Bnp Agrin Share Discussion Threads

[lord r] 02/3/2005 14:00

CAR973

Have installed my own Calor gas oven and am just about to put my head in it!

I agree it is devastating for the staff particulary as orders were beginning to improve and the Company was becoming cash positive.The cash flow situation at this Company has always concerned me.

It would appear that Edmond Jackson was right all along when he said ATL might not live to see out another AGM.

Greg Morgan did well to rescue the company last summer, but even Houdini wouldn't be able to get out of this one.

The only options would appear to be:

A:Further fund raising.Another 50 million shares would raise £1 million.UNLIKELY to get anyone silly enough to stump up this cash.

B:Bid for the Company for the tax losses.

C:Receivership/liquidation-The most likely senario at the moment.


ATL R.I.P

[car973] 01/3/2005 22:53

Lord R, I jumped ship in January with a small loss. I didn't do my research until I was already committed...and then I got out fairly smartly. What a plonker I was!

Comiserations to all you barrow boys who have lost not inconsiderable sums, but spare a thought for the employees and their families affected by this turn of events.

[safman] 01/3/2005 21:12

well, i've been trading for a short period of time relative to many other traders... suffice to say..over the last 2 yrs.. have made significant gains.. and 3 losses.. WMG, BFG.. and now AVT..

only hold a tiny amount of 150000 of these @ 2.62p.. but was aware of the risk.. (v.high..)..

as with anything ..hate losing.. but it does'nt look good.. fidelity hold 10% of the equity.. only recently..

although a tiny fraction of my tech portfollio.. still a loss is a loss.. and whatever..

not happy, but that is the way of the S mkt..

saffy!

[stu31] 01/3/2005 20:54

I don't think any holder can be really surprised at this result. I'm amazed they didn't put out a statement earlier in the week stating the Ghana contract was 'imminent'.

[britishbear] 01/3/2005 19:52

What a FARCE.

No wonder EJ has not been around for a while. He must have seen this coming. Looks like we have been left high and dry.

So much for Ghana......

EJ will have lost 1000's and 1000's but where is he?

Sorry to all holders - a painful lesson.

[sirus] 01/3/2005 19:06

Advanced Technology (UK) PLC
01 March 2005


Advanced Technology (UK) plc ('ATL' or 'the Company')

APPOINTMENT OF INSOLVENCY ADVISERS

ATL regrets to announce that at a board meeting held this afternoon the
Directors took the decision to call in insolvency advisers to assess the
Company's financial position.

This decision follows a period of transition between manufacturers used by the
Group, which has become unduly protracted and has resulted in ATL being unable
to meet demand, which has in turn adversely impacted on the Group's cash
position.

A further announcement will be made in due course.

All enquiries to:

Andrew Channon - ATL
Tel: [phone]


This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

[lord r] 01/3/2005 13:38

CAR973

I think they've all gassd themselves!

Are in holding AVT at the moment or just observing from the sidelines?

[car973] 22/2/2005 17:13

Just had an invite from Calor to have my gas tank fitted with an AMR and autodialler so that re-ordering is automatic. Supplied by AVT? Unlikely. If AVT had secured a contract with Calor to fit AMRs to the thousands of tanks in this country it would have been newsworthy.

No news is definitely not good news. Where have all the spindoctors gone? LOL

[lord r] 17/2/2005 12:27

RichPoorKid

Turkey was destined to be the BIG BREAKTHRU with Peter Hibbert informing shareholders AVT would make £17 Million profit over ten years.

Unfortunately, the planned privatization by the Government of the Utility didn't happen.The last mention of Turkey in ATL reports was back sometime in 2001 or 2002 when they were continuing to offer support-then nothing!

ATL have a habit of mentioning potential contracts and getting us all excited and then not commenting and hoping we will all forget when nothing goes ahead.

Examples:Malaysia,Australia 3 in 1 device.

It will be interesting to see whether any comment will be made in the forthcoming results regarding the two lastest ones-Ghana and the "other" one, or whether over time no comment will be made as usually happens.

[lord r] 17/2/2005 12:27

RichPoorKid

Turkey was destined to be the BIG BREAKTHRU with Peter Hibbert informing shareholders AVT would make £17 Million profit over ten years.

Unfortunately, the planned privatization by the Government of the Utility didn't happen.The last mention of Turkey in ATL reports was back sometime in 2001 or 2002 when they were continuing to offer support-then nothing!

