Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
6m is quite a haul.
I had to sell half of mine yesterday to fund a house, deposit (wish I'd sold 10 days ago...!), but am shortly considering a sizeable purchase into a SIPP which I'll have access to shortly.
Currently hold 330,000ish, if I do buy more in the SIPP it'll take it closer to 1.5m.
Think it's a great idea to get PI's singing from the hymm sheet.
Geng- I've got a lot of respect for your posts, but you must acknowledge it will be news that eventually drives this on rather than just sentiment?
Hi Chris,
Absolutely, and acknowledge that. I guess it is a fine line between expected or forecast contract wins and cashflow vs actual wins and cashflow. I can imagine in our position that 1 or 2 expected contracts not landing could tip the company in either direction.
I obviously do not know the companies financial position, but I think its a reasonable position to be in to be worried that it isn't great- and that the next few months could break us.
I'd also be interested to know about the Appledore payment- this should be RNS'd, so interested to know what's happening here
Hi Chris,
Appreciate the thoughts.
My view is that we absolutely cannot be suitable to bid for MOD contracts 'as-is'- what is unusual for us is that it is so highly politicised and would be seen as a big win for the Govt to get a ship out of Belfast, so a creative solution could be found. I emphasise could, as I can't immediately see a way this can be done. We have so little cash, I doubt we could even order a mast for a ship, let alone the huge amount of upfront capital that would be needed in equipment, materials and staff.
The advertising for staff could be as much as a 'we need to keep the public face of the company rosy', and a hoping for the best that some larger contracts start to land.
Stokey, I doubt very much we're being picky, more not winning work that is commercially viable. To be fair, the market knows better than we all do what is actually happening- RNS worthy news does have to be RNS worth, not just winning what are very normal contracts. Things really are desperate if an RNS was issued for winning standard work, and would make us look like a tin pot outfit.
With regards to assets- I agree we do- at about the level of our MC, which for me shows as good as £0 value to the company itself. That's the worrying bit. What I doubt we have a lot of, is cold harsh cash- and that is where my solvency point is. The overheads for 3 large sites will be astronomical, especially whilst they are largely sitting idle.
I do hope I'm wrong on all this, but there are big worrying signs. I'm generally very positive, and I genuinely hope INFA pull this off, not just for my investment but also for UK plc and our industrial base. I just think the odds are increasingly stacked against us to do it.
Cheers
TheEaat
Morning All,
I think INFA is at a crossroad. My gut feeling is we must be dangerously close to being insolvent. The blunt reality is there is nowhere near enough work going through the facilities as must be needed to even stand still, let alone invest for the future, service capital payments and generate profit.
A CR at this stage would be catastrophic, but unless there is some serious news pronto, I can't see that we would have enough to keep the lights on.
I do note the recruitment activities, but we're talking a handful of people, so just cannot read too much into this. It's just such an insignificant number of people for what a company with the footprint of INFA should need to even maintain a low throughput of work, its almost embarrassing.
The PR department does seem to have ramped up their work which is good to see, but there still isn't a huge amount of 'real' news, more drip feed to just keep an active presence.
Clearly the market puts about £0 value on INFA at the moment which is a worrying, but telling sign. Given the SP is now barely above 50% of the last CR, I can't even see a situation that they would be able to successfully complete a CR in any event.
I'd say this is a hugely important month or two- if there isn't significant news I am probably going to bale out as I have an increasing feeling that it could head towards insolvency.
I know there is lots of potential for INFA which is why I'm in, but these are my honest thoughts- and welcome good, bad or indifferent varying views!
Cheers
TheEast
Yes, I'm not sure the recruitment of a Project Engineer is overly exciting, more worrying that news like that is deemed exciting...!!!
Any chance you could ask them to repeat the transaction a few more times!?
A very good summary Lottie. The political landscape has been woeful for years, and remarkably seems to become even more I'm competent by the day.
Desperately need some decent statesmen/women to help rocket us away from this awful era!
Morning All,
Good news this morning with the TEO submitted. Drop is a little over reaction in my view and am glad the RNS has responded to the hype over the imaginary funding.
Hope to see the valued contributors comments now and hopefully the crawling back to the cave of those of the past week.
Good news this morning. Drop not so, but a big step forward today.
