Member Info for TheTrotsky

Based on its current c£24m market valuation, it seems unlikely that a placing could raise (the supposed) £40m of regulated capital Fiinu would need to get a banking licence and launch its own branded app.

Not only that, assuming that the regulated capital can't be used to pay operating costs, I'd hazard that Fiinu might need to raise an additional (say) £20-40m to cover the costs of delivering white-label products and/or its own branded product plus covering initial operating losses until breakeven. E.g. if it launches its own branded product I'd imagine that the advertising and marketing costs would be quite significant.

Even with some conservative tweaking of the above figures, I'd hazard that Fiinu would probably need to raise at least £50m to be able to simultaneosly deliver both white-label and own branded products and, in all likelihood, would need to seek a large proportion of this funding from new, large investors, which would result in its existing shareholders being very heavily diluted (especially if the placing was further discounted from tonight's closing price).

IMHO any placing should only now be looking to raise c£5m-£10m at most; sufficient to get the UK bank's white-label app successfully launched and to enable Fiinu to continue pursuing other opportunities. Once the white-label app has been successfully launched later this year, Fiinu could then look to return to the market to raise the additional regulatory capital it needs; relying on the sp rising in the meatime to make a second, larger placing more palatable to existing shareholders.

Pip56, I think the problems at Enderby have more to do with National Grid than GSF; it's well know that National Grid has a large backlog of work which has caused delays with projects being energised for a number of UK operators, not just GSF.

As regards confidence, following today's news, one has to wonder whether it's GSF or the new Trump administration that has the confidence/credibility issue. IMHO Trump can't legally renege on existing agreements but this is Trump we're talking about and there can be no guarantee until the money is in the bank. He's quite apt to try and change the terms of a signed deal after the event if it no longer suits him and would probably be quite happy to put the US government into "Chapter 11" if he thought he could write off most the US debt/liabilities and get away with it.

I said years ago that building a dedicated distribution network in the USA was a huge mistake (given the relative size and population density of the US compared to the UK) unless you were targeting specific (large) population centres and it would appear that ASOS has, at long last, bitten the bullet and accepted this concluson but I am somewhat surprised that ASOS is now proposing to supply the US from its UK fulfilment centre in Barnsley.

This model may work well for Shein but that's because it suffers no taxes or tariffs in China and has been able to exploit a loophole in the respective VAT and sales tax legislation in the UK and US which means that most of its customer sales are not liable to VAT or sales tax (albeit that the sales tax loophole may now have been closed) because the goods are posted direct from China. Shein's sales might be liable to US tariffs but that should be all.

ASOS on the other hand will have to pay UK VAT and tariffs when the goods arrive in the UK (albeit that the VAT ought to be recoverable when the goods are dispatched to the US) and US tariffs when the goods are shipped to the US. I can' help but think that ASOS will end up paying tariffs both here in the UK and and in the US. To minimise tariff costs it would surely be better to ship direct to the US from the country of origin. Also, if ASOS fulfills the orders from the UK, any profits are likely to be liable to UK corporation tax rather than US corporation tax (the latter is lower and, if structured properly, no additional UK corporation tax would be payable on the difference).

Actually, I could have banked the divi too. Doh ;-)

Strange, I was just wishing I'd sold GSF and bought Trellus Healthcare yesterday ;-)

Up over 725% today as I speak on a one-year collaboration agreement with Johnson & Johnson! I thought it was doing well when it was up over 100% early doors! Sometimes you're left to think, if only (and why)!

I could have sold and re-bought GSF with barely a murmur and banked a stonking profit, all for the sake of a 1p dividend which is hardly going to break the bank ;-)

Sometimes it's hard to be a value investor (I'm sure Tammy Wynette would have agreed with that sentiment if she'd ever been a value investor in the UK stock market)

It's good to see Trump checking his zip before he goes into battle ;-)

Musk (aka Sutherland) and Trump (aka Garner) look like they are auditioning for parts in Space Cowboys ;-)

Seraphim might be listed on the UK stock market but, if I recollect correctly, most of its investments are unlisted, non-UK companies (it doesn't have a stake in FTC as far as I am aware). Also its share price has more than halved in the last 3 years and its current share price is not only lower than it was 6 months ago but has fallen since early December. Hardly a glowing endorsement for a CEO commenting on the future prospects for space investment (I'm not saying he's wrong but he's not got a glowing track record to date).

NewCashquack, You must be ancient considering most nationalisations occurred before, or shortly after, WW2 ;-)

Denationalisation of regulated industries has generally been a disaster and its debatable whether the denationalisation of unregulated industries has been any better (the sale of MOD homes and Qinetiq were nothing short of daylight robbery).

DividendNomad, You clearly have a short memory. Industrial action affected both public and private companies alike in the 1970s and 1980s (in response to rampant inflation). I think you'll find that Ford and Vauxhall suffered just as much as British Leyland. Industrial action at public-run companies got more air-time simply because they were generally much larger than most. None of the companies were union-run; they were just poorly managed.

