Firering Strategic Minerals: From explorer to producer. Watch the video here.
Re. market approval in Singapore, I think the article I posted showed that Singapore should perhaps be considered an outlier as they import 90% of their food and have a government with a commitment to change this and improve food security/availability. Cracking the US and EU will be more difficult.
I quote from the article re. genetic modifications: "there are some suggestions that it will be very difficult to create a commercially viable product without some form of genetic modification". I don't know what is the basis of this statement, so just putting it out there. With regard to why we won't be able to call it meat, well it looks like some states in the US already have this legislation in place and there is an enormous incumbent industry with a very loud voice and deep pockets to lobby government to prevent market disruptors like CellAg from gaining a foothold. As I keep saying on this site (but I don't think most of you believe me!) - this is not going to be easy.
See link below to interesting article talking about regulatory approval for EU and US and possible market challenges. Unfortunately access to the full report costs about $6K so I am going to pass on that.
https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/idtechex-discusses-which-country-will-be-next-to-approve-cultured-meat-825536096.html
Some takes:
1 - Does anyone know if the process requires the use of genetically modified materials? If so, then EU approval is going to be challenging.
2 - Does anyone know anything about Wildtype or Finless Foods who may be competitors to BluNalu?
3 - Significant marketing challenges ahead relate to product labelling if you are not allowed to call your product "meat" or "milk" or "fish" etc. or even allude to the fact that these are alternatives to said products. Who wants to buy something called "solid, flesh-like protein, but definitely not meat......"
RyeSloan - You've got me on a roll now! As further examples, a poster previously provided a link to an article where someone estimated the value of BluNalu could be up to $12.8 billion over some undefined timescale. The estimate was based on an assumed price of product of $5/lb. With a 2 minute Google search I can find the average price that Mowi (world's largest salmon producer) achieved for their product which is about 2/3 of that - do you really think cultured fish of any random species will sell at a premium to a premium product? That should at least raise an eyebrow as to the thoroughness of the valuation. They had also used the same valuation metrics as the semiconductor industry ....just because? The Citywire article also previously posted quoted some fund manager as saying ANIC should benefit from the plant based revolution. I am serious - this fund manager rates ANIC because he thinks plant based products are the future!!!!!!!!! This should absolutely be challenged. Don't just follow the herd. Think about your investments.
Hi RyeSloan - Maybe I am on the negative side, but I thank you for your comments delivered in a non-aggressive manner which is unusual for these boards. As I said in a previous post, I think it is good to hear both sides of an argument so you and I can both decide if we are over or under invested.
So I want to hear the news that tells me "here is the potential market size" or "here is the progress we have made on achieving price parity with conventional meat" etc. However, simply stating "here is the market size of conventional meat, ergo we will capture 90% of that market within 10-20 years" (which is more or less what some of the Times article quotes implied) is naively optimistic and I think this forum should allow these statements to be challenged to ensure all investors are aware of the level of risk they are taking on and that they are comfortable with this. So other people might read the BBC article and say that change is on the cards and this is good for ANIC without also thinking that there are enormous sums of money involved in farming with vested interests to retain the status quo and also enormous undesirable social consequences of eliminating a profession. Thinking about the downside might influence what level of risk you want to take on.
As I have said previously, i don't have a huge amount in this (circa £3K) and I hope it does really well, but I also have a few other speculative punts on crypto, AI, biotech etc. and actually I would like to expand on these speculative bets. But I realistically expect only 1 or 2 of these to come good.
I'm not sure what to take from that article. Are we to draw the conclusion that conventional farming requires lots of state aid, therefore if Cell Ag takes off we can throw all these farmers on the scrap heap and save the taxpayer a bob or 2? I'm not sure that's unequivocally good and just highlights that there are many, many challenges to overcome before ANIC comes good.
I don't think we should get above our station. Posts on this forum are inconsequential to the share price. We should be encouraging alternative views and not criticizing posters for "deramping". Why do you only want to hear views that align with your own? Wouldn't you rather hear both sides of an argument and then decide whether you are over or underinvested? Go on, post something meaningful!
