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The IEA has always been the main blocker, they were lobbying against the new royalty LI, although now they seem to have picked up a hardened stance on full ownership which seems absurd at this point in time, even with full ownership they would want a JV with a Chinese firm to expand their refinery capabilities. They should still be able to pass the new royalties act since they have a full majority.

“We supply the world’s critical minerals but capture almost none of the value. This isn’t sovereignty. It is a trap.” “Whereas the President has moved on, the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources is still propagating the old colonial royalty-based paradigm,” the IEA stated. “The President is ahead of his Ministers!” The IEA argues that royalty systems, whether fixed or sliding-scale, are inherently flawed because they transfer ownership and control to foreign companies, leaving Ghana with only a small fraction of the resource wealth. Instead, the institute advocates for a model of full national ownership, where the state retains control and contracts private firms, local or foreign, strictly through service agreements.This approach, the IEA notes, has been successfully adopted by countries such as Norway, Botswana, Chile, and several OPEC and West African nations.

Agreed although Ahtnropic is already in legal trouble with certain companies by using their data behind the scenes and we know RELX has been using Claude models in their AI's.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/anthropic-faces-new-music-publisher-lawsuit-over-alleged-piracy-2026-01-28/

Another point would be the all the publicly accessible data from the internet which can be several terrabytes but I doubt even that can compete with RELX's data. Plugins assume that Claude will use their own data but have tweaked the models to be more appropriate towards the legal/research setting, again potentially looking at how RELX used Claude models for their own AI.

I agree its cheap, I've owned for years and no movement, a buyout would be nice at this point but yeah a pub co could selectively buy Boom Battle Bars although that part of the business is obviously struggling so might be tough to garner interest.

RELX uses Claude for their own LexisNexis AI, not the other way round. There is no news of Anthropic buying/using RELX data yet, for now it seems like competition but we will wait to see what RELX say in the results.

Anthropic has just announced Plugins for their Claude AI that extend Claude’s agentic capabilities beyond general tasks into specialized business functions. Plugins bundle skills, connectors, slash commands, and sub-agents that make Claude work like a domain expert for specific roles and teams, sales, finance, legal, data analysis, marketing, customer support, and more.

https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2026/02/02/anthropic-moves-into-legal-tech/

Obviously market is worried about a new competitor on the scene for prices one tenth of RELX solutions.

Will this be serious competition, time will tell but I do still think RELX have a moat but maybe I'm wrong. Risky stuff

https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2026/02/02/anthropic-moves-into-legal-tech/

Australia finally bidding with volume is nice to see

Who's infrastructure? You don't go to Escape Rooms to drink... Boom Battle Bars sure but most of the business is escape rooms which don't serve drinks...

At 50p it was trading at similar metrics to US niche CRO's (which generally trade with higher multiples than mixed CRO's), its derated to half the P/S of broad based CRO's now less than 0.8 P/S (US CRO's trade at 2-3 P/S). So yes a lot of this is baked into the share price and for good reason due to the cancellation of contracts. You're right in thinking that they will see little to no net profit in 2026 at the current rate but contracts can sometimes take 3-4 months from announcement to trial start, although like you said it does sometimes come 6-9 months later.

Its not going to rerate at all until we see HCT contracts being signed but the market is always looking ahead so if contracts are signed then 2026 profit will not matter, what matters is the market seeing proof of their LOI pipeline being converted into real contracts.

We know that cash after H1 was at £23.29m. So the cash burn since then is £9m which is still hefty. If the lack of contracts continue they might need a fundraise but if we assume at least half of the £9 million ongoing restructing costs related to the acquisitions then it makes more sense.

Different reasons in theory but every metal has risen massively the last few months. Base metals like Copper on a massive run, precious metals, rare earth metals etc. It looks like a textbook commodity bubble. If anything thinks Gold is still a "safe haven" after a 200% run in 2 years, are fully on the bubble train imo. I agree though that Lithium should be shielded somewhat due to the fact it has real demand and its not been on a super run similar to copper/gold/silver/platinum/palladium etc., I don't see this as another 2021 for Lithium but for these other speculative metals I will be holding my nose.

The commodities bubble may have peaked, silver surging is always a sign of late cycle commodity bubble, I hope Lithium prices will be shielded somewhat due to the demand in the coming years rather than speculation like Gold, Silver and Platinum.

Yeah not looking good.

