Member Info for Toffy

AJ Bell are no longer taking orders for placing. Last day was Thursday. Hugely oversubscribed!

GLA

WH Smith is releasing its interims on Thursday 14th May...

You may be right. I think it’s only a matter of time before sp recovers, whether that be weeks or months...

It was a decent day today. In the short term I'm hoping this should rise to about £13 if no bad news.

The truth is I haven’t sold because I’m at a huge loss already.

I sold once. It bounced back. I bought back in. Now it’s continuously on a decline, and I don’t know what to do.

Fortunately for me this isn’t my life savings, but still significant money. If this ends up at 80p I will be livid with the directors.

Ok here comes the abuse.

I’m leaving this board (you’ll be glad to hear).

GLA

And it was directors who made the decision to release the RNS the day before with the positive news....knowing full well the placing was coming the next day. And they decided to release placing RNS during trading hours.

So many poor decisions and evidence of greed. We private investors were sucker punched.

How can the directors give themselves 80p shares?

The SP was 300p when news lands that the directors will be given shares at 80p. Don’t give me that bull about how this was agreed before when sp was lower. On the morning of 5th the directors could have decided that they weren’t going to buy 80p shares. If directors are not willing to pay more than 80p then that is very telling.

Some have tried to rationalise why institutional investors were given a huge discount (which I don’t buy). But there is no justification for directors giving themselves a huge discount. Don’t all shareholders have any say in this?

I’m so bitter about this that sometimes I wish the SP drops below 80p so directors and institutional investors make a loss.

AVCT was 20.5p the previous day when placing for 18p.

GDR was £2 with placing for 80p.

AVCT had 176m shares in issue. They issued 20m more.

GDR had 35m shares in issue. Add 10m more.

That’s why we’re all up in arms.

I said a few days ago it was nice this board doesn’t have nutty rampers and derampers.

Unfortunately that’s changed.

I’ve been called cry baby and all sorts of names for point out that this was a **** up. All the nutty rampers trying to sell this placing as a good thing are convincing no one. The ramping is actually more off-putting than anything.

I’m not selling. At the moment I’m at a significant loss but I’d rather stay in and chance it at this stage.

I’d rather we all be frank and honest that this was a **** up/slightly shady behaviour. And hope that the company comes through. I still think it’s undervalued and has great potential. But it means no more shananigans like this going forward...

Has anyone tried to contact the directors to ask what happened here? They raised £7m, when they could have raised doubled that if they sold for £1.60 a share.

We need to make sure this doesn’t happen again. There are only 40m shares outstanding. They could easily do further placings.

NCYT have 70m shares. ODX and AVCT both have over 100m shares.

So GDR could easily double in number of shared

Don’t directors owe a duty of care to shareholders?

If this goes horribly wrong I can imagine a few law suits arising out of it.

I agree with this.

The institutional investors are not really taking any risk here. By purchasing at 80p, they can dump for a profit at any point.

So it doesn’t show that institutional investors have been shown the numbers by the company and believe in it. They were offered dirt cheap shares - they know worst case scenario they can dump these shares at 80p and walk away.

The only ones taking risk are private investors like us.

This is not true though. I read that said here many times, then did my own research.

They could and should have gone back and re-negotiated the placing price.

Look at other placings (not AIM). It is unheard of to give such a substantial discount to II and Directors.

If the company needed money quickly they could VERY easily have sold those new shares for £1.60. There are only 40m shares outstanding. They are in huge demand. I would have snapped up these shares for £1.60 and I am sure many others would have too. 80p is bonkers in those circumstances.

They could have raised £14m, instead of the £7m they did raise. Double the money for the company. Which would also have greatly benefitted all shareholders.

AIM seems to be a totally lawless. Looking at this objectively, this should not have happened. The fact that it happened, and nothing can be done to stop it, means it could happen again.

I have quite a lot invested here. And will apply for more in placing. So keeping fingers crossed. We are totally at the mercy of the directors.

Yeh, what baffles me is that the share price already dropped from £24 to reflect impact of Covid. I would expect the impact of lockdown was already priced in. We know it is all doom and gloom.

So the decline in the last few days doesn't add up. I am hoping it is just jittery markets. Or an institutional investor selling for reasons nothing to do with WH Smith.

I guess we will find out in the next week or so. Usually the day after bank holiday there is a bit of a rally. So I'm keeping fingers crossed for the week ahead.

I did some research. It is highly unusual for a placing to be so heavily discounted.

ASOS placing last month was actually higher than the share price the previous day.

WH Smith placing last month was 4p discounted from previous day.

At the moment GDR only have approximately 40m shares outstanding. Which is reassuring. But what makes me nervous is the possibility of a further placing in the future - there is no reason why they won't do this again. It would help raise money for the company and it would give the directors a quick profit if they award themselves cheap shares.

I got more at £9.85.

Last month WH Smith had placing at £10.50.

So we are getting these shares cheaper than the institutions who purchased those shares. That is the only thing I find reassuring. Either we start to go back up from here, or soon we will hear bad news which those in city already know.

Having said that Shell dropped 4% today for no apparent reason too

I can’t find any public information to explain this drop.

It’s gone from £13.20 on Thursday last week to £9.70 today.

That is a colossal loss with no news.