Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
IQGeo Group hit an all-time high again today with first sales in ANZ. They have the most compelling network mgmt software for telcos & utilities but up to now were just in America, Europe, and Japan. Going global should see them continue to grow exponentially. DYOR.
https://www.iqgeo.com/news-iqgeo/mondospatial-signs-iqgeo-var-agreement-for-anz-and-secures-first-win
I see the same and saw the opposite when IQGeo shot up last week but Google Finance was way lower at the end of the day. I asked a wise AD V F N poster and they said...
"Happens often with Google Finance. Instead of reporting the closing UT or the mid price if there isn't a UT, it seems to use the last trade to be reported, and often one that comes through after hours.
Always have to be wary of the closing prices that Google publishes."
Ff, you were right the first time: It's "Gill and me" in this case. Removing the other person is an easy way to work out which is correct (although a general rule is that it tends to be I at the beginning of a sentence - hence "My husband and I" and me at the end of a sentence).
So: "It's cold right now but M&S felt most warming for Gill and me" would either become:
"felt most warming for I "- clearly nonsense
"felt most warming for me" - correct
Here endeth today's grammar lesson - Ken :-)
Yes, line them up and it's a real vindication of IQG's software quality and their strategy. The hardest part is convincing these major companies to try new network software in the first place.
Jan 24: $2.5m Top 10 US Telecom (new)
Dec 23: $5.4m Tier 1 US Telecom (extension)
Dec 23: $3m Tier 1 US Telecom (new)
Sep 23: 8.6m Tier 1 European Broadband operator (new)
Sep 23: $1.9m Top 5 Global Fibre operator (extension)
Happy Christmas long-suffering GROW Investors. Here's to a better year ahead.
"Fintech added 10 million customers in 2022, according to long-delayed results
Revolut says it is on track to reach $2 billion (€1.8 billion) in annual revenues this year despite a number of setbacks in 2023 that prompted shareholders to write down the value of their stake in the group.
The fintech, which published long-delayed results for 2022 on Friday, said it added close to 10 million customers last year, a record, driving deposits up by 71 per cent in the year to end of December last.
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2023/12/22/revolut-expects-to-hit-2bn-revenue-mark-this-year-despite-setbacks/
I'm expecting Zoo to feature in a few 2024 tip sheets
Nearly 10% up today but there should be a lot more to come.
Looking back, Zoo Digital were as high as 200p in March, when the Writers Guild of America said nearly 99% of its members had voted for improved conditions. Their strike started in May, SAG-AFRA strikes followed, heavily knocking work for ZOO but now issues are resolved there should be a strong bounce back. DYOR.
Courtesy of Citywire...
Zoo Digital can continue to bounce back, says Liontrust
The resolution of the Hollywood actors’ strike has benefited Zoo Digital (ZOO) which is on track to meet longer-term targets, says Liontrust fund managers Anthony Cross and Julian Fosh.
The pair hold the company, which provides globalisation services for film and TV content, in their £140m Liontrust UK Micro Cap fund.
Shares in the trust fell 60% year-on-year in the six months to September as Hollywood ground to a halt amid strikes from writers and actors but in November, the shares bounced nearly 50% as the strikes were resolved and the company ‘now expects sequentially stronger trading in the coming months, with sales increasing significantly in the next financial year, and earnings are on track to meet market expectations’, said the managers.
Over the long-term, the duo said Zoo Digital will be ‘a beneficiary of the media rationalisation trend, as customers select a smaller group of vendors’.
‘As a result, it anticipates increasing its share of the media localisation market once business levels normalise,’ they said.
https://citywire.com/investment-trust-insider/news/expert-view-superdry-zoo-digital-john-wood-de-la-rue-and-trainline/a2432899
One position filled today according to Drapers - the leading authority on fashion retailing in the UK since 6 August 1887 - is as follows:
"Sosandar names first creative director.
Womenswear brand Sosandar has appointed former Karen Millen and Coast head of brand Emily Frazer to the role of creative director."
Perhaps up to now the joint-CEOs have covered this so it should be a positive to see a creative manager of proven quality helping set the future direction of SOS.
Fingers crossed kat, I'm still massively down. Incidentally, it's annoying that you can't edit typos but if I make them in subject names I report my own post (as being an illiterate idiot) and they normally take down the original in a few minutes.
We know John Lewis has gone but what will be new apart from Sainsbury's?