ATL have a habit of mentioning potential contracts and getting us all excited and then not commenting and hoping we will all forget when nothing goes ahead.

Examples:Malaysia,Australia 3 in 1 device.

It will be interesting to see whether any comment will be made in the forthcoming results regarding the two lastest ones-Ghana and the "other" one, or whether over time no comment will be made as usually happens.

[shortashare] 17/2/2005 09:28

is the pope a catholic?

[car973] 16/2/2005 21:13

Pass. Ask another.

[richpoorkid] 16/2/2005 13:43

What ever happened to this one... from the Ericsson website...2003 I believe...:

Full story link



Sayot, Turkey

Turkish Mobitex operator Mobicom and its sister company Sayot are opening up a new market for automatic meter reading with almost unlimited potential. Using an unique solution developed by ATL, the Turkish company is making rapid progress in developing a major application area.



Turkey pioneers innovative AMR application
Why spend hundreds of millions per year on a task that should only cost pennies per day? This is the central proposition underlying automatic meter reading (AMR), the application that all analysts agree will be the driving force behind the strong growth predicted for wireless telemetry applications.
To get a perspective on these wildly optimistic predictions for growth, let's take a closer look at the numbers. AccuRead, a company 50-percent owned by British Gas that performs some 80 million readings per year for more than a half dozen British utilities, has published figures showing that the average two readings per year performed by a utility company cost GBP 5. Multiplied by the hundreds of thousands or millions of customers that an electricity, gas or water distribution company serves, these costs easily run into the hundreds of millions.
On the other hand, ATL Metering, a subsidiary of Advanced Technology (UK) PLC that has specifically targeted this market, claims to be able to provide these services for just pennies a day. Instead of being limited by semi-annual readings, utility companies are being offered daily or on-demand readings and such features as accurate billing, energy consumption profiling and variable tariffs at a price that is just a fraction of current costs. With a customer value proposition this good, there must be plenty of takers.


Rapid progress in Turkey
Sayot of Turkey is one of the takers. This company, which was formed to exploit opportunities in the telemetry market, is a subsidiary of Cukurova, which is also the parent company of Mobicom, the Turkish Mobitex operator. Like many countries around the world, Turkey is deregulating the energy sector and opening the market to new entrants who will compete with publicly owned utilities. When ATL showed a prototype system to Sayot in December 1997, the company realized that there was a vast potential market to be exploited and that the Mobitex network operated by its sister company Mobicom already provided the necessary infrastructure.
The Sayot project progressed relatively rapidly. By March 1998, the Turkish company began a pilot project with meters located both above and below ground. Three months later, a decision was taken to begin manufacturing the ATL equipment locally on license. Sayot also began the task of recruiting distributors for the new system and obtaining type approval for the equipment. Privatization of utility companies, however, was delayed.
"With national elections coming up in April, the government lost some initiative in pushing forward with privatization," explains Kevin Holland, marketing director at ATL Metering and responsible for the Sayot account. "This of course was a set-back and forced us to re-adjust our forecasts. We are very optimistic, however, and expect to equip upwards of approximately quarter of million meters by year-end."


The radio advantage
The ATL solution is unique in that it is able to accommodate virtually all types of electricity, gas and water meters from the leading manufacturers. Both existing and new meters can be fitted with ATL's equipment, which uses a low-powered radio to create a local area network connecting the meters to the ATL RAMCo concentrator.
The radio itself is extremely sensitive, providing a range of up to 400 metres through buildings with a power output of only 10 milliwatts. Each RAMCo concentrator can handle up to 14 separate 25 kHz radio channels simultaneously and collect data from thousands of meters. A typical installation, however, uses an average of four radio channels and collects data from about 1,500 meters over an area with a radius of up to 400 m. Radio transmitters in the meters will wait for the radio channel to become available, but if it is blocked for a longer period of time, they are able to hop automatically to another channel. The system uses error detection and recovery to ensure that no readings are missed and that all readings are accurate.
The link from the ATL RAMCo to the utility's meter reading center can be implemented in a number of ways. Sayot chose Mobitex, but ATL also supports other wireless carrier services as well as PSTN connections.
"Many utilities don't understand radio," observes Kevin Holland. "They think that you have to have wires to ensure that the data is transferred reliably from point A to point B. So part of our selling job is convincing the customer that radio is reliable and economical, both for the local network and wide-area communications."
Sayot was no exception, Kevin Holland reveals. "At first the customer wanted to use the PSTN, but of course telephone lines in Turkey are neither plentiful nor completely reliable. Gradually Sayot realized that its parent company Cukurova also had a stake in Mobicom, the Mobitex infrastructure was much more reliable and less costly than the PSTN. It also helped that we were working with Ericsson, whose expertise in wireless communications is very much respected by the market."


