focusIR May 2024 Investor Webinar: Blue Whale, Kavango, Taseko Mines & CQS Natural Resources. Catch up with the webinar here.
Ta Mata d'or, you're right! I might be rich in the future, so they should still be inviting me to their parties.
Chrystal were very keen to have a private conversation with me, after I put in for Northern Leaf. But, so that they didn't get unduly excited, I told them: "with bonuses and holiday sell-back, I've just scraped over the earnings levels for HNWI in the last couple of years; before that I worked for charities and was skint. I've got £10k in Northern Leaf (despite applying for £30k) and £40k in FFWD - which I think is at a better discount than investing directly in Yooma - so you'd need to convince me that you've got something more attractive than FFWD in an ISA".
Not heard a peep since then. When I applied to dial in to the forum, I got an automated "thanks for applying, but... (and you can almost hear them sucking their teeth)... it might be a bit too busy for the likes of you - we'll let you know". That isn't verbatim. I might just need some nicotine in me - I'm usually an advocate of Chrystal.
Oh! And I see the O'Donnells are to the rescue anyway. (Is it OK that I think of you like parent figures, O'Donnells...?)
Reviving an old topic.... Did anyone get confirmation of tickets to this event? I applied but haven't been sent login details. (This is possibly because I was pretty transparent with Chrystal Capital when they were raising funds for Yooma: "I barely scraped into the HNWI bracket when I invested in Northern Leaf, and I've put literally everything I have left into FFWD"...!)
It's two weeks from today. If I'm allowed in, I'll take notes; but if someone with more gravitas wants to register for a place so we can make sure we're all updated, that would be great.
https://www.lsegissuerservices.com/spark/cannabis-capital-markets-forum-2021
Awh, I love your posts here O'Donnells! Looks like someone's just bought a decent chunk (123k shares) and we've bounced off an Ask of 8.12 back to 8.14. At least it's the right direction of travel. I've given up trying to understand what's happening...
O'Donnells - are you still "strong buy". No opinion listed...
x
l'orange - I think there's a marked difference between setting up a new fund in a bull market, and changing the name and focus of an existing small cap fund to concentrate on a new market. It's weird and confusing. The people who wanted to invest in tech might not like the idea of cannabis. People who want to invest in a cannabis fund can find ones which don't have some old tech holdings to shift. This is why I see Seed as such a good opportunity. It's like '80s movies - the gawky looking geeks in thick glasses who turn out to be winners in the end.
O'Donnell - respectfully disagree with your take on portfolio analysis. While we can't control the share price by assessing the underlying value, we can determine whether it's trading at a discount or a premium and act accordingly. And - yes - I would buy more and more except... I already have. I'm spent up. I'm in for just over 500k shares at an avg. of just over 8.5p, and if I think NAV has fallen below this I'd be thinking of selling at a loss. Probability assessments aren't entirely futile. I do agree with the sentiment of needing to be patient, though, of course. (And I just generally like you...)
Pleasure, Shelly. If you like - or anyone else does - I started drafting a tracker of SEED's investments, with a view to estimating some possible expectations for each. I didn't get particularly far, to be honest, but it might be a useful template in case anyone wants to keep their own version. It was meant to be reconciled to the March accounts and current position. Obviously, all possible disclaimers - not updated for a few weeks and I am in no way claiming it is accurate or correct:
https://we.tl/t-9PKbCAmTzD
All sounds well researched and sensible to me, Shelly! This isn't to steal your thunder, but here is a similar list posted by Scooby at the end of July (Scooby, I hope you don't mind me digging this out). Shelly's is more up to date. Scooby's slightly broader. For new investors, welcome in! Come and hang out in Aladdin's Cave...
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9p is peanuts when the NAV is 11.72p as at 31/3/21.
A c30% discount to the NAV = distressed level which SEED in no way is.
Since 1/4/21, the NAV has increased substantially with:
- very profitable sale of EMMAC,
- excellent investment into LGP
- pending IPOs of smaller investments of SWG / Northern Leaf (publicised but not sure when)
- UK listing of Yooma
- Write back of investment of Factom (positive impact to the P and L) which was fully written off a whie back.
and
- the jewel in the crown - imminent IPO of Leap Gaming (SEED own c44% and c23% owned by giants IMG, part of Endeavor (nasdaq).
plus desserts - pending Nasdaq IPO of Juvanascence (see recent news of Insilico, one of their investee companies).
- imminent IPO of Juvanascent
Probably missing a few other tasty morsels. Absolute no brainer -
- as a growth stock play - cannibis sector
- as a value play (c30% below reported NAV (albeit outdated now since current NAV even higher)
- Plenty of cash / no debt and will be hugely profitable in this FY.
ODonnells - the floor recently has been 8.2 on the nose. It feels as though someone's offloading a large holding, but eking it out in tranches each day. We've had a few days (anecdotal memory) where around 3.30 / 4pm the tranche has been "used up" and the Ask bounces back up from 8.2. I think this is linked to the large settlements that we (sometimes) see going through at the end of the day. I think these go unreported as often as not, though (I think I mentioned one last Thursday, which showed up briefly, after hours, but wasn't logged)... which makes sense. As you say, most of the trades we see are actually buys, so there must be unreported sales somewhere??
I've tried to be a bit vague because of all the various NDAs! But no, the opposite, we were in green electricity and would have helped contribute to the group's ESG... but you can't get bitter, can you. (Reminds me of a certain Bill Hicks sketch...!)
Ohhh!! Thank you Longlad. ZIOC aren't on my radar, but oh how I HATE Glencore. About this time last year, I was getting from the non-binding-offer stage, to the firm-offer stage of an equity investment of £10m into my company. I would have switched from FD to CEO, the founders would have exited, the synergies would have been great. But the investor was partly owned by Glencore... who pulled the plug. There wasn't time for Plan B, so we had to wind up and let about 40 members of a great team go. Bloody Glencore. (Mutter, mutter, mutter...) Sorry that this has NO real relevance to SEED / Leap / IMG.
