Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
Good summary of the Washington Post article on Ruane Schrow. The due diligence that has gone into the investment in Avacta is very significant. Avacta now join the list of only 18 companies in the Conifer fund according to the last 13F filing. I am hoping that the £10m taken in the placing was just the start of a stake building and they continue to add in the future.
Hi all, not been posting on here as we are just waiting for news from Avacta on the Covid BAMS, LFTs and treatment now. Still reading the board and there have been some quality discussions on here that have been good to read over the last week. I also get some weird enjoyment from reading the deramping posts in the morning that never age well and following Global’s incredible trading talents. I simply don’t have time nor the inclination to trade any of my holding.
Going off the topic of Avacta, and for those following the EUA story (no cross-ramp intended), I’ve been reflecting on my strategy to hold here. Whilst we’ve probably all got stories to tell of what might have been chasing the rabbit with the power of hindsight my impatience, with the specific example of EUA, has cost me big time. I believed in the fundamental value story but I couldn’t get behind the board there so sold out at the end of last year. A good profit I thought. Ironically the trading suspension would have worked wonders for my portfolio as I only lost money as Covid took hold and impacted the shares where I had put that cash. My £35k stake would be worth £250k today. The suspension and in effect forced hold has worked out very well for those invested. My reflection has been to stick with my conviction and hold when I see huge upside in the value based on clear fundamentals. In the case of Avacta I am even more confident as I also fully trust the board to deliver what they say they will given their communications to date (I even accept the 120p placing). Whilst different industries, risks, etc and no two companies are alike I won’t be making the same mistake here and selling before the true long term value I perceive has been realised.
Well done all in here. Great to see a winner on AIM. I bought 1.4m shares back in Nov at 2.7p Unfortunately I sold them in December at 3.3p :-(
I liked the story but struggled to get behind the board. My loss. Good luck although a think you’ll continue to do well from here
Ricky, there is no requirement for a ftse Company to report quarterly. RR report their results every 6 months. The update tomorrow is just a trading update of which we are receiving more in this current environment. Whilst I am neutral on RR at the moment, given I don’t see people flying long haul much at the moment or in the near future, a lot of your points are just your wild ‘glass half empty’ opinion and not facts.
Sounds like you are trying to trade it if you were to do that. Focus on the underlying market. Are less or more people going to be flying over the next few months? How long will people avoid long haul flying. Based on this buy in when you think the worst is over (perhaps that’s in the past) and hold over the next 3-5 years as the company recovers. You might be able to trade it by guessing and getting lucky but most lose money
I don’t think it’s a u turn. No one has been able to predict the short to medium term outlook since the coronavirus in the aero industry. It was initially much worse than expected and now is looking like it’s going to take longer to recover than first thought. Hindsight is a fantastic thing but the board are making decisions and planning based on what they know today. It’s all about flying hours. Focus on this first and the sp will follow suit
Amazing to see Sona sp react so positively to just lab data. I think AS does a fantastic job at focusing on delivering results and not hyping the sp. He’s very measured in what he says. To think that Sona hit a MCap of £230m on open vs Avacta’s £300m today. And we’ve got affimers instead of someone else’s antibodies in the LFT, a second test (BAMS), possible treatment, pre Cision, TMAC and various other partnerships/JVs. Not to mention affimers advantages over antibodies (affinity, speed to make, etc). Some of the valuations for Avacta based on the market may not seem so crazy in a few weeks time
Nice find PAH00. Thanks for sharing. Those lab results look promising. I agree that the Sona CEO sounded much less confident than DW from Avacta on sensitivity. Bodes well for some very good sensitivity and specificity results from Avacta. It’s all about the clinical validation results though. Exciting times. Sona certainly keep the market/investors up to date on all test results as get them
RK, are you suggesting the market in the workplace won’t be there given the tests expected pricing (already discussed by AS in an early interview)? I think £10 on wholesale volume absolute minimum and £25 for consumers. My view is the workplace usage will depends on the workplace risk, screening population size, frequency, etc. Yes I don’t think large manufacturing organisations are going to start spending £10m a year on testing when the controls in place sufficiently reduce the risk but high risk workplaces will have no choice. The testing/screening strategy of each type of customer is an interesting point that hasn’t been discussed in much depth on here.
The volatility in the sp is to be expected in between news. It seems like we got through the end of June nonsense (we already had the RNS re prototypes). Hopefully now we can turn our attention to the exciting news we should see in July:
BAMS test validation results
BAMS partnerships
LFT manufacturing partnerships and tech transfer start
Hopefully something comes of the Covid treatment
I think we will see higher highs and higher lows as we go forward. I can even see some of the derampers have now gone long. Ignore the new deramping accounts. Whose to say the same person even uses the same account each time? I wouldn’t waste your time trying to engage with them.