AgroFan - "Professional pundits" have no more insight than any of us here. Read Superforecasting by Philip Tetlock to confirm. Or don't bother - just think about it. ANIC is invested in a startup industry trying to break into a well established market. There will be at least 1000 challenges to overcome along the way and it won't have a meaningful impact for at least the next 5 - 10 years if at all. Any one of these 1000+ challenges may prove a bridge too far for this to take off. You just can't know. What does a professional pundit bring to the table that is not summarized in that statement?
OK, some minor observations about the Sunday Times article, and I will start all this by saying I am invested in ANIC and hope they do spectacularly well.
1 - It quotes an estimate that 90% of meat will be lab grown.
2 - It estimates the market value is a potential 5 trillion.
Now I didn't particularly pay attention to who wrote the article or who was quoted as the source of these figures, but I am almost certain none of them went by the name of Marty McFly, nor did they drive a DeLorean. Let me be clear - these are no better than fairytale numbers. Why do I say that? Well just look at the shocks which have shaped the world, including the investment world over the past 20 or so years. To name but a few we had the dotcom boom, bust and back to boom again, September 11th, 2008 financial crisis, Eurozone crisis, Brexit, Covid 19.....need I say more. Going back further in time, who in the 1980's was predicting the fall of communism and the Soviet Union (clue - no-one!). In the 1960's, everyone was worried about a forthcoming ice-age, not global warming. In the 1940's the then head of IBM predicted the world would have no use for more than 5 computers and 5000 photocopying machines. In 2003, Lehman Brothers predicted Amazon would run out of cash - look how their fortunes reversed. No-one can account for the effect of these existential threats and just because the investment story sounds plausible does not mean that people will not laugh at our naivety 10 - 20 years from now.
Now I believe this is a once in a lifetime opportunity, but do not believe these made up numbers because they fit a plausible narrative. Folk here seem to be pinning a lot of hope on BluNalu (me being one!). But again, don't kid yourself that getting to the market early automatically means you will remain the top dog. Google was not the frontrunner in it's field - that was AltaVista. Facebook was not the front runner in it's field - that was Myspace (and do you even remember Friendster, SixDegrees or Friendsreunited). There will be competitors out there who just might usurp everything in 5 years time.
But I am invested and here's why. You've got to be in it to win it as the gameshow says. So the overwhelming majority of my investments are in notionally much lower risk assets - I have disproportionately high allocations to cash, government bonds, gold and a bit further up the risk scale a FTSE All World Equity Index tracker. But at the other end I have tried to invest small sums in lots of different frontier developments, accepting that most of them will fail but if one (or best case 2) come good then they might increase 100+ fold. But it's important you have lots of these speculative bets as most will return 0. If anyone knows how to invest in CRISPR technology, then let me know (if you don't know what that is, then Google, or Altavista(!) "Has the 1st person to live to 1000 already been born" - surely there's got to be an investment bubble in eternal life
Desmond45 - don't want to get into an argument, but you are confusing smart with lucky. You got in at the right time and couldn't possibly have predicted the success you have achieved. For those who invested 2 weeks ago, they have massively underperfomed the FSTE All World Index. They weren't stupid investors - they were unlucky (over the short term). Comparing this stock to the FTSE World Index over 2 weeks or 2 years is meaningless. The entire growth of this stock has been over a period of 6 months. The success of this stock is hugely uncertain - that makes you and I speculators. You (and I) are betting on an enormous shift in consumer trends which we have no influence over and which may not happen. All that being said, I hope it does happen and I wish us both the best of luck, but I can't help but reiterate that neither of us are smart investors - so far for you this has been a lucky gamble. If it doesn't turn out that way over the long term will you come back on this board and say you were stupid? I hope not. You would just be someone with average luck.
Desmond45 - "Smart Investors" do no such thing! Smart investors buy into a FTSE All World Index Tracker ETF and watch this reasonably reliably generate returns of 6-7% compounded over the long term which should make for a wonderful retirement by getting rich slow (7% annual growth doubles your money in 10 years).
I think you mean that "brave speculators like us" hoover up this stock!
