Member Info for steph

No connection. Maybe a typo

Probably a great time to top up but I lack funds. Can only groan and wait.

Quite agree.

My hope during QE was for the BOE to transfer the bonds to endow the UK’s research universities and fund long term infrastructure (yes including sea defenses and a new downstream thames barrier) creating a permanent competitive advantage but without much impact on short term inflation.

Upgrading the grid for the green economy and fixing the private water companies underinvestment. Initially after privatization the water companies had high CAPEX but they were allowed to let it run down so it was not a issue if public or private but what the regulator required.

UP to 2016 UK led EU on inward investment. We were doing pretty well out of EU single market membership as many global companies preferred their EU beachhead to be in an English speaking member. Also London for all it’s faults beats Frankfurt for quality of life for expats. Better schools and expat services. We screwed that up. Surprised at the resilience of Business and Financial service sector but we could have done so much better. We were beating New York on a number of key KPI’s . Now falling behind New York -albeit slowly. .

Labour vows to cut financial ‘red tape’ and ‘unashamedly champion’ UK sector

In an attempt to revive the UK’s flagging stock market, Labour said it would launch a campaign to encourage consumers to buy up the shares of British companies and encourage pension schemes to push more cash into small private companies, venture capital and infrastructure investments.

Https://www.beauhurst.com/blog/ai-startup-companies/

Where is the UK government? All talk and no investment.

Https://www.pitchbook.com/news/articles/vertical-ai-vc

maybe soon

Https://simplywall.st/stocks/gb/diversified-financials/lse-grow/molten-ventures-shares/valuation

We have dropped average broker forecasts quite bit. Time will tell. Seems to me bold to say the least to give a 12 month forecast so far below NAV/share. Assumes current NAV not real or we are in for a couple of years of modest NAV decreases in spite of sales growth averaging over 50% in portfolio.

I'm loosing faith on a quick rebound to circa NAV/share (730) but don't believe these 2 doomsters either that we will be stuck around 330 in 12 months time.

Current UK£2.56 UK£5.97 UK£7.35 UK£3.30

Jan ’25UK£2.78 UK£6.08 UK£7.35 UK£4.30

Dec ’24UK£2.68 UK£6.50 UK£8.15 UK£4.30

Nov ’24UK£2.29 UK£6.60 UK£8.15 UK£4.30

Oct ’24UK£2.28 UK£6.60 UK£8.15 UK£4.30

5Aug ’24UK£2.62 UK£6.60 UK£8.15 UK£4.30

Jul ’24UK£2.67 UK£7.61 UK£9.00 UK£5.43

Oct ’23UK£3.04 UK£9.23 UK£10.20 UK£8.61

Apr ’23UK£7.97 UK£11.35 UK£13.00 UK£10.00

Mar ’23UK£6.37 UK£11.35 UK£13.00 UK£10.