Most likely yes Magicalali. I don’t expect much from a prototype optimised or clinical validation started RNS. Someone on here brought up the discussion on what will be the real sp inflection news item. Most concluded it would be the fda approval. Therefore I expect the sp to spike drift around 115-145p until the LFT is approved for sale at which point we will have a better idea of performance, partners, costs, demand, etc and can make some better assumptions around the potential sales and profits. Its just a waiting game for us now until the end of August for the LFT. I am more interested in news on the BAMS and treatment front for now
BBN, my view is that we will be on plan to the one shown in the presentation, i.e. end of June, as whilst the test is optimised there is nothing to stop the manufacturing partners being put in place and starting the process of manufacturing the validation batches concurrently. They can complete initial planning and tech transfer activities whilst the test is being optimised. Great if it’s finished this week but if it takes a couple of weeks I think they are likely minor tweaks that can be incorporated into the final batch towards the end of the timescale. The actual production will only be for a couple of hundred tests so total time to complete should not be any longer than the timeline suggested. I expect we might see a manufacturing update or partner RNS this week.
It’s demands on your investment horizon though ipadtrader. For the previous two weeks the sp was rising. I think most expected the sp to level out around the placing price until significant news is released (tests approved or treatment partnership). I believe the sp tends to overshoot each way and then settle down. We had the low and then a good run up to £1.50. Now I’d like to see it settle out here as we wait for the LFT to be approved for sale by the end of August. That’s a couple of months time so traders will take their money and go and lose it somewhere else then likely get back in here in August. It’s a good strategy if you don’t believe in Avacta as an investment however I believe you are likely to miss something special being announced in the mean time. I’m just sitting on my hands and waiting as the message I am reading from AS is very clear
The last presentation says ‘manufacturing will be carried out in the UK initially’. I can’t remember seeing anything about British companies doing the manufacturing. Cytiva have a UK presence in Amersham which was the old GE life sciences.
Having just reread the LFT update RNS I think that was the prototype complete/lab performance news we were signposted to expect for end of June. The fact that the team want to optimise further is a real positive as a) there’s a strong baseline worth building on and b) we then really do have the best test possible (not rushing at the expense of performance). Now what made me question this was the timeline in the presentation points to validation batch manufacture straight after the end of June. So how do we stay on plan if the test is being optimised? I think we will therefore see a manufacturing partner(s) RNS next week as the commercial deal can be done and initial planning/tech transfer started whilst the final optimisations are made in parallel. My understanding is the clinical validation needs to use the final rate manufacturer(s) samples. Next week could be very exciting
I share your view in your second paragraph PL75. I just don’t like not knowing a bit more about what’s going on but that is Al’s job to manage so I’ll leave him to it.
I agree with you on sp and sentiment. I would call the initial positive sentiment ‘Covid share hype’ which drove the sp to £2+ (I see this as a great thing for Avacta as it allowed the fundraise at a much higher sp). We also have the underlying market sentiment. Whilst the market has cooled off I do think we might see another 10% correction as the recession kicks in. I strongly believe the market has got too far ahead of the fundamentals for where we are today. That and it looks like we will see Covid-19 continue to increase globally/second waves. Whether this brings back some of the Covid stock hype I don’t know so the sp will need to be more closely aligned to results rather than just sentiment.
I mentioned the articles were referring to the BAMS test at the time of the press release. It was the only test from Avacta in trial phase at the time. Everyone wanted to believe it was the LFT they were referring to. Good research though and it would certainly address the point about access to clinical samples being an issue. I don’t know what Avacta don’t just come out and say something like they BAMS test clinical trials are underway with the UoS/PHE and will take x weeks to complete’
After this weeks LFT presentation and RNS with comments from Klaus I’m feeling very confident about the LFT performance and demand. The focus is clearly now on clinical validation and manufacturing ramp up once the test has been optimised. Interestingly these were the critical factors David Wilson highlighted in the webinar. Whilst I am comfortable with the overall timeline and looking for the test to market at the end of August I am now a little confused in the near term. The presentation was very clear in that the LFT was ready end of June and then moving into validation batch manufacturing. The RNS the next day suggested a period of optimisation which as other have suggested could take around three weeks. Is this in keeping with the timeline from the presentation? Will validation batches be manufactured for each design to determine the optimum?
Was the RNS from this week the LFT prototype one we were expecting before the end of June?
I am even less clear where we are with the BAMS test validation. It makes me wonder if access to clinical trials is an issue here preventing progress at pace. I don’t think this will be an issue with the LFT as I expect the gov to facilitate the clinical validation.
I think the sp is a result of the placing and retail share offering. It makes sense that people have bought and sold the placement shares. I am sure the LTHs who got more are holding on to them. I expect the price to stabilise around this level whilst we churn through these new shares for a couple of weeks and then we start a steady rerate over the next two months as progress is made on the Covid fronts.