Do not kid yourselves - this is a very very risky stock and may return nothing. If you are not comfortable with that, then stop being a brave speculator and be a smart investor instead and buy your FTSE All World Index Tracker.
HivedOff - This is a holding for the long term. Just set up a monthly direct debit for your ISA to buy these shares once a month. The price today, tomorrow, next week or next month more or less doesn't matter as you are buying into a speculative sector in its infancy. Some months you'll buy high, some months you'll buy low and hopefully in 5 years time you'll be laughing. I will guarantee you there will be more funding rounds either to support new investments in new companies or to support the next phase of development in existing companies, or worst case because costs are spiralling out of control to reach the desired end goal. Don't worry about short term price changes and your absolute entry point. I don't think anyone is investing in this share to capitalise on a potential 10 - 20% price change. Bar the traders, i think everyone here are speculators (including myself) hoping beyond hope that this will be a multi-bagger.
JKGunner - I'm glad the guys at Citywire are on the ball and do their research. As I understand it, the overwhelming majority of Agronomic's investments are not in plant based alternatives! If the consumer change is a plant-based revolution, we're stuffed!!! Hahahahaha!
1750mk1 - I am merely looking for an explanation as to why you wouldn't use the same valuation metrics as for an established alternative protein. I am not saying you should - but why not? What makes Beyond Meat or Oatly valued so differently to Quorn? This is just food. It's a very competitive market. The fact that it is high tech food does not make people any more hungry and motivated to eat more. It's just about what size of market share they can take and how much they can sell their product for compared to their input costs (any they may well have much higher input costs due to the energy intensive nature of their production).
Wadnob - I too am interested in what the potential market value of BluNalu will be so thanks for putting down some figures as a starting point. It would be interesting to see what others can do to fine tune this to get a better feel for the potential market value. I've added a couple of points as my tuppence worth below:
1 - You've guessed $5 / pound revenue, but I think this is optimistic. In 2019, the average market price of salmon achieved by Mowi ASA (who I think is the biggest listed salmon producer) was 5.79 Euro / kg so that's about $3.20 / pound. I think "natural" salmon would sell at a significant premium to cultured fish of any variety, so the real revenue might be closer to $2.50 / pound.
2 - You're kind of assuming BluNalu could dominate the fish market - I think guys like Mowi may react to such a shift in the market, so you should probably apply at least a 50% discount to your estimates of what market share they will achieve.
3 - I'm not clear what you mean when you say you are applying the "Semiconductor EV ratio"? What is this and why would it be relevant in the food tech industry. Although Beyond Meat and potentially Oatly have eye watering valuation metrics, this is not universally the case for alternative proteins. For example, I read recently that the value of the well established Quorn brand is probably only a few hundred million. Is it not equally valid to use the same valuation metrics as you would for Quorn.
Anyway, just trying to see if your numbers could be fine tuned - at present, I think based on points 1 and 2 above, that could reduce the value to 25% of what you have guesstimated and point 3 could reduce it significantly further. Any advance on that?
So I joined this share chat yesterday....just at the right time!
My average buy in price to this share is in the mid-20's so I am slightly down but not overly concerned by the latest RNS, but I would reiterate the points I made yesterday:
1 - Investing in small cap startups (particularly in new or emerging technology) is enormously risky. You've got to be prepared to lose your entire investment (not saying that will happen here, but it might.......)
2 - No-one really knows if this industry will take off, or even if it does that the winners will be those backed by ANIC. Again, see above - you've got to be prepared to lose the lot.
3 - There will be threats and opportunities along the way - not sure which category this latest RNS falls into. Is the £50million raise going to bring the products meaningfully closer to market fruition (opportunity) or is it simply that costs spiraling out of control which means they need to come cap in hand for more cash, but aren't meaningfully closer to getting products on the market (threat)? I don't know the answer to that.
I've seen people saying that this investment is a certainty and that Jim Mellon is the bees knees - now, apparently he is a charlatan. I'm sure he is neither.
Just accept that this is a very risky stock. Don't bury your head in the sand. Given that the general talk is that this is a market for the future I would be amazed if there are not future fund raising rounds.
