If you would like to ask our webinar guest speakers from WS Blue Whale Growth Fund, Taseko Mines, Kavango Resources and CQS Natural Resources fund a question please submit them here.
My pet theory is that many larger investors cannot currently invest in SEE because of SEE's low liquidity, either because of their own internal rules or because of pressure from regulators. "When" the shares ultimately get lift off, liquidity could also improve, allowing in those previously excluded, adding to buying pressure, adding to liquidity, adding to share price, allowing in more people excluded by liquidity etc etc. A liquidity virtuous circle that could add fuel to the lift-off.
If I run a £1b investment fund and I put the money into 20-40 investments, I might want to be putting at least £20m into any individual investment for it to be a meaningful part of my fund. I then have to think: What if I need to sell that holding? I might need to raise money to pay investors who are pulling out of my fund (which might be specific to my fund or just investors generally pulling in their horns across the market). I might find another opportunity that I need to quickly raise money to take advantage of. I might have a change of manager/strategy. I might decide that the investee company share price has risen to a price where I want to sell. The point is, before I invest, I need to know I can get my money out again when I need to, and quickly. So before I put my £20m into SEE shares, let me check how long it might take me to get that money back out again.
Well, over the last 6 months, the total value of shares bought and sold in SEE is £21.6m so if I want to buy or sell £20m then I am basically going to be the entire market for 6 months!!! There just isn't a market in the shares regularly trading enough volume for me to buy or sell any significant position. Ok, so I like what I see at SEE but I can't invest because there isn't a market.
So, SEE looks like it could be in a liquidity trap. The number of people who can own SEE shares is possibly massively restricted because low liquidity could exclude a large number of potential investors.
I personally believe SEE is very undervalued and have taken a large personal position because of that. So my hope is that some day, there will be a trigger for the share price to start to correct. That trigger could be near-term contract wins or long term P&L performance or something else entirely. If and when that trigger does come, and SEE's price starts to rise and the share gathers attention (attention due to the rise, attention due to whatever is triggering the rise), think what this does to liquidity.
More attention means more trading means more liquidity in terms of numbers of shares. Higher share price means the shares being traded are worth more, which means an increase in £value liquidity. A sustained positive movement could bring a sustained rise in liquidity. A sustained rise in liquidity means that the market becomes investible for some who have previously been excluded and as they enter that market, that could further add to price momentum and liquidity. We could enter a virtuous
Got to get the fundamentals right
The 2019 CEO Call Options Scheme?
That would be an interesting one. It would seem to make most sense to exercise those options at the last possible moment if you are going to exercise them because (1) You get to earn bank interest on the money until you buy the shares but don't lose any share value and (2) The longer you leave it, the more uncertainty about the future reduces, and the better you are able to make the decision based on knowledge of your own future and that of the company.
Https://seeingmachines.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FINAL_Seeing_Machines_2022_Annual_Report.pdf
2022 Annual Report, Note 33.
"2019 CEO Call Options Scheme"
In September 2019 the Company awarded 25,000,000 rights in respect of ordinary shares to the CEO to be issued at nil cost. The rights vest annually over 5 years in equal tranches with the first vesting date being 1 July 2020, with each issue conditional on the satisfaction of key conditions including [Target Share Price] performance....
For the purposes of determining whether the TSP has been achieved at a particular vesting date the share price will be determined by the 30-day VWAP immediately prior to the particular vesting date....
Achievement of the following TSP performance is required for each tranche to vest:
Tranche 1: £0.061
Tranche 2: £0.076
Tranche 3: £0.095
Tranche 4: £0.119
Tranche 5: £0.149
etc etc.
Read the note in the accounts to get the full picture. The man has quite a lot to gain from SEE getting to a more realistic share price. What you might call skin in the game.
When negotiating any agreement like this, there will be a balance to getting £m up-front and getting bigger £m royalties going forward. We know that SEE have enough £m in the bank and heading our way in the near term, so there is no need to go for £m upfront.
This is a good negotiating position to be in. Companies without much in the bank can be held over a barrel and sign away future rights for too little, just to get money into the bank. That isn't us. We already have money so we can negotiate from a position of strength.
Strongly feel that for this deal, the biggest numbers will be those numbers we haven't yet been told. They must have agreed a royalty structure and SEE and Collins must have discussed their pipeline. Not madness to think that these numbers might be much much £mm larger than the up-front payments.
OMG - That presentation is a hard watch.
I'm 38 minutes into it and taking a break.
I think Seeing Machines is a great company and I think Paul has done a lot of good as CEO. I don't know what went wrong on the day of that presentation, but it is not good.
There is a long explanation of what the company does - which you'd have understood if you already knew the company well. If you were new to the company, I think you'd have been struggling. Surely the presentation needs to start with a hard hitting elevator pitch which delivers our USP with total clarity?
Still. Frustrating as it is to watch, the long term success of the company doesn't rest on the quality of this presentation.
I was trying to buy for a while. Broker couldn't execute buys. Tried some dummy sells every now and then - happy to take as many shares as I wanted to sell. Finally managed to buy after the price ticked up a couple of percent.
Is that fish I smell?
Not saying the Urban Dictionary is correct, but their opinion made me laugh in the context of the below.
"the proof is in the pudding
A phrase that, when uttered, instantly identifies the speaker as being incredibly stupid and illiterate."
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=the%20proof%20is%20in%20the%20pudding
Drives me mad, Cold Fish Pie.
"Quite simply the proof is in the pudding...",
No it isn't! Please can people stop mangling this classic saying?
The proof of the pudding is in the eating.
You make it sound like the proof has been hidden in a pudding like a hacksaw being smuggled into a prison.