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"And then Maersk to follow MSC. Maersk. How their star has fallen after they backed the wrong low Sulphur horse. I hope QED charge them a premium."
This is the main reason I believe a buy-out of QED by MSC could happen in future. This could potentially give them a significant financial advantage in future???
If we were at 3p and I was offered 10p
"This makes zero sense."
Of course it makes sense! Do you think someone could buy over 50% of the shares in issue @3p? This SP moves up, (and down) on miniscule trading volumes. A big buying effort on the open market would see the SP climb rapidly and the offeror would probably end up paying way over 10p.
I get what you're saying AKHM but it still remains trials trials trials, if, if, if, could, could, might etc.
Put it his way, I am a LTH with what for me is a very large position here. Based on where we are today, if someone offered me 6p for my shares, I would sell 50% of my holding, if we were at 3p and I was offered 10p, I would likely sell 90%. It's all relative and different people will have different prices they will sell at, which will likely change as the SP changes. To be honest, a few weeks ago when we were almost down to 0.5p, I would have taken someone's hand off to get 3p and rid of the stress but now things are a bit different and my expectations, like the SP have improved.
However, we remain a loss making company, without a commercial contract and a relatively short cash runway, hence the stubbornly low SP. With that comes the increased risk and this, more now than ever, appears to be a binary bet. Where an individual starts hedging is up to them!
Nothing particularly but if anyone wanted to buy a majority stake in QED they would likely need to offer a significant premium to LTSH to get a majority uptake. If the SP was 3p and they offered 10p they might get there? If the SP gets to 5p+ I think they would struggle to get a majority at 10p offering. Just conjecture but if 10p values us @ £140m, that's equivalent to about 1-day's profit for MSC. Just saying like....
Finally! some good news and a big step in the right direction. It's just tragic this follow-up, "industrial" trial has taken years after the initial trials, during which time the SP has tanked. Even 18 months ago the SP was 5.5p and had the trial completed then we would probably be looking at an SP of 7-8p.
Unfortunately large %age rises are still leaving us at pitiful prices and I can't say I'm not disappointed with today's somewhat muted rise of around 0.30p. Looks like it's going to take a steady flow of good news and timely progress to sort this SP out. Let's hope today is just the start of the flow and an end to the monthly radio silence episodes.
Once again. we've had a very modest rise in SP and the moon-howlers are out with their 20p, 50p, £1 super-optimistic predictions. I think the best we can hope for is a slow creep up to 3-4p and then hopefully a buyout offer of around 10p before the runway ends. I really, really hope the SP takes off sooner but it will need continued, short-term progress to achieve this. Can the BoD do it??
"When you lot are watching TV and waiting for the nine o'clock news, do you put the TV on at 5:30pm and then shout at the TV "WHERE IS THE NEWS YOU PROMISED ME?!!" every 30 minutes until 9pm?"
No I don't but I don't expect to hear "the 9 o'clock news has been postponed and will be shown tomorrow or the next day or maybe in 3 months time, or maybe not depending on influences out with our control. That said, news is imminent"
Is that the optimistic run over? Back to downward slide on news vacuum.
I won't be attending the AGM but I would like to know how we can spend close to £150k/month on projects and research with basically zero to show for it. Is anyone in this company even remotely accountable for the losses???
To add some context £100m is about 1-day's profit for MSC. It would not surprise me if, in future, they made an offer for a controlling stake in QED. It would be interesting to see what that offer price would be, hopefully at a time when the SP is much higher than now!!
Whether or nota successful Moroccan project, (with OCP?) will alone make the company cash positive will obviously depend on the volumes consumed and the supply agreements, should they ever materialise.
However, getting the first paying client on the books will be transformational in so many ways but can they make it happen??
For me, the BoD's incompetence in project management is only surpassed by their mismanagement of the company finances. Does anyone actually have an idea of who/what this c.£250k/month is spent on? It seems like a huge monthly cost for a pre-revenue company and has been going on for far too long.
Loyal shareholders and to a lesser extent IIs have ploughed fortunes into thus company, for no return despite the BoD's "shareholder value" rhetoric. For a company with £60m+ in tax losses to be worth such a small market cap/SP reflects the market's confidence in the BoD's performance and ability. Simply not good enough but sadly they continue to be rewarded for failure so are unlikely to change behaviours. They should have cut outgoings drastically at least 2 years ago, when 4p+ SP was commonplace.
Things need to change very soon or their gravy train will hit the buffers and our investments will go down the pan in no uncertain terms.
"It’s an impressive take home salary. But it’s not that impressive when compared to other petro-chemical wage packets at middle/upper management / global specialist levels"
Agreed, but we are a million miles from BP/Shell etc. Paying huge salaries is not a problem for multi-billion £ profit making conglomerates. It is a huge problem for a diddy exploration stage company like QED!
If nurturing his babies, (MSAR/BioMSAR) was his primary focus, he would have taken a salary deferral until his babies had matured as a commercial success and then reap the rewards for his specialism. Obviously that has never happened so I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on his merits/worth and time will tell who is correct.
PS, I hope it's you for all our sakes!
"I will, reluctantly, admit there seems to be an increasing price trend. I do wonder what the drivers are."
Because the SP had tanked so low, a mere 0.1p rise was a double figure %age rise. This tends to show up on London Stock Exchange top ten risers list, bringing new money to the share. As has been stated, the volume is low so it doesn't take a lot of buying, (or selling for that matter) to move the SP significantly. If the vast majority of SH have the bottle to hold, rather that bail, then the SP will only go one way as demand increases and available shares dry up. Could be an interesting few months...
If IIs had wanted back in they would have bought in at the last placement. The volume is way too low to be IIs.
Just like the SP drifted down on the lack of meaningful news, it is now drifting back up on the hope of good news leading up to the AGM. Nice to see but we still need progress on projects for any meaningful rise to 4-5p
Yes, another very short-term estimated timeline missed. The obviously haven't a clue and are completely at the whim of the client, which is to be expected given how desperate the BoD are to get a commercial agreement.
FWIW I have never been convinced of the commitment of this (yet to be revealed) client in Morocco. I am also sceptical as to why the client would want to keep the trial confidential given the associated pro-green credentials of BioMSAR.
I guess we'll just have to wait a bit longer to see. The cynic in me would read this as a tactical delay with the hope of having a good news story to lighten the mood at the AGM
While I seem to sense some minor upward pressure on the SP, is there anyone else, like me, partly dreading the next Morocco RNS?
They say no news is good news but the closer to November we get, the more I think it may be bad news. Purely my own speculation as I think the BoD will be keen to trumpet any good news asap??
Kolonik, maybe those names you mention became uncomfortable with the bovine excrement being fed to shareholders over the many years. Uncomfortable taking money for old rope? We'll at least it won't go on much longer....