Member Info for Scharnhorst

“there can hardly be anyone else to sell”

Premier Miton are one of the largest shareholders with 8m shares, 10% of the company as reported in April 2025. They have been plagued by redemptions, so might be forced sellers. Outflows from small cap funds have to be settled by selling what are often illiquid shares, driving prices down. This has been a drag on the AIM market in particular.

I can’t see Natara making a takeover offer as they would need 90% of the shares to squeeze out other shareholders. Dohler can block that.

The Abwehr suggest you are referring to the maingy tabby Whisky. One doesn’t like to be reminded of it, our BZgA advises against drinking alcohol polluted by chemicals leaching from wood. The Abwehr are also alert to the fact that promising Mercia company Warwick Acoustics have issued a warning but Mercia are doing a Royal Lodge and blending into the wallpaper. Their single customer, a luxury carmaker that Mercia said “is progressing towards the delivery of its first automotive contract for production vehicles scheduled to launch in 2025” has delayed the launch of the vehicle carrying Warwick’s payload to an unspecified date in 2026. No doubt the offertory plate will be doing the rounds again.

Barchid, Boards, MiG - I have missed the banter and have ordered the engines to be restarted. I’ll certainly drink to the ex-Duke of York’s cat, but he seems to have had a few pussies on the go, so unsure which one? Frantic … _ _ _ … signals emanating from Royal Lodge.

145 trades reported so far today, but over 100 of those trades are for amounts less than £5. What’s it all about Alfie?

It’s £42 million not 40k. You had me worried!

Good news for TRIG that the government has reversed the decision to exclude Li-ion batteries from the long duration storage cap and floor arrangement.

How have you doubled your money if you’re holding? Paper profit is flattering but hasn’t the same benefit as hard cash. Bragging about it isn’t a good look.

And soon to be gone from AIM. The company will survive but shareholders will be wiped out. This company will never raise the cash required for it to survive in its current form. They’ve been to the well once too often. Good product but they couldn’t produce it for a profit. I expect it will be bought out of administration by a company with the resources to finish product development.

The £4.7m revenue target is in the Edison research published on the Cordel website. It was also in reports by Zeus who were their corporate broker at the time.

It's on my watchlist but I'm not ready to be locked in at this point in time. Liquidity is terrible and shareholder engagement is the worst I've ever seen. This morning's RNS is a case in point. They give their contact details as c/o Zeus. Funny that because they sacked Zeus two weeks ago and replaced them with Cavendish. In the RNS they proceed to give a wrong number for Cavendish.

In the recent full year trading update they 'forgot' to mention that they missed their revenue target. 4.4m v 4.7m. This is significant because they'd previously said achieving cash breakeven depended on meeting revenue targets.

Good luck.

Good Luck MIG. People might still see value as on paper there’s a discount to NAV. The issue for me is that I no longer trust the NAV which is mostly reliant on a direct portfolio that I think houses a lot of dogs they won’t be able to sell. Battersea Asset Management anyone?

I’m done here. Thanks boards and barchid for the chat over the years. We’d have won if only we could have got out of the fjords.

i've changed my view on this one barchid following their change of strategy. their differentiator, for me has been, until now, the direct investment portfolio. they repeatedly lectured us at length on how their regional reach and early investment arms (vct and eis) gave rise to thousands of investment opportunities that they distil down to 20 or so of the very finest that go into the direct portfolio. furthermore, they boasted of having lots of dry powder on the balance sheet to invest at the bottom of the market in smes.

recently they’ve begun slipping into the conversation that the direct portfolio was, after all, just venture investing and now they won’t make any new additions to it. the spiel they gave us over the years is demonstrably a load of *******s.

the direct portfolio companies that attracted my investment – ndreams, oxgene, faradion, native antibody co – have been sold. the only one left that interests me is warwick acoustics and that isn’t enough to keep me involved with no prospect of new, exciting companies coming into the fold.

the sales they made were good but they have generated no value for long term shareholders. market cap at admission in 2014, plus cash raised in subsequent placings comes to £176m. the current market cap plus accumulated dividend payments is £162m. that’s a risible ten year performance.

the bulk of the current valuation is attributed to what’s left in the direct portfolio but a lot of the companies in it have been on the books for donkeys years and they obviously can’t find buyers.

without the interest of the direct portfolio i find this a bloated fund manager with excessive admin costs and a smug management that reward themselves too well with bonuses and share options in return for mediocre performance at best. the directors have boasted for years that they had 17% skin in the game but now chamberlain is out it’s around 2%. bah humbug!

The £344k wellness test sales are for the reporting period Jan to December 2023. As the products were launched in May 2023 it’s roughly 7 months sales. I assume Q4 sales were higher than Q3 so I guess Q4 was around £200k which would mean Q1 2024 was £290k.

My question to the board is how much old rope did Adam Reynolds and Lyn Rees make last year and how much will they be paid for it?

I’m expecting a bid at some stage. Big cash pile, good reputation, assets under management growing fast, well positioned for UK turnaround, especially with our British Business Bank relationship. That is meaningful. Like us, Maven were recently awarded BBB contracts. Maven were taken over by Mattioli Woods in 2021 and they are currently being taken over by Pollen Street Capital. Things are moving.

You’re welcome MiG. Ray Chamberlain was non-exec chair of Mercia at IPO and is a staunch supporter. He was executive chair and main shareholder of Forward Group plc which was successfully sold in the 90s. The name lives on in Forward Innovation Fund and Forward Nominees which are listed in the MERC Annual Report as significant shareholders in Mercia and in which Ray has an interest. I don’t know how many shares Ray holds directly in Mercia but I’m told he has never sold a single share in the company. I’ve met him, he’s a very nice bloke and passionate about encouraging small and medium sized companies in the regions. The UK needs more like him imo.

The director didn’t sell shares.

The Shares were sold on 21 March 2024 at 32.50p per share by non‐Chamberlain family shareholders. None of the shares sold were held personally by Ray Chamberlain.

You can tell from share buy back profile over time that they're mopping up weak PIs. It's beneficial for me that shares are bought back well below NAV so no complaints. Times might be hard for some but it hasn't stopped Mercia closing out the Northern Venture Trust offer which is fully subscribed for £14m plus £6m extension. I expect NVT2 and NVT3 to follow suit.

Thanks for the clarification MIG. Resolution 11 at the agm gave them the authority to repurchase up to 10% of ordinary shares so they’re operating within that remit. When you put your figure up I wondered if our directors thought there was a chance the share price could drop to 9p. Nothing will surprise me in this market for small caps but I hope to put that thought away along with the mauser. Have a good one.