The next focusIR Investor Webinar takes places on 14th May with guest speakers from Blue Whale Growth Fund, Taseko Mines, Kavango Resources and CQS Natural Resources fund. Please register here.
Valju, I assume you’re asking me that question with a view to thinking I’m some sort of deramper. That would be very wide of the mark.
I have more shares here than most of the BoD. But I do have an additional trading pot.
I remarked upon it only because someone mentioned chunky sell trades and I didn’t want people here thinking Bio or BoD were selling.
FWIW, Bio are still buying even at this SP from what I can tell, so our SP should increase a fair bit from here. However, I was happy with my profit target so I sold some of my trading pot.
Hope that answers your question.
Yes, a few of the larger sell trades are mine from trading pot. Just taking some profit off the table from 160p. Still a large holding in my long-term pot.
The bottom line is not any of us know exactly what the company's plans are in terms of April update. We don't know $hite about DHSC resolution. We don't know $hite about Biosynex's true intentions. And we don't know $hite about where the SP will be next week.
In fact, the company love to keep us in the dark when they can. Launch of Co-Prep is NOT RNS newsworthy. Why don't you ask Mandy if the CTO resigning (or rather being forced to leave) is NOT newsworthy as well? But hey, the company knows best right?
AIM companies make up the rules as they go along. Nomads and FCA are pointless.
All we can do is suck it up when the SP goes down, and rejoice when it moves up.
Anyone who thinks they are smarter than the market, will simply have a lot more inside info than the 'market'.
Good luck.
HarC: "If the company think the physical launch of co prep isn't material enough to warrant an RNS then it isn't material enough to warrant an rns"
I'm not sure I agree. You're implying 'the company knows best'. If so, why are so many of us writing to Mandy at various points dissatisfied with investor comms? Are we all morons?
DA appears to be allowing the usual processes at NCYT to continue to tick away, and we haven't seen any real change in the company since he started his tenure. Investor comms is still dire. If Co-Prep is going to be one of the company's biggest sellers, why not advertise it via RNS as an official launch? It's no good Mandy saying that the development of the product had already been RNSd last year, so there was no need to report its launch via the proper investor channel? Novacyt is a smallish company on AIM, we really need all the advertising and positive news we can get, and not everyone reads twitter but they certainly read official RNSs from AIM companies.
They could have at least dressed up an RNS with news of the launch as well as target markets and plans for sales overseas etc? All this lumping of news into one big RNS 2-3x/year hasn't really done it for our company, and all of GM's previous talk of 'we don't need to advertise ourselves, our products will speak for themselves BS' hasn't really hit the spot. We can blame our current SP on MM tactics, alleged 'end of Covid', current Ukraine issues, etc, but for a company's SP to go BELOW cash in bank (e.g. last month) suggests the wider market has little faith in the BoD's sense of direction and DA has himself to blame since coming on board. I've seen nothing new or revitalising from him in 6 months and if he doesn't deliver in the April update, he will need to answer to a lot of fed-up, angry investors.
I see some people say no news means 'we have a plan', 'we don't want to lose our competitive advantage', 'DHSC dispute is confidential', etc etc - all a lot of hogwash! The bottom line is the SP has been completely trashed of late and is only now recovering but it had nothing to do with any of the BoD actions. The only saving grace was the LTIP announcements which did put a relative stop to the downward slide, but still no comment on what we're going to do with the >£100million in the bank, which is really a waste if we don't invest some of it appropriately.
So no, I don't agree with this 'the company knows best' policy by some of my fellow investors. And I do have a right to complain given that I have a larger holding than the CFO. And having bought much more at 160-170p, it has certainly lessened the pain. We need a far more interactive and communicative BoD, as DA doesn't appear to show us PIs much respect, which was one of GM's cardinal sins.
See Zak Mir's chart analysis today:
https://www.**********.co.uk/articles/traders-cafe-with-zak-mir-bulletin-board-heroes-march-16-cae7374/
Predicting 290-300p in short order.
Although many PIs have lost significant amounts on SNG recently (I wasn't a holder anymore), the one crumb of comfort is I see that Jupiter had nearly 1.4% holdings in the company and so lost around £4.3 million in one day.
Unfortunately hedge funds can't control clinical trail results like they can the market, so quite pleased they got shafted on this occasion.
Ndn, any randomised hospital trial has to compare the new drug against placebo ON TOP of current standard best practice treatment. It was already established that cheap steroid treatment was significantly effective in treating COVID patients, so you can't withhold treatments that currently are the standard of care.
This is why any new treatments have to have much greater efficacy as you're always adding it onto current known treatments, so absolute benefit will always be somewhat diluted.
Sold out of here at 200p, didn't feel results were going to be significant enough. Sorry for all LTHs, good luck elsewhere.
