Member Info for skittish

Quite a few £10K buys going through on AAA and now up 6% to 3.30p to 3.40p - so I guess that is something of a seal of approval for the deal - but then it depends on who is doing the buying.

Makes you wonder what ASLR shares are worth.

There were of course those warrants at 130p, which are excercisable if the price reaches 280p for 5 consecutive days....

Mind boggling if they manage to pull any of this off.

Difficult to say as we (ASLR - a listed albeit suspended vehicle) is being offered shares in MESH - which was once listed but now delisted.

You would have thought it better to have shares in a listed vehicle, and the deal to be the other way round, although no doubt MESH will ultimately list.

But to buy out Sentiance, if done in cash, MESH needs to raise around £70M.

MESH listing assumes of course that Mr Bonnier, if he remains a director of MESH (appointed over the weekend, it appears) sorts out his differences which the FCA.

The only listed (and trading) vehicle involved here is AAA, which has as its only significant asset a holding and options in ASLR and their share price is up today - gone from 2.90p - 3.20p at open to 3.10p - 3.30p now - all buys and someone seems keen to pick up blocks of 100K.

AAA has been quite strong recently, so that has been something of a barometer for me.

So I guess that signifies approval of the deal.

Note worthy that the MESH deal is due to be done by 10th August 2020, whereas we are due to delist on 14th August 2020.

Bit tight but if we are not doing an RTO, then maybe we can come back anyway.

The only drilling update on here will be from a dentist.

Some movement over at MESH Holdings.

The recent accounts to 30-9-2019 are now on their website. Haven't looked in great detail but they appear silent on whether the Sentiance options have been allowed to expire of have been renewed/extended.

Of greater interest is that Robert Bonnier has been appointed an executive director of MESH. His wife of course is the largest shareholder there with circa 10%.

This appointment appears to have happened within the last day or so, and is not yet registered at Companies House.

Bearing in mind Bonnier's previous attempts at making a listed vehicle comeback failed -

This from 2006

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bonnier-exit-ruins-comeback-plan-lc6nf5mg272

This from earlier this year -

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/dotcom-financier-robert-bonnier-linked-with-sentiance-bid-6ljrwkcg6

"A spokesman for Mr Bonnier said that “Mesh is in no way a comeback vehicle for Robert” and that his business interests were outside the UK."

Bearing in mind that the FSA may not look favourably upon Mr Bonnier being a director of a listed vehicle, this may mean that MESH has given up on listing, and would this therefore make it more likely that any deal would be more likely to be done via ASLR?

Other random points - ASLR will be delisted on 14th August 2020, if it does not come back from suspension.

Also AAA continues to be remarkably popular, despite its only real interest being shares and options in ASLR. Contrast with another of Mr Akers vehicles PIRI where the share price has been underwhelming recently despite his increasing his stake to 15%. He also bought a small stake in minnow Trafalgar Property last week.

The clock is ticking......

This is almost comical - the price is just being bounced between 34p to 36p all day long, and has been for the last fortnight or so.

The price doesn't seem to shift no matter what is going on in the wider world.

Not complaining too much though and will accumulate as and when the opportunity arises.

I wonder what the catalyst will be for a significant breakout?

Much more positive RNS than the one on 4-6-20.

The specific date is telling - no longer need for a discussion on the meaning of "days".

Also this - "With the commercial terms settled in the agreement in principal, the legal language over a number of agreements has taken time to conclude"

The deal is done - terms are settled - now just a matter of making sure that neither party has any wriggle room.

Final date is also a Monday - and no mention of the licence extension - this was the 4-6-20 RNS

"· The settlement is conditional on the parties finalizing definitive documentation and completing the transactions, (including securing extension of the PSC) within 35 days"

So, if all that is required now is just settling "the legal language" can we take it therefore that the licence extension is already in the bag.

Looks that way to me.

MESH Holdings filed accounts today at Companies House - 8 days late - copies available within 5 days - maybe a hint in there as to what is happening at or with Sentiance?

FT singled out BOO in 2018, around the same time it was laying into Wirecard.

If BOO continues its downward trajectory then there could be some ultimate positivity for BWNG - solid, reliable, old school - not flash Harry and his mates.

https://www.ft.com/content/e427327e-5892-11e8-b8b2-d6ceb45fa9d0

There may be some read across from BOO, but BWNG do serve a somewhat different market.