The only difference these days is that executives pay themselves exhorbitant salaries (the multiples are much bigger than they ever were in the 1970s and early 1980s) for generally doing the same bad job that they ever did. You only have to look at the RFU to see how crass senior management has become.

Glowacki, I'm not disagreeing that the sp performance has been bad but in the last 5+ years we've had Brexit, Covid, war in Ukraine (which resulted in a significant rise in utility bills with a knock on effect on houshold budgets, followed by rampant inflation the likes of which we not seen since the 1970s), Truss and now the prospect of Trump.

On top of all that, you also have to consider the impact of Shein which has made life for UK discounters extremely tough. It's difficult to compete against a company that pays virtually no UK tax on its UK sales and sells cheaper goods manufactured by slave labour. Just the sort of reputable company that should be listed on the LSE!

For a relative minnow like SOS, starting from a relatively small customer base, that's a lot of body blows. I'd say that the last 5+ years have been fairly abnormal; we've had crises in the past but they've tended to be isolated whereas we just seem to be rolling from one crisis to the next at the moment. All in all, I think SOS has done well just to survive and that's due in, large part, to a good executive team; the sort of executive team that isn't going to pull its punches or try to pull the wool over investors eyes by pretending to signal that alls well (by perhaps buying shares to create the illusion that everything is rosy) when they are still fighting in the trenches (the ship has been steadied but the waters are still very stormy). The latest Budget is probably not going to help either.

I think SOS has stopped discounting because they realised a lot sooner than many of their UK competitors that they can't compete againts the likes of Shein whilst the tables are so firmly tilted against them. Instead they've chosen to compete on quality, design, ethics etc. which is a (much) smaller, less-price sensitive consumer base and it will take time and patience to for SOS to rebuild its turnover and press on towards their medium term target.

Glowacki, Hall, Lavington & Mustoe already have significant stakes in SOS. They also have a signifcant number of share options available to exercise between now and 2027/2031 if SOS. Dilks doesn't own any shares currently but does have a nice slug of share options available to exercise between now and 2031. On the flipside, the annual salaries of Dilks, Hall & Lavington are reasonably modest compared to some business executives and would probably preclude them from making signifcant share purchases. I always say "what's good for the goose is good for gander" and I would never recommend that any shareholder put all of their eggs in one basket and would argue that Hall & Lavington already have enough invested in SOS (from their own personal perspective). We shouldn't forget that it's been a fairly tumultuous time since Covid and, in many respects, the executive team has done well to keep SOS afloat when many of its similarly sized peers have either gone out of business, been taken over or are in dire financial straights.

Unlike some, I still have faith in this executive team because they do not sit on their laurels and just hope for the best. They acted decisively when Covid struck, raised new finance and managed their way through. Likewise, last year they evidently didn't like the forward sales metrics they were seeing for continuing with their previous discounting model and decided on a complete volte face. They say they still remain on target to meet this year's (reduced) financial targets but, if I'm honest, I think they'll, at least, fall short on turnover (the third quarter was signficantly better than the previous two quarters but still fell short of the previous year and a lot now depends on the fourth quarter at a time when the UK economic tailwinds don't look good). However, if you look at the likes of ASOS, BooHoo and Quiz who have continued with discounting models, both tunover and margins continue to decline year on year. People may not currently like what SOS did but I believe that in the fullness of time the actions of the executive team last year will prove prescient.

I'm not saying that FTC is a one track pony.

I was just responding to your "... as passengers will be flying to space and beyond ..." comment which seemed, to me, to be a bit starry-eyed.

Science Fiction is a able to conveniently ignore the rules of mathematics, physics and chemistry. You'd probably need a neutron star in the energy bay to do even half the things that the Enterprise is supposedly able to do as daily routine ;-)

KUMS, With respect, you really ought to do the maths. The idea that anybody other than a few super rich people will be traveling to space using existing space technology (rockets) is just pure science fiction. Even with reusable rockets, the size of the payloads that can be lifted into space is fairly paltry (you do realise that a trip to Mars is a one way ticket) not to mention the environmental impact (Elon loves bragging about his green credentials but rockets are far worse polluters than aeroplanes) and the fact that humans aren't designed to live in low gravity (despite daily exercise, even highly trained astronauts suffer significant muscle wastage from prolonged space flight). I also believe that radiation exposure in space means that the amount of time that humans can spend in space is limited. Joe Public is most definitely keeping their feet on Terra Firma. As the technology stands, robot controlled space ships carrying fertilised human eggs are probably the very best you can hope for (assuming the eggs can somehow be "hatched" the other end)!

Porsche, Please explain your logic. Look at the balance sheet. PHX does not have a significant amount of gilts on its own investment account; it buys gilts to generate guaranteed, long-term annuity income for its policy holders and tends to hold the vast majority of the gilts to maturity. The income generated from the gilts is not affected by changes in the valuation of the gilts from day to day.