Yeah - fair point on opportunity cost. It's just really frustrating, right? I know that if I was working for IMG, I'd resent 44% of profits going to SEED and would wait for the buyout before pulling out all the stops on new developments. In fact, given that the valuation is likely to include DCFs based on current performance (as well as the value of IP etc.) I'd be actively encouraging Leap workers to waste money. Every extra £1 profit made by Leap at the moment is 44p to SEED, and potentially adds - say - 5x £1 to the valuation of Leap. For IMG to buy out SEED, that extra £5 on the valuation will cost IMG an extra £2.20.
That means each £1 profit for Leap yields 56p to the other owners, but is offset by the valuation multiplier, c. £2.20.
So, if the developers at Leap know ("strongly suspect") that the IMG guys will soon be their absolute bosses, they'll want to keep them happy. If IMG tell the dev's to burn money on IP that then gets written down, it's win-win for IMG. This would explain why Leap's customer base and transaction volumes have been grown successfully, but there's a suspicious drop in the conversion of this to revenue.
The IPO just feels like a hollow threat by Ed, but I can't think what would be more effective. If Leap's results continue to "look" disappointing, Ed could suggest asset stripping to the other directors: "we aren't getting a good enough return - let's sell off the IP one piece at a time". He'd need some calculations showing that this was the best return on the assets (easy enough to do, if results are being artificially depressed, currently) and THAT would get IMG to pull their finger out and make a realistic offer. (All IMHO, of course.)
Doggo / Gooner - YES! I agree. I don't understand the sentiment of "the sooner the better", which completely flies in the face of any negotiation technique. We own a large chunk of a company whose value is hard to measure, but is likely maximised in the hands of its other current owners. If Ed was expressly saying he wanted to sell SEED's stake to IMG, we'd be guaranteed to be ripped off. The only way he can get close to a decent value is to call the bluff of IMG when they say they aren't interested, and harp on about an IPO. Why on earth would Leap want / need an IPO?! Ed would just get repeatedly outvoted. So, it's a timing game. IMG will want to buy when results are poor; SEED will want to sell at a point of strength. There will likely be operational manipulation and window dressing alongside this. IMG would want things to look bleak and make a deal just before the next big game launch / announcement of profits. SEED need to look like they aren't desperate. I don't believe Ed making references to Leap's desire for an IPO means anything more than him saying... "hello, it's nice to be here".
On google finance yesterday, a second trade at 8.135 was shown. One at 15:53, one at 16:30. On the detailed version of the chart, where trade volumes are shown, the 16:30 trade was not showing (which is commonplace for late settlements / UTs etc.) so I was wondering whether it was a whopper or not. And... as Seavy says, I'm worried it might have been a g-g-g-ghooost!
Happy Friday everyone. Fingers crossed for a finish to the week as blue as any sapphire or diazepam. Tempers seem to be a little frayed at the moment, but we do still all love each other - right? If there isn't much volume traded today, maybe we could all tell each other ghost stories for a change, before jumping down each other's throats??
(And on a practical note - does anyone have details of a trade yesterday at 16:30 that only shows on sites without volume?)
Odonnell - it was definitely a buy. I was sat waiting for trades to come in and putting dummy trades through Halifax, trying to work out what was going on. Most of the trades shown as Sells this afternoon were Buys. The floor seemed to be 8.2 on Ask and then it started to climb again - Halifax showing 8.9 - just after asking 8.2099. Then the big buy was listed. Note also the after hours settlement. Whatever's going on feels somehow artificial and will surely end soon.
Haha - I'm flattered to be asked, given how bad my judgement has been recently, e.g. consolidating all my savings and holdings into SEED, shortly before watching the SP go into freefall! I've got over 500k shares now and am still looking behind the sofa to keep topping up while the Ask is below my average. (ARGH!!)
But on the Greta tweet, I would go heavily on "maybe there's merit, but I don't think it's relevant to anything whatsoever". It depends how you want to think of Greta. To me, she's a young girl who has kept a very important issue in people's minds, more than it otherwise would have been. That's all there is to it. I studied political power networks at uni, (PPE), and they're bloody complicated. Greta is not masterminding some global conspiracy - she's a child - and literally all politicians, investors, influencers etc. are subject to manipulation. As long as her message stays relevant, I don't care whether she spends time with someone who works for a charity that gets some of its funding from the Bill Gates Foundation...! I've worked for charities that were established from money made in the slave trade. I've worked for a green energy company whose main creditor was BP. None of us are many degrees of separation away from a bad influence of some sort!
I think Greta gets far too much stick - most of what she says is at least factual, whereas that article is just nonsense. As I've said on here before, SEED's section of the supply chain for plant growth is Northern Leaf. Northern Leaf are on Jersey. Jersey's electricity is 40% hydro and 60% nuclear. It's pretty clean and very cheap.
(Also, while it's bleak, the hydroponic technologies and techniques that are developed by the industry will be really important in future if climate change continues as is, as some regions will become far more arid etc. and need the expertise in rapid growth for food production.)
I think Greta gets far too much stick - most of what she says is at least factual, whereas that article is just nonsense. As I've said on here before, SEED's section of the supply chain for plant growth is Northern Leaf. Northern Leaf are on Jersey. Jersey's electricity is 40% hydro and 60% nuclear. It's pretty clean and very cheap.
(Also, while it's bleak, the hydroponic technologies and techniques that are developed by the industry will be really important in future if climate change continues as is, as some regions will become far more arid etc. and need the expertise in rapid growth for food production.)