Member Info for shychap

Absent any negative news, it's a stone cold certainty. It will be an instant re-rate and it could be difficult to buy a worthwhile number on the day it happens and possibly for days thereafter. So do you wait for it happen and take what you can get when it does - or do you try to catch the falling knife and risk losses before the turnaround?

For the latter route, you need to be a gambler with cash to spare: but that's how I made big money a decade ago which I'm still playing with. I was buying up shares in Sirius Minerals (SXX) at all prices from 10p down to 2p as a major holder was dumping over many months and then held on tight when the selling stopped. I ended up selling my holding of around 1m shares at prices from 30–35p and bought myself a Bentley Continental to celebrate. You need conviction and cojones, and I wasn't short of either.

I've backed some losers too of course, but small beer in comparison.

My mantra is to believe only what is in the RNS's and ignore the rest – but study those RNS's very carefully. Since 19/11/24 the SBTX RNS's have been golden.

Leveraging or selling assets in order to keep the lights on - if that is what OPTI are doing - is what AIM minnows have to do. And I doubt that OPTI shareholders would consider their SBTX disposals a worse option than a discounted and dilutive placing.

In any event, SOH has declared that OPTI have now stopped selling their SBTX shares. It's possible that he is lying about that but various insiders I have spoken to think he is telling the truth.

There are other possible forced sellers out there and by all accounts, the prime suspect is Miton who, along with Cynosure acquired 7% of the equity last August in an allegedly unneeded and heavily discounted placement. Stuart Ashman takes the blame for that.

For me, the greater concern is not that the SBTX share price is under constant selling pressure (which presents buying opportunities for some) but that Ashman has been unable to find an off-market buyer for the seller's shares.

No need for numbers - just confirmation that the advertised cash from Croda has actually arrived.

Perhaps PIs are anticipating an RNS announcing the receipt of the Croda cash.

OTOH, if no RNS, perhaps they will speculate that something has gone wrong.

OPTI's website is finally back online btw.

Croda seem to be stretching the thesis of Dr Katerina Steventon whose presentation summary at September's SCS Conference focuses on emotional wellbeing in cosmetic science. While there's an obvious correlation between looking good and feeling good, I'm not sure that Skin have made any such scientific claim for their invention.

Prof. Catherine O’Neill also presented at that event on the more prosaic "Role of the Skin Microbiome in Skin Barrier Function".

https://www.scsannualconference.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2024/08/SCS-Annual-Conference-Abstract-Directory.pdf

Time will tell. Any old concealer, blusher, etc could claim to have an instant emotional benefit. Most make-up is psychotherapeutical: it makes people look better and they therefore feel better. But this presentation can't be about that. It seems to be delving into psychodermatology - which may be a thing that Croda are claiming but I'm not sure that Skin has made any such claims (other than touting the obvious emotional benefit on psoriasis sufferers when their skin improves).

For sure, any product which improves skin can have a profound emotional and psychological impact but the title of the Croda presentation seems to be implying something more than that, ie a direct emotional benefit rather than a consequential one.

Any idea what "emotional resilience" means and whether such benefit has ever been claimed by SBTX? It sounds as though it could be related to Oxytocin.

Is SOH saying that OPTI's website is hosted on their own servers?? I can't see any sign of that.

Well, one reality is that the OPTI website has been down all week without notice or explanation which may be sufficiently worrying to cause today's 10% drop in their SP…which may be contagious. Does SBTX depend on OPTI for anything?

Mea culpa: I didn't see the Seneca TR1 dated 19/04/21 revising their holding to 15,604,406 (9.9%) and they wouldn't need another TR1 until they cross the 5% threshold. So, Seneca's house is in order and I am grateful for their help.

As an "active" investor, I tend to ask CEO's, major shareholders, Nomads, brokers, etc a lot of questions and I need to say that in many decades of AIM investing I have never come across a CEO who responds faster and more openly than Stuart Ashman, nor a fund manager more helpful than Seneca.

Yes, their website is wrong/confusing and has just been corrected. Seneca's Matt Currie has just replied to SA as follows:

"Hi Stuart,

Unfortunately this is a function of our fund structure and slightly inflexible website layout (which is unhelpful) – we were showing as both current and exited, because we have investors who invested at 9p who have been out in full for a couple of years now (and have made c.5x their money). We have amended to make clearer – we simply tick a box as to whether it is current or exited when it goes live on the website, and this one ticks both for our funds but the layout was a bit unfortunate.

Our shareholding has not changed for quite a while (aside from the fact that I have bought shares, which we would also need to report on if that tipped us through a % barrier) and nowhere on that page suggests that we have secretly sold all of our shares."

Onwards and upwards…

To his credit, Stuart Ashman has replied pronto to say: "That is incorrect. Seneca still hold shares in SBTX. Precisely as stated on our shareholder disclosure."

So Seneca need to correct their web page.

According to their website, Seneca no longer holds *any* SBTX shares which would mean they have disposed of their remaining 14m shares since 30/6/2024 when they held 6.23% according to the latest SBTX annual report. See: https://senecapartners.co.uk/portfolio/skinbiotherapeutics/

So are they keeping this quiet or is SBTX sitting on it?

Absolutely. Nothing sinister about Seneca (or OPTI) selling. It's a game of musical chairs until we get cornerstone investors in for the long haul. And without sellers, there wouldn't be a market.

I think the point is that other potential investors have steered clear because they want to see directors with skin in the game before putting their own cash down.

Seneca issued TR1s at 20.9% (26,763,889) on 18/02/19, at 14.06% (22,781,719) on 19/01/21, at 12.9% (20,110,387) on 01/02/21 and at 11.8% (18,385,387) on 09/02/21. I don't think there have been any since then unless I've missed something.

Seneca's holding has dropped from 26,763,889 on 18/2/19 to approx 14m on 30/6/24.

None of that is due to dilution.

Over the past six years, OPTI's SBTX holding has dropped from 48m shares (37.6%) to 21,884,389 (9.58%). Notwithstanding SOH's assurance that he would stop selling at 9%, the form book says we shouldn't believe him.

Nor is OPTI the only possible seller. Seneca haven't issued any TR-1s for some while and yet their SBTX holding is down to (6.23%) according to the 2024 Annual Report, having dumped approx 12m shares since 2019 – and leaving over 14m still to dispose of if so inclined.

The sellers haven't stopped me from buying but I would have bought more if I thought the overhang had cleared.