The latest Investing Matters Podcast with Jean Roche, Co-Manager of Schroder UK Mid Cap Investment Trust has just been released. Listen here.
I can’t comment on that I’m afraid, but everything I post is as a shareholder (albeit an irate one) concerned about the poor way my investment is being managed. For the record it was me that exercised the 720k shares under option in May 2016 (I know that’s been the subject of discussion here in the past). At one point I had about 1.2m shares (having invested pre-IPO and participated in various placings) but sold the majority (only in the high teens sadly but could have been worse!) to buy a house last year. My holding is down to about 300k shares so I still have as much right to voice an opinion as the next shareholder, even if it is a negative one (and with good reason I might add). I have also previously pledged my shareholding to any action that might eventually take place, so I’m more than happy to get involved once people have established that emails to the company are pointless. So there you have it... take my opinions at face value or label me a subversive basher, at the end of the day these boards make very little difference so I’m only doing it for the therapeutic value really :) Oh and you can call me tedious all you want, even though I hardly ever post - I call the situation with AFC precisely the same thing and much worse! :)
Are you joking? They don’t give a crap about your emails?! They won’t even respond so why waste your time?! If a company decides to disengage from its shareholders in this way then all that’s left for the likes of us is to **** and moan on the bulletin boards and eventually (hopefully) grow enough balls to call an EGM and do something about it. You talk of hidden agendas like there’s some illuminati conspiracy to manipulate the SP for someone’s gain. Newsflash fella, the price is plummeting (halved in about two months) because sentiment is terrible...,,and that’s directly attributable to how shareholder communications have been mismanaged for a long time. They have zero credibility because of their track record for overpromising and underdelivering and the market is acting accordingly, simple as that.
Lol. See my earlier post :)
It’s exactly this sort of cretinous response to valid concerns and complaints that enable AIM companies to repeatedly take the **** with their shareholder base. People are justifiably angry because the Company have neglected shareholder relations for years (it’s not just the recent scrapping of the newsletters - what about the investor days that never materialised, or that AB routinely refuses to respond to shareholder emails). They have also mislead us in the past and failed to follow up on announcements that should have generated subsequent updates. As a result of all this the SP is hitting lows we haven’t seen in nearly a decade and we are in a position where we’re now effectively gambling on black or red rather than making informed investment decisions. If you think this is an acceptable stage of affairs then you are either naive or an idiot. Sorry if this offends but to dismiss what’s being said as simply ‘bashing’ is blinkered at best!
I’d say a placing is imminent based on SP movement. Cantor get their commission, MMs and city insiders forward sell shares dragging the SP down to the placing level and thereby booking their profit, Adam Bond gets another year at £400k. All at the expense of long term shareholders who fell in love with the technology and it’s potential and tried to support their efforts while hoping for some kind of return on our investment. Where’s all the shareholder value they keep talking about delivering?! Contempt for shareholders is the only thing that’s being consistently delivered here :(
It’s not my review Notes, but thanks for thinking of me. I wasn’t on the technical team but there were a number of people who left because they didn’t like Gene Lewis, whose management style was that of a spiteful playground bully....my guess would be it’s one of them (and there were quite a few!). Also don’t know why you think I was jealous of Adam’s Range Rover, which I only mentioned in the context of his ridiculously large package when set against the value he has added since taking over. I had a Merc coupe which suited me just fine :) Anyway, back to watching the SP disappear up it’s own arse along with the value in my remaining shares. I’d laugh if I weren’t so busy crying! :)
If the AFC tech works like we’ve been led to believe then it will almost sell itself....what do we need a £400k p.a. CEO for in the meantime?? He’s not technical so contributes nothing on that front. Yes, he introduced DeNora, but if he’d had a handle on the technology and Gene Lewis from the outset that either wouldn’t have been necessary or might have happened much sooner. Absolute shambles which combined with his abismal investor relations approach has left the SP hitting lows not seen for many years.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Adam Bond needs to go, and fast. The market doesn’t trust him or have any faith in his ability to deliver substantial commercial deals. Surely this farcical policy of treating shareholders like mushrooms has gone on long enough. John Rennocks is defending the indefensible and if he’s not got the balls to put things right then he should go too!