I feel like I'm replying to chatgpt, not a real person. Yes The Lancet publication was nice and it might help somewhat but its not as important as you make out. After Phase I/II trial results published by biotechs, they tend to announce funding for Phase III within days if the result are positive, with or without a Lancet publication. For example, Cidara therapeutics published their Phase II trial results (using Hvivo facility btw) immediately announced their intent to run a phase III and had a funding round at the same time, they ended up getting bought out by Merck not long after. Iliad initially announced starting the Phase III trial in H2 2025 after the meeting with the FDA in December 2024 but it has been delayed due to a lack of funding/partner interest. Now they intend to run the trial in 2026, which hopefully they will get the funding by a partner to achieve.

CCP ramping up their metals investments in Ghana:

https://www.newsghana.com.gh/ghana-manganese-company-unveils-us450-million-refinery-plan/

The Ghana Manganese Company is set to establish a $450 million manganese refinery plant within its mine in the Tarkwa enclave near Nsuta in the Western Region, a move expected to transform raw mineral exports into value added products.

Sun Yuanwei, Deputy Managing Director of Ghana Manganese Company (GMC), unveiled the refinery plans during a recent event celebrating the arrival of the largest bulk carrier vessel to dock in West African waters at Takoradi Port.

GMC worked with government ministries and its majority shareholder Tianyuan Manganese Industry, a Chinese company, to finalize technical and fiscal arrangements. The refinery will upgrade manganese ore quality from the current 27 percent to approximately 40 percent, enabling production and export of various refined products including battery grade manganese, a key component for electric vehicle batteries and energy storage systems.

GMC owns and operates the Nsuta Manganese Mine, GMC has a 90 percent private ultimate shareholding by Ningxia Tianyuan Industry Company Limited and a 10 percent freehold shareholding by the Ghana government.

The refinery forms part of government’s broader value addition policy for the mining sector. Former Lands and Natural Resources Minister Samuel Abu Jinapor announced in August 2024 that government had concluded negotiations with GMC’s majority shareholder on the project, stating that President Nana Akufo Addo would cut the sod for construction to commence.

Ghana’s green minerals policy, approved by Cabinet and Parliament, provides incentives for investments that move higher up the value chain of the minerals industry. These incentives become available as companies transition from raw extraction to processing and refining activities that create greater domestic value.

The policy includes a minimum royalty rate of seven percent for green minerals and requires increased state and Ghanaian participation in green mineral operations to a minimum of 30 percent.

Phase III trials are given the go-ahead by the FDA/MHRA after a formal meeting, no idea why you keep bringing up The Lancet. For Iliad, this meeting occured in December 2024m so they could have started Phase III at any point since then, they have an active IND. After Phase I/II trial results are published by Illiad before this meeting with the FDA in 2024.

@ThinIce Funding is obviously the issue, there is glut in Biotech to fund Vaccines/Immunisation drugs and obviously Illiad are struggling with this. Saying that, the drug seems unique enough to secure funding for Phase III. I'm surprised Sanofi or GSK haven't come in to fund it as part of their vaccine divisions.

Yes highly unlikely in the current environment but the shares have baked in the bad scenario somewhat currently so I think any large contract announcement would be a positive catalyst in the next few months.

If Hvivo can return to 2024 margins and see a few contract wins then a premium valuation could return and a £120 million market cap could look cheap.

Rosty not sure if prompting chatgpt is great research. Most US CRO's trade at around 2x P/S so yes Hvivo would need to double to get to a comparable valuation but these CRO's have net margin between 10-20% and have seen operating margin around 10-15% this year compared to Hvivo that is running breakeven/loss and 1-5% operating margin, so you are paying a higher multiple for actual FCF and a much more diversified business than Hvivo.

Still I see Hvivo being cheap here and if they convert their pipeline to real contracts, we will most likely see a nice re-rate.

This is the important part of the RNS for me:

"Consequently, hVIVO enters FY26 with increasing momentum in its sales pipeline across all four of the Group's service lines, including a number of HCT opportunities such as the potential ILiAD Phase III trial. The aggregate value of customer proposals submitted in FY25 exceeded FY24, providing a positive indicator for the Group's medium-term revenue growth. The Company will provide an update on its orderbook at both full year and half-year results going forward. "

Glad the company will update us on its orderbook but seems positive imo

Its extremely hard to predict contracts in this industry, especially when large biotechs are shunning vaccines/immunisation drugs in favour of oncology/autoimmune drugs. Saying that, long term there should be demand for new vaccines, just perhaps not with this current US administration. The canary wharf expansion has come at an unlucky time when biotechs are dropping/pausing their early stage vaccine/immunisation trials which Mo couldn't have predicted at the time.