Why use one sentence when several more can be used in it's place?

A few years ago whilst employed with an organisation that shall remain nameless I used to dread the habitual Friday afternoon meeting. I kid you not, it used to last two or three hours and I'm pretty sure I must have nodded off to sleep on more than one occasion (hopefully discreetly and unnoticed). One of the reasons that the meetings were so long was because a key contributor just loved the sound of his own voice. Even worse he would try and construct sentences that were so obtuse they were almost impossible to decipher. I think he was probably trying to create an image of himself as an intellectual and/or deep thinker. However, when you did eventually decipher what he had actually said, it amounted to sod all. I think he might have ended up at Blinkx under an assumed name (just joking). From today's half-yearly report:-

"The Company's mission is to democratize access to quality digital content in a way that is respectful of consumer choice, impactful for the advertiser and sustainable for the content owner. Solving this fundamental equation is critical in order for the industry to thrive. These basic tenets will guide blinkx's decision-making in the near- and long-term, and represent a path to sustainable growth for both the Company and industry."

 

In short, he might have written, "We want to return to profitability, but at the moment we're totally f***ing clueless" 

 

Perhaps that's a little bit harsh, but after recording a whopping $79,000,000 loss they clearly have some work to do.

 

In fairness, I don't know much about Blinkx and can only assume that something in today's statement is propping up the share price. At a glance the company does appear to boast a strong balance sheet.

 

Anyway, it's not one I wish to research and I'll leave this one to the bulls and bears who have done their due diligence.

 

In other news, Angle released another encouraging RNS this morning regarding progress with the commercialisation of it's Parsortix device.

 

http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/news/market-news/market-news-detail/12584389.html

 

For Parsortix to be successful, verification of it's utility from organisations such as Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute are absolutely critical. I am encouraged by the build up of evidence that has now been received from a number of prestigious institutions including tests involving a variety of cancers. Today's report focussed on Lung Cancer, the most common cancer in the world.

 

Key points for me from today's release are as follows:-

 

"ANGLE's Parsortix system "… offers a unique combination of features making it suitable for routine clinical analysis of patient blood samples" "

 

"Ged Brady, Deputy and Genomics Leader within the Clinical & Experimental Pharmacology group at Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute, commented:

"The Parsortix system has a unique combination of features making it suitable for routine clinical analysis of patient blood samples.  We have now incorporated the Parsortix workflow into multiple clinical trials and have been accumulating many hundreds of stored enriched samples that will be of immense value in our future CTC studies."  "

 

"ANGLE's Founder and Chief Executive, Andrew Newland, added:

"This is our second peer-reviewed publication in a scientific journal and adds to the growing body of published evidence of Parsortix's performance as a liquid biopsy.  The success in pilot studies in harvesting CTCs from 100% of small-cell lung cancer patients comes after similar performance with 100% of prostate, breast and ovarian cancer types.  We believe Parsortix is changing the paradigm for CTC capture and harvest for liquid biopsy and will change CTC molecular analysis from being a theoretical but impractical goal to being simple and effective in hospital laboratories all over the world.  The prospect of deployment of our repeatable, non-invasive liquid biopsy in the treatment of lung cancer patients is exciting and has the potential to make a major impact in improving future cancer care."  "

 

Still a speculative investment until sales begin to arrive of course, but critically the experts are impressed and so far they have all verified Parsortix's potential and utility. I await further news with interest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A safe investment?

Safeland is a micro-cap that has come to my attention this morning after they released their half-year results. It's not a company that I'm familiar with, but the half-year results look mightily impressive at first glance.

Turnover is up 61.1% at £12.5m. Profit before tax is £4.3m and up a massive 95.4% and they've introduced an interim dividend of 1.5p (2014: 0p). Net asset value per share is 106.0p against a current share price of 55.5p. The group has a current market cap. of around £9m. Cashflow was also impressive.

 

The outlook statement is non-committal for the full year, and for a tiny company they do carry a sizeable debt.

 

I'll leave it there since I don't really invest in this sector of the market, and this is not a company I am familiar with. The blog is simply a quick snapshot of my thoughts and observations. Some investors may like to investigate this company further.

Now here's a interesting little micro-cap company:-

Creightons

I thought I might mention them because from Paul Scott's small cap. value report, I notice that the company is presenting at an event called Mello Beckenham tonight.

The group describes itself as being made up of a select group of brands and companies specialising in the creation of high quality personal care and beauty products for the consumer and trade market.

It's a company that I have been monitoring for a while but as yet I've not been tempted to buy. On paper it looks cheap, and some micro-cap investors may be tempted. Personally, two things put me off a little. Firstly, they are operating in what I can only imagine is an extremely competitive market place, and secondly, despite a pretty good record of profitability, they don't appear to have paid any dividends. The company has been around since the early 90s.

Since 2011, EPS growth has been impressive. In fact 2011-2012, 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 growth rates were 38%, 55% and 60% respectively.

At the interim stage this year, the profitability of the continuing business is at similar levels to last year, although with the sale of "The Real Shaving Company", the diluted EPS figure has already exceeded last year's full year figure at 1.57p.

The balance sheet is impressive with tangible net asset value standing at £6.2m against a current market cap. of £5.2m. Cash on the balance sheet is around £1m. Debt is negligible.

Last year's EPS figure means that the shares stand on a lowly p/e of around 6 with that figure likely to fall even further this year. In fact, on all measures the company appears to be very cheap.

Investors might like to ignore the exceptional items that flattered the EPS figure last year, but you could easily argue that the company appears to be making exceptional gains a habit rather than a one-off.

The general narrative of the half-yearly report reads well, although one sentence does infer some management caution for the full year,

"We continue to be cautious regarding the underlying level of retail sales and continue to see the trend of consumers in the UK focussing on value.  This will present sales opportunities but may impact on margins."

Interestingly while writing this report I almost decided to buy a few shares before publishing. If they paid a dividend I almost certainly would have. Possibly one I might regret not having bought in future months? We shall see.

Brief updates on an otherwise quiet day

Today is a pretty quiet day in terms of news that interests me, although I can't help mentioning the pile of absolute rubbish that is the Aim listed DCD Media. Today's trading update says it all really:-

http://uk.advfn.com/news/UKREG/2015/article/69299053

The company should delist immediately since no sane investor is going to put money into this tripe. I won't waste any more time commenting on DCD's history, but amongst other articles that I've written you may find the following blog rather prophetic:-

http://michae1mouse.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/fool-me-once-shame-on-you-fool-me-twice.html

Good riddance to DCD media hopefully. The shares are down 30% today, although in reality they are worthless.

Moving on. It's probably just coincidence, but I notice that two of my holdings have moved in opposite directions today. Avesco is down 3.5% whilst a fairly recent purchase Aeorema is up just over 7%. It briefly crossed my mind that Avesco is a potential suitor for Aeorema which would be quite a bargain at it's current market cap. Anyway, this is just idle musing on my part. Both companies are long term holds for me. Avesco and Aeorema provide a useful income stream. Avesco's  share price is backed by quality assets, Aeorema is debt free. I am hopeful that trading at both organisations will go from strength to strength.

Anybody who missed yesterday's RNS from Trakm8 should note that results will be released on Monday 23rd November. This is a week ahead of last year. In general companies don't rush to put out poor results, and so I am hopeful that Trakm8's results won't disappoint.

Audioboom appears to have reversed it's recent downward trend, and I expect they will issue a trading update in December as they did last year. The shares bounced back by 10% last night and are up a further 3% this morning.

Angle shares are up slightly this morning after a brief dip in price yesterday. The long term price chart from 2011-present looks strong with an uptrend clearly in tact.