BOO now appears, at least temporarily, to be something of a pariah and is being dropped by a number of big names

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53327628

Whether the whole thing unravels a la NMC and Wirecard who knows, but neither of them unravelled overnight, and professional shorters were into both prior to their final demise, just as they have been into BOO.

Maybe BOO is more resilient, but once the tide starts going out that is when you find who has been swimming naked.

Glad to be in dull boring, but very undervalued BWNG.

Whilst most of their brands appear to be fairly flat at the moment, according to Alexa, Jacamo appears to be showing extraordinary strength 207K to 139K over the last three months in the worldwide listings.

https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/jacamo.co.uk#section_traffic

Increasing and significant ranking strength in the UK is also evident.

Whilst the share price may be somewhat stagnant, visits to the Jacamo website appear to be booming.

This is the wording of the Q1 30-6-20 results -

"On June 4, 2020 the Company announced that the shareholders of the Nigerian Affiliate had reached an agreement in principle to resolve their disputes. Completion of the agreement is ongoing and when completed ShoreCan's shareholding in the Affiliate will change in accordance to the terms outlined in the Press Release. The Affiliate holds an attractive oil appraisal and development project in shallow to mid-water offshore Nigeria on its 100% holding in OPL 226. In other ventures, ShoreCan has been indicatively awarded an exploration license onshore Mozambique in the 5th Licensing Round adjacent to the producing Pande-Temane Gas and light oil field complex."

I can't see that it is any different to the wording of today's RNS.

Completion is ongoing - there are still things to do to complete.

News likely Friday - either a) it is complete, b) it has fallen through, or c) they've agreed to extend in order to to tie up loose ends - I suspect the latter, but am no better informed than anyone else.

The big bucks are clearly waiting this out - if (when) it starts to move - place your bets.

Invested here FWIW.

"within 35 days"

Agreed time up Friday. The legal meaning of "days" is quite clear - but probably will not include the day on which the agreement was signed.

The agreement itself however is probably quite specific as to the time by which the conditions need to be met - so there will be news this week, one way or the other.

The 16M sells at 16.20 almost balance the later 19M buy.

Interesting times.

Yes, interesting, I was just watching those.

i thought the six around 12.30 might be rollovers at mid price, but the later 275K is more interesting and ticked the price up.

Since the drop following the "peak" at 43p we seem to be making a series of higher lows and higher highs. Lets see if we can breach 39.8p for another higher high.

This just needs a bit of a push from somewhere to get this out of its present range and into the mid 40's.

Just thought, on this quiet day I'd give a resume of recent Alexa figures, compared with 3 months ago.

All figures estimates, 3 month rolling average, may not reflect current position, higher the ranking better the site ie. No 1 is top ranked site in the world.

Home Essentials - 989K to 290K - doing well for a new brand and continuing on gentle upwards trend

https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/homeessentials.co.uk#section_traffic

Jacamo - 202K to 158K - appears to be the outstanding brand and now doing much better than pre lockdown, significant and sustained upwards trend

https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/jacamo.co.uk#section_traffic

Simply Be - 200K to 204K - maintains strong covid recovery, but generally flat now

https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/simplybe.co.uk#section_traffic

JD Williams - 208K to 213K - good recovery from covid, but some recent weakness

https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/jdwilliams.co.uk#section_traffic

By way of comparison here are some other retailers, random and in no particular order

Boohoo - 1960 to 1678 - outstanding performance but now flat lining

https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/boohoo.com#section_traffic

Asos - 301 to 318 - global strength, but not really going anywhere

https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/asos.com#section_traffic

Quiz - 26K to 61K - dire, and no sign of pulling out from the dive

https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/quizclothing.co.uk#section_traffic

Hennes & Mauritz - 762 to 518 - truly amazing performance, better even than boo according to these stats

https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/hm.com#section_traffic

Mango - 3646 to 3045 - bit of a dip for covid, but strong and continuing recovery

https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/mango.com#section_traffic

reflected in a 50% increase in online customers during lockdown

https://press.mango.com/en/mango-gains-almost-900-000-new-online-customers-during-the-lockdown_101231

But I'd say with two main brands with significantly higher stats than pre lockdown. and the other two essentially flat BWNG is showing continued strength. Indeed Jacamo shows a similar trend to Mango, albeit without the international aspect. And internet traffic generally is around 30% higher than pre lockdown so being flat in ranking terms could still reflect actual growth.