Under IFRS PHX is required to mark to market the gilts and, as such, it does book unrealised losses on the gilts when their yields rise but this is just a (debatable) accounting requirement. In the past, insurers were only required to book losses to the extent that those losses were expected to crystallise in the future but now they are expected to book losses regardless of whether or not they will eventually arise. From PHX's perspective, the risk of losses actually arising on its gilt holdings are threefold: (1) If PHX originally bought the gilts for more than their par value (this is unlikely but to the extent that any gilts have been bought at more than their par value then the expected loss at maturity will have been recognised at acquisition and will not be affected by subsequent volatility, (2) The likelihood that the gilt issuers should default (most, if not all, of the gilts held by PHX will be UK, Euro or US government bonds and matched to liabiities to minimise FX risk), and (3) PHX being forced to sell the gilts, at a loss, before maturity (this is highly improbable given the reason why the gilts were purchased in the first instance). You can never say that there is absolutely no risk but the risk is, IMHO, very small (in the event of financial Armageddon the collapse of PHX will be but a ripple compared to the other seismic effects).

Please feel free to contradict.

Does this market need a reason? I've given up trying to predict this market.

That said there's a lot of potential macro economic storm clouds on the horizon; not least Trump wanting to annex Canada, Greenland and Panama for the sake of his "free world". I wouldn't be surprised if he had intentions on Mexico too - he could rename it Gulag America!

Closer to home, on the insurance front, the cold weather in North America and the California fires (couldn't possibly be due to climate change) raises the prospects of increased claims.

Some big 500k+ buys around 9am and 10.30am today. There were some big 1m+ transactions yesterday too but those seemed to be settled at the mid-price which rather suggested that they might have been broker to broker. FTC is usually pretty good at keeping a cap on any news before it's announced but transactions of that size without any news are unusual for FTC.

A positive trading statement from Next this am. Online UK, Label and Overseas all up on Q4 2023. Hopefully augurs well for a positive read across for SOS.

Based on the statements made during their H1 results webinar, Q3 started well (if I recollect correctly they said sales were ahead of the same period in Q3 2024) but it remains to be seen whether trading continued to hold up for the remainder of the quarter and I think that, following the tax changes announced in the Budget, Q4 is going to be tougher than originally forecast.

They made some interesting observations in the webinar about some customers having put off purchases for 6-12 months in the hope of receiving discount vouchers who were now returning in Q3 (it would seem that the advance of fashion waits for no person) and it will be interesting to see if those observations continued to be borne out.

Therosy1, The US government has entered into a pseudo contract. The tax credits would have been a key factor in deciding whether or not to invest and GSF would have applied to the US goverment for approval before proceeding (that's how tax credits normally work; you apply for approval before commencement and then submit your claim on completion).

Trump may well want to renege but, if he does, the matter would go before the (independent) courts (even the right wingers on the Supreme Court would never accept direct government intervention and would hold contract law sacrosanct) and the government wouldn't have a leg to stand on. Likewise, if Trump tried to change the terms retrospectively, GSF would have grounds to sue.

Despite what the doomsayers like to say, I don't see even Trump reneging on the projects already underway (it would be akin to the US government reneging on its debt commitments). He'd more than likely lose in court (never say never) and it would have a huge negative impact on US business sentiment (trust in the government would be shot).

Trump may not be concerned about what impact his decisions have beyond US borders but he most definitely is concerned about what impact his decisions have within US borders and his legacy.

It would be highly unusual for any government to wholly rescind previous tax legislation; for one thing it would open them up to highly costly litigation in the courts. In GSF's case, completion of the project would only be the final milestone in the process and it's highly improbable that a Trump government would renege on paying the tax credits due, provided that the project was completed within the originally anticipated timeframe (and no steps were taken by government to deliberately prolong the process). Application and approval for payment of the tax credits would have been made at the project's outset (GSF would have factored the tax credits into its decision on whether or not to go ahead with the investment and, as such, a "contract" would already exist) not at its denouement. Trump cannot now re-write the existing "contract" but he can stop any new "contracts".

Mole, You're not very consistent in your views. You seem to be denegrating Blanc's supposedly women and minority policy (that's not what she was actually advocating but that's what some people chose to interpret it as) in favour of nepotism and the old school tie brigade and then have the gall to suggest that the former policy ignores merit!

I would imagine that we're not simply talking about chump change here.

I wouldn't be surprised if ZTF would need nothwards of £100m. That's a lot of moolah for a company currently valued at £150m.

ZTF would not only need to ramp up its existing production facilities but would also need funds to finance ReZorce through to breakeven (at low, initial volumes ReZorce would be loss making and would only start to breakeven once volumes and orders had significantly increased). The advantage of a strategic investment partner is that they'd probably also bring their existing customers (food manfacturers, retailers etc) to the table.