not consider new investments in Oil and Gas assets or businesses. As such any speculation that SCIR is considering any form of corporate engagement with Block Energy is completely false.
Furthermore, the Board confirms that none of its Directors are looking to join the Board of Block Energy and any speculation to the contrary on the forums is also completely erroneous.
Scirocco’s non-Executive Chairman Alastair Ferguson and non-Executive Director Jon Fitzpatrick do have independent material shareholdings in Block Energy, alongside numerous other personal investments, however they are independent of one another, and those holdings represent the extent of their involvement in that company’.
That seems to sort things out for once and for all, I dont read the message boards myself but if I did I would probably be asking why an independent NED would resign on the same day as the 303 was served but that’s only my way of thinking. This will be some campaign methinks…
https://www.malcysblog.com/2021/07/oil-price-petro-matad-coro-hurricane-block-scirocco-getech-and-finally/
re...unfortunately us investors will be paying the price........will continue topping up at these levels though..
no price paid....providing one is aware of whats going on....and sits one's hands....+as you rightly say...add a few more.
re...holyroller
posting history is a must read .
I have made a copy.
re..Wow valid posts deleted. Who ever reported that, make sure you never end up in a paper bag by yourself. Feeble.
and concerning on several counts.
Part of the email
‘Introduction
Asymptomatic staff testing is an important component of Infection Prevention and Control, which all organisations and staff have a duty to adhere to. Continued efforts are required to keep staff and patients safe from potential transmission of COVID-19 in healthcare settings, and other places where care is provided, by ensuring that all staff continue to participate in this important programme.
The FAQs within this document aim to provide responses to the questions that are most commonly asked by staff and organisations about asymptomatic testing using a lateral flow device (LFD). This document should be read alongside the Standard operating procedure for use of LFDs for asymptomatic staff testing (all NHS staff).
What is changing?
From July 2021 all NHS staff will move to a new system where they will be able to order their own LFD testing kits from www.gov.uk/order-coronavirus-rapid-lateral-flow-tests. The testing kits will enable colleagues to carry out regular testing for COVID-19 at home.
The test kits provided via the new system may be different type, it is important that staff familiarise themselves with the tests and the instruction leaflet each time they receive a new box.
This move will not only make best use of LFDs currently available to Test and Trace but will also provide a greater level of assurance by organisation that devices are routinely being ordered and used.
Please note, the statutory requirement to report all test results has not changed and staff must report all results in line with their organisation’s policy
Before moving to the new system trusts are to use up their existing stock of Innova 25s and should continue to provide staff with boxes until they have run out.
Rajraj b
6 Jul '21 - 23:26 -
I received an email today from the NHS regarding the lateral flow test and the up coming changes from July 2021. Apparently, when you order more LFT for your staff in NHS work places, the new tests will be different from previous tests sent out. The old tests came in boxes of 25 tests, the new ones will not. They do not specify the number in the new. Also, the new test procedure is slightly different from the old tests. They go on to say that the instructions for the new tests need to read thoroughly before taking the news tests as it is different from the old ones. Others on this forum who work in the NHS should be able to verify what I’m saying. So it looks like the NHS are changing their LFT, but to which one is the big question. My money’s on AVCT.
re :that other plc you mention by way of comparison.
from memory wasnt this company sinking under a dead weight of debt?.....as far as I'm aware Block plc is debt free.
The timing of all this seems interesting......could it be that a month...or even weeks down the road..with good news re drilling etc...the sp cld be way north of here.Where wld that leave the insurgents?.
re... PROXY voting, particulary those with Nominee accounts
I understand from H/L that instructions should be given to them..(or A another) 5 working days before the due date...