Jan ’23UK£10.18 UK£11.35 UK£13.00 UK£10.00

Current UK£2.56 UK£5.97 UK£7.35 UK£3.30

Jan ’25 UK£2.78 UK£6.08 UK£7.35 UK£4.30

Dec ’24 UK£2.68

UK£6.50

+142.2%

21.8% UK£8.15 UK£4.30 n/a 5

Nov ’24 UK£2.29

UK£6.60

+187.7%

22.6% UK£8.15 UK£4.30 n/a 5

Oct ’24 UK£2.28

UK£6.60

+189.5%

22.6% UK£8.15 UK£4.30 n/a 5

Sep ’24 UK£2.43

UK£6.60

+171.6%

22.6% UK£8.15 UK£4.30 n/a 5

Aug ’24 UK£2.62

UK£6.60

+152.1%

22.6% UK£8.15 UK£4.30 n/a 5

Jul ’24 UK£2.67

UK£7.61

+184.9%

17.4% UK£9.00 UK£5.43 n/a 4

Jun ’24 UK£3.00

UK£8.08

+169.3%

7.7% UK£9.00 UK£7.28 n/a 4

May ’24 UK£2.80

UK£7.86

+181.0%

8.9% UK£9.00 UK£7.28 n/a 4

Apr ’24 UK£2.74

UK£7.93

+189.7%

8.9% UK£9.00 UK£7.28 n/a 4

Mar ’24 UK£3.80

UK£7.93

+108.6%

8.9% UK£9.00 UK£7.28 n/a 4

Feb ’24 UK£3.52

UK£7.93

+125.3%

8.9% UK£9.00 UK£7.28 n/a 4

Jan ’24 UK£3.54

UK£8.65

+144.2%

12.5% UK£10.20 UK£7.28 UK£2.78 4

Dec ’23 UK£4.21

UK£8.98

+113.3%

8.6% UK£10.20 UK£8.12 UK£2.68 4

Nov ’23 UK£3.47

UK£9.23

+166.0%

6.4% UK£10.20 UK£8.61 UK£2.29 4

Oct ’23 UK£3.04

UK£9.23

+204.0%

6.4% UK£10.20 UK£8.61 UK£2.28 4

Sep ’23 UK£3.42

UK£9.61

+180.5%

8.0% UK£10.50 UK£8.61 UK£2.43 4

Aug ’23 UK£4.78

UK£9.61

+101.0%

8.0% UK£10.50 UK£8.61 UK£2.62 4

Jul ’23 UK£4.08

UK£10.58

+159.5%

14.2% UK£13.00 UK£9.11 UK£2.67 5

Jun ’23 UK£5.25

UK£11.02

+110.2%

11.9% UK£13.00 UK£9.22 UK£3.00 5

May ’23 UK£6.93

UK£11.21

+61.7%

9.8% UK£13.00 UK£10.00 UK£2.80 5

Apr ’23 UK£7.97

UK£11.35

+42.5%

10.4% UK£13.00 UK£10.00 UK£2.74 5

Mar ’23 UK£6.37

UK£11.35

+78.1%

10.4% UK£13.00 UK£10.00 UK£3.80 5

Feb ’23 UK£7.84

UK£11.35

+44.7%

10.4% UK£13.00 UK£10.00 UK£3.52 5

Jan ’23 UK£10.18

UK£11.35

+11.5%

10.4% UK£13.00 UK£10.00 UK£3.54 5

Barclays now, apparently, has given an “equal weight” rating of 3.30. SO cantour at 3.15 and Barc at 3.30. Others much closer to NAV/share. Barclays probably the reason for the volatility Friday.

Either Nav/share is wrong or it is correct at the moment but there will be 2 years of small losses every half year report before we start to go up again. Cantour acknowledged a lot of upside potential to their guidance. Too true.

For my money I think NAV/share correct and includes the full market correction we have had. It is balanced between current downside and upside scenarios. Biggest factor in our dip is interest rates and we all can read the speculation that they have peaked and are about to come down over the next 2 years.

GROW Portfolio remarkably robust with modest and historically normal levels of failures. It is good stuff to have average portfolio growth of sales of plus 50% in spite of limited fundraising. Means good products and services that sell organically and naturally. CAZOO mark 2 they are not.

If we have further modest decreases in NAV/share this year end result half year will be the last before we start to increase NAV/share every half yer as we have done in the past.

Portfolio growing sales by over 50% on average which sooner or later will drive NAV upwards. If we show an increase in NAV/share however modest with a reasonable expectation of more to come on year end results we will jump considerably.

I am most interested in Graphcore. On our books for 37m when it was previously on our books for over 100m. So we have written it down quite a bit. Accept it might be worth zero this year if it fails to fundraise on time but it might be worth nearer what it was or more too. Big boys game. Uk government unhelpful. We could get a successful fundraising announcement at any time on Graphcore. I assume they are working on it.

Disappointed Graphcore are pulling out of the Chinese market in response to US pressure. Was always the possibility they might play that card when bigger US owned AI can’t. Still they must think they are in with a chance in western markets to do so.

Very low volumes can create that instability.

War seems to be now the number one black swan holding back long term maturity investment such as GROW. Interest rates which were the number one black swan now clealry peaked an dwil come donw sooner or later -for my money sooner than expected. US listed tech at record highs which is a lead indicator of the direction of private tech later round and IPO valuations. Just a matter of time before the still private tech value chain reprices taking the new listed tech P/E ratios into account.

HOrible as it seems and dangerous as it is I don’t see either war (Ukraine or Israel) spilling out much beyond where they are now. Israeli invasion of Lebanon a big risk but last time that happened hardly impacted global economy even as Lebanon devastated.

Ditto for the Palestinians. Endless occupation is not new jut a more honest declaration by the Israeli government of what it intends to do. Far more modest Israeli governments since Oslo were expanding the settlements in the west bank at the point of a gun post Oslo without any real blowback from the west -so the global economic community have permitted the status quo which has not fundamentally changed, just become more obviously violent. Sad for all in the region, especially but not exclusively the Palestinians, but the impact on GROW minimal. Extraordinarily poor leadership all around.