TheEast
Morning All,
What I liked in the Priority Investment document, is the implementation years being 2022-2027.
Holefully this is a sign of what news might flow from now till the end of the year. Fingers crossed this is the start of a sustained re-rate.
Very best of luck to everyone, especially the VLTH's (I'm only a medium term holder being in for approx 5yrs!)
TheEast
Hi Oldtramp,
I imagine Belfast is highly inefficient for single ship dry dockings due to the sheer size.
Would be nice to get 2-4 docked at once, but of course that'd bring resource issues for us in terms of being able to work on several ships at once, and we'd still need to be able to turn them around as good as quickly as a single ship.
Certainly something that would be great to see though!
Hi All
On the face of it, looks like a really interesting appointment- for me the Carnival links are the interesting ones. Whilst the MOD clearly could be helpful, in reality his influence is likely to be very small in being able to bring MOD work to INFA.
I am surprised by the now 6%+ fall this morning, which concerns me what other news might be incoming...!!!
TheEast
Stokey,
Best to look at who is making those comments. The person who made that is 'currently looking for dive/ welding work', I'm not sure he is looking for somewhere to repair his 4 x 10,000t ships.
I'd also hope that any potential customers wouldn't use the comments section on a LinkedIn post to enquire....!!!
Morning All,
Hope everyone is doing well, and enjoying the gradual move back to some sort of new normality.
Wondered what people's thoughts are whether you think the BOD are trying too woo strategic partners in the background, not necessarily on the mining front, but I'm more thinking with end users?
My thoughts are that notwithstanding the hype over Tesla, the 'traditional' car makers will need vastly more batteries in the coming years than Tesla, and security of supply must be on their agenda. I also quite like Arrival- I like how they have gone straight to market to what they see as the future- buses/ parcel delivery vans and for their car- partnering with Uber.
In a future RNS (I'm being optimistic here!!), I would actually like to hear far more detail on what the company are doing on this front, if indeed there is a strategy. If not, why not. My mind is that whilst the company have had so much time to twiddle their thumbs, that they could have been doing quite a bit on this front.
All thoughts appreciated!
Cheers
TheEast
Stokey,
Social Media is a beccessary evil for all companies now, and if done well, will do the company a lot of good on the PR front, that's not necessarily just prospective customers but future employees, suppliers, clients, funders, professional services, politics, local residents. It should build a high profile, good-news story which can only be a good thing for us PI's- who I would suggest, shouldn't be the target audience for Socail Media. Unfortunately Social Media now covers Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Tim Tok, Instagram, and probably others I don't know of- so definitely right to have a dedicated specialist team in house!
Hi Castle,
Have to say I nearly bailed on this last week, but held the faith for a few more weeks. The BP is a serious option in my opinion- sure they'll be all over Hydrogen, will be all over wind and INFA offers all that for them, but quite agree that a supply agreement would indeed be very welcome! Maybe they could take a 49% stake, loose change for them to secure potentially an awful lot of value for them. Wishful thinking perhaps...!!
Hi All,
Hoping that we have found the bottom here.
Couple of interesting things I've noticed.
- LinkedIn post from Infrastrata with appointment of Head of Grants. Chap is from a water background with Canals and River Trust and Waterways. Thought the job title was interesting.
- article about a big BP bid for Scottish Windfarms. Notably BP comment about bringing investment to shipyards. Is it too out there for the BOD to approach BP as a strategic partner? With all things going green and INFAs energy focus, it actually isn't the craziest idea in my mind..!
https://www.heraldscotland.com/business_hq/19454010.bp-claims-scotwind-bid-unlock-10bn-investment/
Hope everyone is enjoying the sun
Cheers
TheEast
Excellent. A weekends worth of painting work for what, the last 3momths!??!
Morning All,
Hopefully not as much as a car crash here today.
Note that JW hasn't posted anything on LinkedIn for a week, nor has H&W and I Fa's account now 2 weeks. Radio silence whilst the SP is obliterated isn't good enough.
BOD need to show their worth pronto or time for a major shake up. If we needed to do a raise now (one possibility for the SP), at these levels it'd be terrible, especially on the back of the current SP against the last placing. It would need to be under 10p to get enough interest!!!