My post from yesterday: "Biosynex only need to purchase another 700k shares to get to the next 1% reporting level. Let's see what tomorrow and next week brings."
Glad a TR1 confirming 4% reached released today.
Going by some of the automated 400-share buys over the last few days, it is pretty clear they have been continuing to buy up NCYT stock. I fully expect a TR1 next week confirming 5% holding reached. As I also said in an earlier post today, the SP has been held down to allow ongoing accumulation.
As I have continually stated, we are a sitting duck for M&A at this absurdly low SP. Next week will be interesting....
RBM: "Think we should also all ban the phrase ‘it’s priced in’.....it just hasn’t been proven over the past 6 months."
There is scant justification for the SP fall over the last 6 weeks. I don't think any of us would have predicted it going this low when we have £100 million in the bank and no debt. There are clearly wider market forces at work and our SP can be bullied because of a number of factors:
1. Lack of ii investment on board and mainly in the hands of lowly PIs (this is a huge factor and cannot be underestimated).
2. Lack of clarity from BoD regarding use of £100 million cash. Now if they bought another synergistic company or started a share buy-back scheme or dividend payment (all with different pros and cons), that might put good use to the money rather than it just sitting there doing nothing.
3. Lack of BoD share purchases - would give confidence to an upward SP trajectory (apart from the LTIP)
4. General lack of BoD comms. I've seen nothing from DA so far since he joined 4 months ago that suggests he has a robust forward-looking plan. Yes, we know about post-Covid plans from the update but nothing really concrete has been passed on to SHs. I would suggest he starts by putting the £100 million cash to good use.
I'm sure all SHs here appreciate that Covid testing will dwindle over this year in the UK and RoW, and the BoD have already stated a likely at least 50% reduction in future Covid revenue. However, 50% of £80 million is still £40 million and that's nothing to keep under wraps. It still shows we are a competitive, viable cash-making business and if you compare to companies like AVCT, which have a similar MCAP to us and are not really commercially-viable at present (although I do hold shares there too). So I make no apologies for any SHs who continue to mention our Covid revenues as a plus.
In fact, our MC is so artificially low (yes, we are over-priced in!), that companies like Biosynex are buying in and probably considering a merger/acquisition. As I type, I see the multiple 400 share buys are back, which suggests the MMs are holding the SP down for a large order and hopefully we'll see a TR1 very soon.
RBM, I believe the government has already hinted at that i.e. no further 'routine' PCR and LFT tests for wider public.
However, PCR still to be used in health-care and vulnerable community-based settings.
That's already priced in so I don't feel the news next week is going to change sentiment here.
Remember, we have cash of £100 million and our current MC is only around 130 million! It's only a matter of time before this goes back up significantly and anyone buying at these levels will see a healthy profit within the next 6-12 months.
Kaeren, your argument doesn't make sense. Compare it to when Yourgene received approval (15th) and notified market on the 17th. Ours was approved last Friday (11th) and we were only informed via RNS on the 17th.
I thought I made that clear in my last post.
Maybe Larry Abensur will give DA a kick up the ar$e to improve SH comms once Biosynex buy up more stock in our company....
Interesting that NCYT's 2G Promate was approved by CTDA on 11 Feb and we were only notified today.
Yourgene Covid test was approved on 15 Feb and they also notified investors today.
Hope DA is not sleeping at the wheel. Or is he not so bothered now because of the potential M&A activity approaching on the near-term horizon........
There is no reason why Biosynex are just going to buy a 3% stake in another competitor's company, without some planned road-map to a likely M or A in NCYT. A lot of bigger companies will appreciate the immense potential of the diagnostics industry in the post-Covid world and I would be surprised if a suitor doesn't come along within the next 6-12 months, given NCYT's robust reputation (e.g. established supplier to the NHS and WHO etc) as well as its low MC and huge free cash.
Biosynex only need to purchase another 700k shares to get to the next 1% reporting level. Let's see what tomorrow and next week brings.
It appears Biosynex are a company on the M&A warpath over the last few years!
2016: Acquired Fumouze Diagnostics SAS and Dectra Pharm
2017: Acquired SR2B
2019: Bought part of VISIOMED group
2020: Acquired Procise DX to get a leg into the US market
2021: Acquired Avalun
2022: Acquired Health arm of Enalees
I don't see them buying shares in another diagnostic company unless they are planning a buyout or merger to establish a much larger global diagnostics company. Whatever they are planning, it will ensure a significant premium to our current share price.
Something is afoot, and we all know NCYT is a sitting duck at this MC value.
I suspect a merger could be considered given the similarities in testing and target markets between the two companies.
Biosynex had a healthy 225 million (euro) revenue in the first 6 months of 2021, and was left with a 75 million net cash balance 6 months ago. It could mean that FY 2021 results could be around 450 million revenue as most of their profits were Covid-related, which would leave them with up to 130-150 million in cash.