US has been poorly led for a long time (and abut to get worse not better) but that seems not to have much impact on the stock market. Different worlds. FTSE affected a bit by some very poor UK management of late but those are real disruptions to trade we had as a result. Market does not care much if we have a genius or an idiot in 10 Downing street so long as they do not do any actual damage to the real economy.

Must say a bit shocking to have a 12 month guidance at only 3:15 but we have overtaken broker guidance before and I think will beat that one quite substantially. I’m more with the FEb 2023 Berenberg guidance of 900. Clearly delayed but the market has not deteriorated since then and in fact is now showing signs of stabilizing. We have had a modest dilution at 2.75 which right now is neutral as we got valuable cash to spend in exchange for the dilution but will be a minor drag on SP once the market improves. and our SP goes well beyond 2.75 again.

What cantor seems to be missing is why even benchmark ourselves on a 12 month target at 50% of current NAV. They make a lame excuse they have done their own EV/sales ratio but why trust Cantor when they give no details as to why so different than Moulton’s. Industry averages of sales to valuations are not sufficient. Need to be specific to the sector and the “quality” meaning that ownership of intellectual property or not need to be included. Retail based tech with little IP will inevitably have low sales to valuation multiples and that is a good chunk of the general market. Cazoo is an example of how volatile retail based tech can be. The sales to NAV of CAZoo right now is now a fabulously low ratio. Does that mean CAZOO is a buy? Maybe not. Averages include a lot of crap.

Even a 50% discount will disappear like snow on a hot roof once NAV shows credible and accepted signs of increasing again and that may come as soon as our year end results or first half of 2024/2025. With the portfolio average growing sales at 50% plus per annum this will come.

Also market seems to be stabilizing. Interest rates clearly have peaked and even Lagarde talking openly about rate cuts to come. As soon as IPO window reopens in volume the backlog that is jamming up late stage fundraising will lift as well and then “boom” for our SP.

Https://www.economist.com/interactive/briefing/2022/06/11/huge-foundation-models-are-turbo-charging-ai-progress

Thanks

yes i see the article is a reprint of the 2020 article but with a jan 2 2024 date.

so we have to wait for new chip -assuming graph core survive long enough to build it . sounds touch and go in spite of lucrative sector.

Bit dark sang.

If it really is the worlds fastest processor there is intellectual property and “ knowhow” worth something in this global market pilot to AI even if sales are slow.

Downside risk to be sure in a competitive market but don’t count Graphcore out just yet.

We may yet see near term interest in funding Graph core without a down round from the discounted price on our books.

Yes they do need money fast but maybe waited for launch to close in order to get a better deal.

Https://duino4projects.com/graphcore-launches-7nm-ai-processor/

If it does Graphcore will be worth many times what it is on our books for. Maybe 10x or more. If not Graphcore is only worth the IP in some assimilation with another AI firm. Graphcore needs an announced funding round soon to survive. maybe was waiting for launch to set conditions.

Https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-17/shale-oil-s-unexpected-surge-poses-threat-to-opec-s-bid-to-prop-up-crude-prices

Business | Partying like it’s 2023

Europe’s technology startups are doing just fine

Slowdown? What slowdown?

Take a longer-term view, though, and Europe’s startup scene as a whole is holding up surprisingly well. In some ways, it is dealing with the crisis better than America’s more established one. Investments in European startups may be down over the past two years, but they are still up by 18% compared with 2020 (see chart 1), except for Britain where they dropped by more than 2%. In America they declined by 1% over that period. And whereas valuations are shrinking overall, “down rounds”, where startups accept a lower valuation when raising fresh capital, are less widespread than one might expect. They comprised only 21% of all

We will recover and trade near NAV/share some time not in the distant future. Nav/share itself will start to go up again as well so might be a pretty exhilarating ride up. When will recovery start is the question though.

Could be as slow as the bank interest rate declines that may start late spring 2024 and not be complete until central bank interest rates are below 3% in 2025. Chinese deflation, lower oil and gas prices and tumbling money in circulation in most western counties will drop headline inflation faster than most are predicting. Oil and gas held up by sentiment rather than global supply demand imbalances so can drop fast if sentiment changes. We will probably now get a few years of low oil and gas pricing. It is a pendulum with each swing setting the conditions for the inevitable swing back. Wage inflation will be sticky but is really only catching up for the losses due to early inflation in the cycle. It will decline as well.

However markets anticipate rather than follow change so might be faster.