Someone mentioned a while back on why alexa shows the origin for traffic being Turkey. I'm not quite sure, but alexa stats are estimates gleaned from cookies etc., so do not claim to be exactly right. The important thing is the trend, and for this BWNG appears to be doing pretty well. Certainly justifies a rating greater than a p/e of 1 to 2.

Bit more on how accurate alexa actually is -

https://neilpatel.com/blog/free-analytics-accuracy/#:~:text=Google%20Analytics%20shows%2079.46%25.,last%20three%20months%20is%206.5%25.

Yep, these consistently paid out 12p to 14p every year between 2012 and 2018.

They may not return to paying such a large sum for quite a while, but have historically always been good payers, probably at the behest of the Alliance family who own 40%.

They still have the ability to pay (aside from the government loan, which remains undrawn) as they are generating substantial profits, but would appear to be concentrating on paying back debt, presently at the incredible rate of £13.5M per month.

Once debt is at more manageable levels they will no doubt return to paying significant dividends.

Anyone with a 3-5 year view could be picking up a diamond, if they buy in now.

Dropped to around .32p on the last .3p funding.

Thus far the lowest has been .355p and now climbing.

Clearly demand here notwithstanding another 0.3p placing.

Higher lows, and higher highs.

It appears to have been cut to 40p from 120p.

But if the previous target was issued 12 months ago then that was at a time when the shares were trading at 100p to 150p.

So maybe their target just reflects the current reality.

I think 120p was the old target - not sure when that was issued though, could have been 12 months ago, the new target is 40p - effectively by saying "Hold" they're saying not worth selling if you do hold, but not worth buying either.

Not quite sure why they see the correct rating as a p/e of 1 to 2 when clear progress is being made, but then what do I know.

I'd say it was a good bet just on the fact that there will not be any requirement for a fund raise (unlike many others at the moment - it almost seem you have no credibility unless you give shareholders a good shafting) and clearly chucking out loads of cash to pay off the debts.

But what do I know compared with the Masters of the Universe.

Broker ratings today - possible reason for weakness.

JEFFERIES CUTS N BROWN PRICE TARGET TO 40 (120) PENCE - 'HOLD'

That the deal was done on a Sunday suggests that they needed the cash fast.

Same investor as previously.

Best keep it simple when you need fast cash.

The way I'd look at that is that only 91% of the sales are presently digital.

So that leaves around 10% non digital, that is from retail sites.

If product sales are down 21% from pre covid levels, as the retail sites account for 10% of total sales and they are completely closed, then digital sales overall are down around 10% over the three weeks to 25th June 2020 compared with pre covid.

This could partly be explained by cutting non profitable digital sales lines.

This is what supersonic BOO said about recent trading "Trading in the middle of March through to early April was mixed, as a result of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, initially with a marked decrease in year-on-year growth. Performance across all of our brands and geographies improved throughout April, with a robust performance delivered in May."

So even they have not been immune from the covid related shock, but being on a premium rating, p/e around 60, they have recovered far quicker than N Brown, which is still dealing with the fag end of its restructuring.

N Brown are on a p/e of 1 to 2, but I'd suggest that doesn't give credit for the fact that despite not performing as well as BOO they are still doing pretty well in all the circumstances, and deserve to be higher.

That sales may still be suffering is also suggested in the alexa figures - Home Essentials and Jacamo performing better than pre covid, J D Williams and Simply Be not doing quite as well - someone suggested clothes shopping for holidays may still be suffering, no foreign holidays as yet.

What really strikes me in the last figures is the reduction in debt £13.5M per month since end February - okay they cut costs aggressively, but it doesn't appear to have impacted the business too much. At that rate they'd be debt free by January 2023.

Equivalent to half a £billion debt to £0 debt in 3 years. That rate of reduction is unlikely to be sustained, but even in these difficult times they must be generating masses of cash to deal with the debt so fast.

And once the debt is at lower levels then a whole range of possibilities open up for a lean and highly cash generative digital business.

But at that stage the shares will no longer be 36p.