It might make sense to merge, to expand geographical footprint, share expertise as well as keep costs down.
This is from their latest HY update: "However, the Group has been preparing for months after Covid-19 and has put in place many measures to cope with the programmed decline in this market with the decline of the pandemic.
The health crisis has highlighted the importance of Rapid Diagnostic Tests (RDTs) in different healthcare systems and the interest of Decentralized Biology for better patient care. In this context, BIOSYNEX has already identified several applications for which the development of the Point of Care adapts perfectly and which could be important growth drivers in the future. The recent merger with ProciseDx and AVALUN is a concrete illustration of this strategy.
The strong cash generation from the last 12 months now gives BIOSYNEX the means to meet its ambitions in terms of external growth."
Interesting times but clearly other diagnostic companies are eyeing up NCYT especially when we have a war chest of £100 million with no debt, certainly makes an attractive takeover target!
During our darkest hours, I see posters are turning against each other like a ravenous mob starved of profits and swamped by a locust of losses. Instead of turning our ire towards a shambolic handling of the LFT roll-out by grumpy Al as well as not selling a pea during the pandemic (despite all the talk of securing manufacturing and best test on the market blah blah), we blame each other for selling out, holding or even reducing our pitiful averages.
Grumpy Al miscalculated and mismanaged this process, and treated us like pillocks. Even sophisticated investors like Myles McNulty believed in the company based on Grumpy Al's half-truths and are sitting on large losses. The sale of LFTs worldwide was supposed to make us a profitable and viable business, enabling funding and extension of our oncology research arm.
We now only have the oncology side of things to look forward to, and left at the mercy of shorters and MMs whilst waiting whatever updates Grumpy Al might throw to the rabble investors grabbing at each others' flesh.....
A dire state indeed! Nevertheless, chin up, it's always darkest before the dawn.
Genemeanie, great effort with your email to the company. Don't be put off by a few negative or critical responses to your initial post. The trouble with the world (and therefore this BB) is that there are quite a few less-than-sensible people who always feel they have to criticise any sensible post. They call it free speech and alternative opinions when all it is really is... a lack of a clear thought process (to put it politely).
HarChris means well (probably best to just ignore BH) but I thought your post was as spot-on as it could be. Of course we can't expect them to magic the SP up in a few months but I think the email conveys the correct sentiment of how mismanaged the SP has been, in terms of poor communication from the BoD.
I do hope the BoD take note and the next step for them is to decide how to spend some of the £100 million (there are a number of ways) to improve investor confidence rather than just sit on the cash which is pretty pointless. Or failing that, perhaps the BoD could just buy some shares on the open market.........
TW podcast - nothing new there. He is a sanctimonious, averagely intelligent, pompous bore. He just has his ear to the ground with various IIs so gets wind of placings - not rocket science.
If he was really the 'sheriff of AIM', he would lobby the govt to get rid of this loosely regulated cesspit, but he in fact makes a living out of it. He might claim not to short personally, but he will have mates who do so and he will share in their prophets.
Beware that snake, he should come with a share-profit warning.
For the record I have no shares in ODX so am not saying this out of bitterness.
HotChip, yes I do. In fact, my wife has a very small number of shares in her ISA still, which are pretty worthless now.
I doubt she will be buying any more in the placing, as I think this company has a very long road back....
Good luck to you.
"The Issue Price represents a discount of approximately 31 per cent to the closing mid-market price of 7.25 pence on 10 February 2022, being the latest practicable date prior to this announcement."
Really? Wasn't the SP just over 10p at the start of yesterday and then dropped to 7.25p after the RNS stated that they were looking to raise at 5p?
So in reality this is an over 50% discount!!
And all the IIs and wealth fund managers have been forward selling over the last week - don't be fooled to think that they see a bright future for this company, they aren't buying in, just covering their forward sells with a nice 70-100% profit.
Feel sorry for all LTHs here, screwed by government and BoD. I sold out of here at around 55p last year, making decent profit but pretty down on paper over on NCYT. Govt screwed nearly all UK COvid manufacturers.....
Baby, who gives a flying f£3k about a mere 15k shares being offloaded. What exactly are you trying to infer?
What is clear is that since the LTIP RNS, the SP has been on a gentle upward trajectory, which is pretty admirable given that most other COVID stocks are continuing to be beaten down.
DA is now incentivised to get the SP to at least 680p in 3 years, to get a £2.5 million payout in return. And that may only be what some LTHs need to break even!
What isn't clear is that in the event of a takeover above this SP, can the board adjust the timescales to allow similar returns? I doubt very much so (but again, this is AIM). The directors need to show investors that they have full confidence in themselves leading this company forward, so should start buying shares on the open market. Will they though? Certainly not from past experience....