Not just cost savings
Naturally, the cost savings produced by an automatic meter reading system provide strong motivation for the utility specifying the system.
Cost savings, however, are by no means the only benefit of ATL's solution. In an increasingly deregulated market, other benefits are becoming at least as important.


These include:
Improved customer service
Accurate billing
On-demand meter reading
Energy profiling
Consumption-based tariffs
Theft detection and remote switch/ stroke off are often the primary motivators for many countries. ATL is also quick to point out that energy and water are valuable and scarce resources that must be managed efficiently. With an automatic meter reading system and the ability to monitor and control consumption precisely, these objectives can be met, while lowering costs and improving service for customers. This was one of the main attractions to the Turkish electricity regulator.


Perseverance pays off
The ATL RAMCo solution has generated considerable interest in many countries, and several new contracts are currently being negotiated. Agreement to distribute the ATL product have been concluded with two Mobitex operators, United Wireless in Australia and ST Mobile data in Singapore. ATL has also been commissioned by RAM Mobile Data UK and by Mobicom to incorporate ATL technology into supplementary units to extend their system functionality.
The selling cycle for this type of application can be lengthy. Many utilities needs time to change the way they think as well as operate. Yet, for Mobitex operators, companies like ATL, and their business partners, there are substantial rewards at the end of the day. For companies that are persistent and develop the business strategies required by this market, automatic meter reading offers perhaps greater potential than any other Mobitex market.


ATL's remote access monitoring solution
The ATL solution is based on a local area radio network and the ATL RAMCo, a concentrator for remote access metering. Each electricity, gas or water meter is fitted with a radio transceiver that is powered by batteries or directly from the electricity grid. In typical implementations, the radio generates 10 mW output and operates over a range of up to 400 meters with through-building penetration, corresponding to a sensitivity of between ­116 and ­121 dBm. The ATL RAMCo supports up to fourteen 25 KHz channels with error detection and recovery. A typical installation uses four channels and concentrates readings from an average of 1,000 meters. The ATL RAMCo is the brains in this solution. This unit can be viewed as the server for the local-area radio network. It concentrates the data from the meters and provides the interface to the wide-area network, as well as a rich array of functions and data manipulation options for the management system. On the metering side, the ATL RAMCo supports equipment from all major manufacturers, including ABB, Horstmann, PRI and Schlumberger. Options for wide-area communications include Mobitex, cellular systems, the PSTN and most other technologies. ATL's solution also supports drive-by metering and a number of other data collection options. The strength of ATL's solution lies not only in the products that the company itself manufactures, but also in its business partnerships. Public utilities are often conservative, and the list of well-respected suppliers with which ATL works closely instills confidence. Working with Ericsson and local telecommunications operators further strengthens this perception. The customer is thus assured of a solution backed by a strong alliance of world-class suppliers.

[lord r] 09/2/2005 12:02

Tommy Ten Tummy Tucks

Have you contacted/texted the oracle yet for enlightenment?

[pictureframe] 04/2/2005 15:34

Well its been another six months since my last visit. See there has been no contracts from Ghana, Turkey and all the other pie in the sky deals. WHAT A SURPRISE ! lol

Next time I check back in they will have requested further funding in one form or another.

Plop indeed

[car973] 04/2/2005 15:12

Lord r,

Forward contracts remain one of the easiest ways of hedging future exchange risk. But you need planning and foresight to do it and a reasonable basis for projections. In AVT's 2003 qualified audited accounts issued 27 July 2004 (which in itself says something)the commentary on treasury risks (liquidity and exchange) is very brief and inadequate. The qualification was over the value of goodwill which was based on a level of future business that was highly ambitious in the auditor's view. The policies for managing treasury risks, I quote,

"....The Board reviews and agrees the treasury policies for managing each of these risks and they are summarised below. These policies have remained unchanged since the beginning of 2003.