My guess is we'll hear more about the new partnership with Freemans (30 million unique visitors visit the brand’s direct to consumer website annually). Freemans scrapped their catalogue of 118 years and went all digital last month, they have launched a new "Made You look" TV campaign and there are a growing list of Sosandar items on their website.
If we hear more about the international rollout then a likely candidate could be Freemans owner, Otto GmbH. They are a German mail order company and one of the world's biggest e-commerce companies.
Half Year Trading Update on Wed 18th October.
The SOS shareprice has been massively negatively affected since the release of BOO's interim results on 3rd Oct. BOO's LFL revenue was down 17% and EBITDA was down 12%.
This has led to a shareprice drop since then of 4% for BOO (you could argue it was mostly priced in after an extended fall) but 17.4% for SOS! Now, I can't claim to be impartial here but that does seem to be a huge overreaction, given the different markets that the companies target and their customers' relative spending power.
I expect there to be a good bounceback on decent results (July's FY presentation said there had been a strong start to the financial year), hence I topped up earlier this week. The board have cleverly built a strong brand without throwing caution to the wind and that should continue. Unlike some other AIM companies they didn't duck out of 20 minutes of questions in their last investor presentation.
Full Year presentation video:
hTTps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xruP3r1t3M
No probs Gettingthere. The summary and Insights letter was pretty good, which is encouraging as I feel comms have not been a strength of MV in the past.
Investor presentations have also lacked energy and a compelling message so this Friday's Investor Meet call will be a chance to see if this has been addressed. Joining Martin Davis are Edel Coen, Principal, and portfolio companies CausaLens, ICEYE, and Gardin. This sounds like a necessary shake-up after a grim period for GROW shares.
IQGeo Group win an €8.6m (£7.4m) network mgmt contract with a Tier1 national utility and broadband operator in Southern Europe. The acquisition of Comsof last year has really helped open up the EMEA market for new business.
#1 in my portfolio and a conviction hold for me.
https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/1028160/iqgeo-wins-competitive-tender-with-major-european-broadband-operator-1028160.html
I suspect this is Telecom Italia in partnership with Open Fiber.
https://telecoms.com/515552/tim-and-open-fiber-pick-up-e3-4-billion-in-broadband-funding/#:~:text=Italian%20telcos%20TIM%20and%20Open,uneconomic%20areas%20of%20the%20country.
"Open Fiber says its grey area rollouts will encompass around 3.3 million households across the nine regions."
Italy, Open Fiber, Fixed Broadband
https://www.commsupdate.com/articles/2022/09/30/open-fiber-begins-grey-area-fibre-rollouts/
Nice post Sang.
Hopefully you can see the second Insights newsletter here:
https://mailchi.mp/molten.vc/insights-september2023
The TU will cover H1 to the end of September and with their clothes only in-store from 24th Sept it will be a little early to report on trading but they can confirm if the everything is in place.
There should definitely still be a TU in Oct
Reassuring update I'm happy to say. A few grabbed facts:
* 450+ Telecom & Utility customers
* 100k+ Global users
* Only company offering software that covers the Plan, Build & Operate phases
* 52 staff in Sales & Marketing, 32 of which are in North America. In EMEA we also have sales partners that let us connect with customers in different languages.
* New/expansion customers include NEC, telecomegypt, Manitoba Hydro, US Navy & telenet
* Lots on Network Manager editions and how it opens up possibilities to recruit companies of all sizes
* Question asked about how do IQGeo recruit Tier 1 companies: Not easy to convert them over but a key point is getting pilot launches. Once a pilot is established then there's a confidence that it will be a success and business will follow
* I asked about whether they now felt they had the right team in place given heavy recruitment and they mentioned the new CTO and confidence in the Mgmt team. Additional recruitment would be for support staff if needed
I've averaged down with a decent buy at 58p today. Still some way to go to breakeven though so hope the news stays positive.
I'm a long-term GROW holder but thankfully have resisted buying on the way down until now. I've just bought a fair chunk at 227p and 229p this morning and even though my ISA average is still above 400p I feel we're not far off a low, discount to NAV is appealing and more positive noises on IPOs have started. Having said that, IPOs that have not gone well have been a stick to beat GROW with so private off-market sales would be welcomed.
A huge portfolio has been accumulated but we need to offload some successful acquisitions to show that winners are being found and the model is working.