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Whether Nanoco is a joke or not wasn’t my point.

Either the market is valuing the company correctly at roughly half its cash balance, or it isn’t.

If it isn’t, then why is continued exposure to that same market automatically regarded as protection?

It strikes me as ironical that holders who have been so badly served by the stock market valuation of Nanoco seem to want to stay on the stock market because it protects them.

Here’s the exact wording so you can interpret how you want or send them a DM. It seems like a perfectly normal Business progressing to plan to me.

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Some of the commentary around Brian Tenner on ADVFN this evening appears rather unfair and factually inaccurate.

Looking at his LinkedIn profile, he has moved from running Nanoco through one of the most stressful periods in its history into what appears to be a very substantial CFO role at the UK National Nuclear Laboratory, which has around 5,000 employees.

Does that honestly sound like somebody viewed professionally as corrupt or incompetent?

Only yesterday Nanoco announced on LinkedIn that InAs heatwave dots will be available to order later this year.

Globex’s post isn’t necessarily factually wrong, but I do think it leaves out some important context.

The January dissent was largely centred around one remuneration-related resolution and Milkwood was effectively the only opposing force. There was no evidence of a broad shareholder rebellion across the register.

Management then engaged with Milkwood afterwards and the situation appeared to stabilise.

That is why I think it is dangerous to extrapolate too confidently from those AGM figures and conclude the delisting vote is therefore doomed or that management are “totally off their rocker”.

Given the whole context that I have described, it makes it extremely unlikely that management haven’t already taken soundings from Millwood. They would be negligent if they hadn’t.

One potential explanation for the elevated levels of trading prior to the delisting announcement whilst there has been no holdings announcement would be if a person with significant control of a large number of shares was moving them from one vehicle they control to another.

I understand Kooba’s point about Milkwood’s previous activism and the attraction of a listed cash shell at the time.

However, circumstances have changed since then. Milkwood failed in its attempt to influence the board yet chose not to exit its position afterwards.

That suggests to me they may now view Nanoco more pragmatically as a long-term investment in the underlying technology rather than simply an opportunistic listing vehicle.

For that reason I do not think it is safe to assume they will automatically oppose the delisting proposal simply because they clashed with management previously. I don’t think it’s at all likely that the proposal to do list would be going ahead in the first place without Milkwood’s acquiescence.

Based on your history you will have gone long before your vote counts for anything.

Thanks, but I know all about milkwood and Nanoco having been an investor since 2017. I think Milkwood’s professed interests would be best served through delisting - and, as experienced activitist investors - they will be pragmatic.

I will be very surprised if the vote fails but if it does I do not think the shares will respond positively.

The board will have sounded out all major holders so you can expect them to be aligned. Anyway, why would you assume that a ‘No’ vote would lift the shares when it would only serve to destabilise further? I think if that happens then it really will be over.

I’m pretty sure that most investors will either not vote or vote how the company recommends. The problem with a forum like this is it that will inevitably become a self-reinforcing online environment that creates a false perception of majority opinion.

Nananano, I don't want to get too far into the weeds because I think my point stands anyway but do you recall that during his first investor Q and A Shaskov disclosed that Apple had been STM's customer?

There have already been opportunities for parties to engage with the company and apparently no acceptable offer emerged.

I do not think that suddenly changes simply because the market cap has temporarily collapsed in panic trading.

Nanoco is still an operating company with ongoing contracts, staff, IP and active development programmes. It is not a distressed liquidation vehicle where someone can simply walk in and strip the assets overnight.

Could an acquisition eventually happen? Of course. In fact I think that is probably the most likely long-term outcome if the sensing technology succeeds.

But I do not think it would be either simple or cheap, because even in a delisted structure shareholders will still understand the underlying commercial potential if the technology reaches scale.

NGR1616

I think that is broadly the most plausible interpretation of events.

Nanoco has repeatedly referred to the potential smartphone sensing market over many years and the obvious inference from the historic Apple involvement, the later STM relationship and now the Asian JDAs is that the company has been trying to position itself into Apple's ecosystem for a long time.

The key point many seem to overlook is that companies like Apple demand extraordinary levels of reliability, validation and manufacturability before any technology reaches mass-market deployment. A product can be technologically promising and still suffer repeated delays if it is not yet robust enough at scale.

In hindsight, the technology appears to have come close to adoption at least twice before — first directly around the Apple period and later via STM — and it is entirely possible the current Asian JDA process represents another attempt to reach that same destination. The second Asian JDA may well relate to another major smartphone producer pursuing similar sensing technology.

Having already experienced major delays and reversals more than once, I think management is now acting defensively to extend runway and reduce the risk of running out of cash before the market finally matures.

People are obviously free to disagree with the strategy, but I do not personally see any logic in deliberately reducing the company’s financial flexibility at precisely the point where commercial timing still appears uncertain.

It would be unprecedented for a company with £10m in cash, work in progress and no debt to go to the wall.

Nanonano

I’m not sure Quantum Science really proves the point you think it does because it is itself a private company and therefore does not have the costs or reporting obligations associated with a public listing.

A polished LinkedIn presence also does not provide reliable evidence about commercial success, revenues or profitability.

It is not unusual in specialist technology sectors for former staff to establish smaller private ventures focused on niche opportunities or contracts which may not have fitted the priorities of the original company.

More importantly, delisting does not mean a company ceases to be answerable to its shareholders. Shareholders still retain ownership rights, voting rights and access to annual accounts under company law. The key differences are around liquidity, disclosure frequency and market oversight.

So if Quantum Science is being presented as a positive example, it arguably supports the broader point that small deep-technology materials businesses do not necessarily need to remain publicly listed in order to operate.

£700,000 per year may not sound transformational, but over a 3–4 year period it potentially extends the company’s cash runway materially and could easily amount to an additional year of operational life.

In a sector where commercialisation delays of 12–24 months are common, that matters.

The key question shareholders need to ask themselves is not simply whether they dislike delisting — many clearly do — but whether preserving the current listing structure genuinely improves the company’s long-term chances of reaching commercial scale before the cash runs out.

Nanonano

I think that is probably the fairest criticism of the company I have read.

In hindsight, management may well have been overconfident about the likely trajectory of the STMicro relationship and perhaps returned too much capital too early.

However, I think there is still a meaningful distinction between management making strategic misjudgements in a highly uncertain emerging technology market, and the more conspiratorial claims that are sometimes made on these forums.

It is easy to judge them from a position of perfect hindsight without acknowledging that they may not have had perfect information at the time they had to make a decision.

One point that is sometimes overlooked in these discussions is that many of the directors and employees are also shareholders and have therefore taken a very substantial hit from today’s announcement themselves.

That does not automatically mean the board’s decision is correct. But it does make the simplistic “management versus shareholders” narrative less convincing.

The board would also have known in advance that this announcement would cause a collapse in the share price and significant reputational damage. That strongly suggests they at least believe the restructuring is strategically necessary, whether shareholders ultimately agree with them or not.