Or....AFC actually are close to a viable product but the market feels that Adam Bond has been misleading in his words and seems incapable of bringing the product to market. Personally, I think that we are more likely to see Bond sacked before we see any commercial traction. Hope I'm wrong though, not because I want him to stay, I just want some of that shareholder value and excitement he alluded to so many moons ago :(
And I shall return to my view regarding assumptions and go back to lurking. Good luck!
Eddie, I have not been an insider for about 2 years. All the info I posted is contained in the directors' service contract narrative of the latest Annual Report immediately below the director remuneration section. Iwantthatone - I hope you are right!
Correctly deduced Notes, but a significant amount of my money remains invested here alongside yours, and has been since 2006. So what gives you the right to an opinion on how the Company is managed and not me? I would argue that my view is a far more informed one than your own... Look back at my posts and you will see I have always taken issue with the same thing, which is Adam's stewardship of this pre-revenue business at a phenomenal cost when contrasted against what he's actually delivering. If he were on �150k with a sweetener in shares then I would not be making these points, but as a shareholder it annoys me that inflated costs accelerate the need for further fundraising which has always been done at a heavy discount and to the detriment of long term holders such as ourselves. At the end of the day I was an investor here long before Adam was involved, having put �50k in at the pre-IPO fundraising. I think that your comments regarding dignity are misplaced and once again based on assumption, but to each his own and I wish you (and everyone else here) good luck with your investment.
Another assumption....you don't know what I know, or how I know it.... :) Anyway, I just wanted to have my little rant as I find it quite therapeutic and wont be at the AGM next week to vent. Hopefully others attending will demand some answers and get them, but I wouldn't hold my breath. This will either fly with De Nora or it's dead in the water...my money is still on the former... Good luck all holders!
Well you know what they say about assumptions....
I disagree that he added much/any value in that respect. What did he actually do? Borderline lied in a Proactive Investor interview and said he could flog 10kW systems which he couldn't. Doesn't seem particularly inventive of him to be dishonest.....smoke and mirrors implies it was clever and tricky, which it wasn't.... Would also just point out that he presided over a collapse in the SP from nearly 60p to 10p following the delays and eventual failure of KORE to hit the targeted output. Yes a further collapse to 5p MIGHT have happened and if so we'd have done the placing at that level and issued an extra 30m or so shares. Big deal, I wouldn't say saving shareholders a little dilution warrants the package he's on...
While I don't agree with Domino's view of the company's prospects for success, I definitely feel that Adam Bond is well past his sell by date. Can anybody please explain exactly what he does for the ridiculously large salary....and the bonus....and the share options....and the awards of shares......and the company Range Rover.....and the tax liability paid on his behalf....? Don't say he got De Nora on board because Adam is very much non-technical...someone from the technical team would have been responsible for making that discovery/introduction. Don't say he is progressing commercial avenues for exploitation, because that is clearly not the case. At best he is keeping the channels of communication with possible partners open for when we actually have a product, but as yet, we don't. How much time does he spend each week keeping prospective customers on ice? What can there possibly be to say other than...."it's not quite ready yet"? Don't tell me he shmoozes the city folk who take sizable stakes in the company, because we only have one institutional investor with a notifiable shareholding. Where are all the others that Adam must be spending his time selling the company to? Why have Schroders not increased their stake? Why have the Russians not increased their stake? Why has Adam not put his hands in his own deep pockets during all these periods of silence when there is clearly no price sensitive info preventing him from doing so? The reality is Adam Bond has done a crap job of earning his salary....a salary that has been continuously funded by shareholders because he has been unable to secure any early adopters or initial 10kW sales (which he alluded to at the 2016 AGM). He has simply milked AFC for more and more while reassuring us that all was good, when clearly, it wasn't! So why keep Adam Bond on at this huge cost to shareholders when Ian Williamson could have done an equally average job but for less money? Tired of the same old rhetoric and the same disdain for shareholders. I say it's time for someone else to have a go!