I'm sticking with it by drip feeding a monthly ISA direct debit into this one. We'll see how it pans out.
I think you are right that an 8000% rise is not the appropriate measure of success but part of my reason for joining this chat was to try to get a broader view of what a realistic measure of success might be. I've bought into this stock because I think the investment case has a good story to tell. But is that it? How do you value such a speculative stock? There is essentially no market for this product yet - it's all something that may or may not emerge as a future trend with lots of threats and opportunities on the way. What do other investors realistically expect to get out of this and what forms that view? Don't point me to random valuations on a random blog - these almost certainly have no real insight. So I've read several times that BluNalu is expected to IPO soonish, but does anyone have any reliable indication of what that value might be? Is there any directly comparable listed companies to compare against - I don't think the likes of Beyond Meat is comparable. As far as I understand, none of the companies Agronomics are invested in is at the scale of Beyond Meat or are even necessarily competing for the same market sector. I think a lot of people get very defensive when anything remotely questioning appears on these chats, but wouldn't you also rather be informed of potential threats and rivals? That was another part of my reason for joining this group. So to me, the opportunities are clear but I was looking for some insight as to whether there were any sizeable rivals that might usurp this investment. Are there comparable alternatives that you can invest in?
The claim was posted via a link by GreenValueHunter last Thursday. See original post below - don't shoot the messenger!
OMG. Wallet Investor has just predicted a possible 8000% rise in Agronomics shares by 2026. Link attached ... https://walletinvestor.com/lse-stock-forecast/anic-stock-prediction
My experience in investing in smallcap stocks to date is that most have done dismally! There have been high profile wonder stocks in the mix here e.g. Sirius Minerals. Time will tell if the cultivated cell guys really are offering "superior products". That seems to be the case at face value, but they may not catch on and unless the process uses energy from a renewable source, from what I have read there is a big question mark over the claim that they reduce greenhouse gas emissions which is one of the big selling points of this product. I've also seen people quote Seaspiracy as forming a strand to the investment story - again, I am really skeptical that a sensationalist docu-film should play much part in forming the basis of a strong investment case. Many of the claims made in the film have been questioned, and lets face it, it wouldn't have made interesting viewing if it had made toned down, cautious (realistic?) claims. Anyway, cards on the table, I am a small but interested investor with only £3K invested at an average buy in price in the mid 20's.
Thanks for the welcome. I think I need to re-iterate that I want Agronomics to do well. My point was that people are getting carried away with baseless predictions of 8000% rises by 2026 - that's not a helpful post. No-one knows how this market will develop. I think my original comment that most startup companies fail does indeed apply to this sector as well - why would it not? We all like to think "this time it's different" - but to say this is wishful thinking. I am merely urging caution. And for all the doomsayers who will say I am trying to talk this stock down, I am really not that influential! If you are worried that an inconsequential comment from a tiny investor on an obscure bulletin board will have a material impact on this stock, then you probably shouldn't be invested in this!
Hi - I'm new to this share and feel very positively about it. However, reading through some of the chat threads here astonishes me! I want to talk this share up as much as the next person but I get the impression people are getting ahead of themselves. Agronomics are invested in a variety of startup companies. We should ground ourselves with the knowledge that most startups fail. I would say with almost certainty that at least some of the 16 or 17 startups currently invested in will return zero over the long term and there is a modest chance they will all return zero over the long term. It should be the realistic expectation that only 1 or 2 of the startups will amount to much - the question is how much they will amount to. I'd seen a post talking up 8000% growth by 2026 - that is utter guesswork and investors should not kid themselves otherwise. I am sure this comment will not go down well, but I think everyone needs to step back and not get carried away with shear speculative hype. I am invested in this share and hope it does well, but it forms a very small part of my portfolio as I do not pretend to be able to forecast the future - who knows if cultured meat will take off? There are lots of good reasons to assume it will, but please don't be fooled into thinking that this is certain or that even if it does, the winners will be the companies backed by Agronomics. Just trying to install a bit of realism here, but I emphasize again, I am invested and hope this does well.