.....

Foreign exchange

Almost all of the Group's sales are to overseas customers and the majority of these were invoiced in US dollars. Certain European customers are invoiced in Euros."

Where is the policy? No FX cover is disclosed in the accounts so we conclude there is none. However, they did have USD denominated liabilities whih would work as a partial hedge. But there is still the sterling cost base.

concur on Ghana. The technology offered by avt is not unique and could probably be sourced from any number of cheaper markets, in particular USA with whom the Ghanaians have a strong affinity.

For the sake of jobs in Dorset, I hope they are 'on it'

[lord r] 04/2/2005 12:19

CAR

I feel 100% sure all 3 points will get a mention.

Can companies not still take out forward fixed exchange contracts to help hedge against adverse exchange rate movements?

On point 3, I feel the longer we wait the more sceptical I am as to whether AVT's input is still required by the Ghanaians.

[car973] 04/2/2005 09:14

Ouch! I only lost the spread but it was a valuable lesson.

The next report from ATL will be interesting but IMO it may say
1. we have made progress in reducing costs (and are hanging on by a thread)
2. our USA performance is improved but has been affected by the dollar's weakness and strong competition from the likes of Itron (in other words little has been achieved)
3. we remain optimistic that Ghana will provide a significant uplift (but contract frustratingly not yet awarded)

hopefully to be proved otherwise.

[tommy ten chins] 03/2/2005 22:40

Car.. I never thanked you for your post, or credited you with your obvious knowledge and research. (and excellent summary of the situation - good for you that you're out - I'm down over £50K)

However many chins I have (Two my wife rekons) I'll never invest so high a % in one Co again although my shirt looks very fetching on Neteller and Sportingbet.

Hohum we all live and learn.

[tommy ten chins] 30/1/2005 12:01

Lord R

What is the point,
What will I learn?

NO ONE knows what's going to happen.

I recently invested in Macro4, Netteller, Sportingbet, Stream, SciEnt and ASOS, and am slowly regaining my losses incurred with ATL.
I will sell any these that misbehave, which is what I should have done with ATL.

One good advantage of ATL is the MASSIVE capital loss to offset my new gains.

In short, Lord R, whatever I'm told, I will NEVER average down.

TT

[car973] 28/1/2005 12:19

TTC

True, should have done my research much more thoroughly but atleast I was out without too much of a hit, but only one chin to take it on! For the benefit of other 'potential investors', some points to consider but DYOR:

• financials on the floor;
• further cash calls (if achievable) would only depress the position;
• positive news would be in AVT's interest but there isn't any;
• Main market is USA which is highly competitive and doesn't forgive product deficiencies (and they had a big confidence-rebuilding job to do in 2004) ;
• no trading statement planned until April when they will release annual results;
• There has been no further mention of the potential six year utility contract in Connecticut;
• January 2004 they announced the integration of their TranspondIT 900 amr with Schlumberger Electric's (SE) Centron meter .....but SE was acquired by Itron in June 2004 and they now intregrate their own AMR kit; (Itron is a giant by comparison and a strong AMR player)
• On a positive note, AVT's amr modules are open-sourced and therefore there is a retro-fit market but let me know if you have read any recent success stories;
• The Ghana Water project will now move forward but it will be a bun fight for each component, and metering is only a small element according to the project docs. Is it going to restore AVT's future?

Conclusion: DYOR

[lord r] 28/1/2005 12:17

Tommy

Have you managed to contact the oracle yet?

I'm sure a simple text would produce some form of response.

Stay in touch.

[tommy ten chins] 27/1/2005 20:56

Three rules in investing.

Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

Set a stop loss

Never ever ever ever invest in ATL!!!!


TT

[car973] 21/1/2005 15:33

Article is somewhat misleading as it implies that GWC has already received funding from the World Bank and now the Government is bailing it it out. What tosh!

If any hopes on AVT's turnaround are being pinned on this I hope their bid is in before the pot is emptied.

I asked AVT when they would be posting a trading statement....not till April when the 12/04 year end is disclosed.

[peterknaup] 21/1/2005 14:36

to all
another statement from Ghana Water Co. re Govmt clearing it's debt, and comments on intended works to be carried out this year - on Ghanaweb.com

we await (still) the hoped-for ATL statement !!!