Oxford Biomedica Share Discussion Threads

[harry s truman] 23/4/2024 19:23

But with a bigger threshold they have more time before declaration or more to buy whilst staying under it - that's all I meant (but didn't type).

I've noticed before that the big trades (100k and 325k today) are usually marked "off book". Whether that means they just did it manually because it's unusually large / outside of the NMS I don't know.

A lot of these things we never find out. Maybe time will tell...

[supernumerary] 23/4/2024 19:01

Yes, I believe so, but I didn't specify a threshold, merely implying that this sort of volume is likely to lead to a declarable interest or at least a transition through some relevant threshold.

It might have been a sale, but the price has been going up, and that doesn't usually tend to happen when there's a seller of that size around. Note the time of the trade - advfn has now moved it back to its correct time of 14:40 when the bid/offer would have made it a clear buy.

I've been struck by how closely the sells and buys are tracking each other over the last couple of days, which implies that either there's a large seller who's matching the buys then showing it as a consolidated trade at end of day, or a buyer matching the sells. The latter looks more likely to me, but I claim no expertise in this area at all!

[harry s truman] 23/4/2024 18:37

If they are not British registered, isn't it 5% for a declaration rather than 3%?

I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere once.

Also it might have been a sale. 6 US institutional owners completely went last year (see list below from fintel) and all those sales had to go somewhere. Maybe just more of the same - but a really strange time to do it.

OWSMX - Old Westbury Small & Mid Cap Strategies Fund
QCSTRX - Stock Account Class R1
SSGVX - State Street Global Equity ex-U.S. Index Portfolio State Street Global All Cap Equity ex-U.S. Index Portfolio
ARHBX - Artisan International Explorer Fund Institutional Shares
FSISX - Fidelity SAI International Small Cap Index Fund
IXUS - iShares Core MSCI Total International Stock ETF

[supernumerary] 23/4/2024 17:31

And another big trade - 325K shares - on top of the 250K yesterday. Listed as a sell, but looks like a buy to me. Has to be a TR-1 sooner or later.

[philh75] 23/4/2024 13:26

Should be able to Harry, a quick scan of the index and there are a few between 300/400m market cap, I believe we needed 650 when we entered last time. Bar is a lot lower. It could well accelerate our trajectory as you say once we are back in.

[harry s truman] 23/4/2024 12:47

Perhaps Phil, but I would have thought that on Monday they will make a very clear distinction between which new programmes are new work won by the sales team and which came as part of the ABL purchase.

If they don't do that then at the H1 results in September it might look like the rate of new work was tailing off.

I'm just passing time now and focussing on Monday morning, which of course we are all waiting for.

The big loss for '23 has already been telegraphed, but the interesting part is going to be the forecast for '24 with Q1 already closed.

My target for this year is still to get back into the FT250. I think they can achieve that on what they have forecast already, but they may need to post proof at the interims first. If something else new / big / half expected comes in on top of what we know then I think they will breeze it.

[philh75] 23/4/2024 11:44

Or it could be Frank just wanted to maximise the number of programs he could say they had, and most of them were coming in over the last two months.

[harry s truman] 23/4/2024 11:10

I don't understand how Numis justify their view. I know what their view is, as it was quoted in The Times, and they say (in many more words) that they don't think that OXB can do what their forecasts / projections say in this economy.

Then we have what OXB have told us:-

The cash position at 31 December 2023 was £103.7 million.
IM are putting in Euro 10m to fund the ABL transition.
I'm assuming that converting some of Boston to a US Lentivector hub isn't going to be cheap, but there were millions of that already spent last year.
£126 to £134 million in revenue this year with broadly breakeven EBITDA.

That's not a 180p per share valuation of £180m market cap on 100m shares vs £217m market cap today, which has long had me wondering where Numis are getting their ideas from as it doesn't seem to be OXB.

My theory floated here that Frank gave almost 2 months notice (when we normally get 2 or 3 weeks) was that it was either a Frank thing or that he was waiting for something which he would like to happen before the results.

I appreciate that's a bit like forecasting that it will either rain or go dark, but there is some precedent here from the interims that Frank likes to put on a good show.

So, if there is anything in that idea then 3 days for something to happen before, but it could also be signed now - ready to come out as a headline on Monday.

Yes this is a glass half full thing, but just like there could be a black swan event (with any company) there could also be a white swan event which changes everything for the better.

For the white swan event then what could we predict which we have already had OXB tell us half the story of?

Well whatever Serum want and the coded recent RNS about a new partner preparing for commercial supply would be 2 easy starters.

[steeplejack] 23/4/2024 10:47

Stifel:'With a primary focus on best execution, we operate solely for the interest of our clients with no proprietary trading.'This is pretty unusual nowadays and i find it very reassuring.Good research and advice to clients rather than working the book.it is odd that Stifel should put out a note ahead of updated guidance next Monday.Ordinarily the analyst concerned might be expected to liaise with Oxford Biomedica ahead of publication,establish and refine certain points etc.Anyway i'm inclined to interpret the timing of Stifel's buy recommendation as reassuring ahead of the prelims....as has the market given recent price strength.

[harry s truman] 23/4/2024 09:53

We know from Phil's link the other day that OXB had hosted Peel Hunt (previous house broker) with a site tour / charm offensive. To me it would seem very odd if only PH had received that invitation / courtesy.

RBC (new house broker) have updated recently, but that I would expect - as surely it's part of their job to sell OXB to the market.

More puzzling for me is why Stifel and now PG have updated literally days before the results where OXB provide full disclosure of figures, prospects and are open to the analysts in a much more detailed briefing than we get to see / hear in the webcast call on results day.

So why have 2 of them updated just before, rather than waiting a week and reporting based upon the full results?

My only explanation (aka guess) is that both realised that the previous view of hold / wait for the big post-covid cash burn period to end has quite obviously happened now, and that they don't want to look too far out of step when they put a full note out after the results.

I think we are still anchored by Numis with their recent 180p target which to my mind bears no relation to anything OXB have said publicly, but hopefully Monday will make Numis look irrelevant.

[chillpill] 23/4/2024 08:08

No I don’t but reported on Bloomberg.

[mirabeau] 23/4/2024 07:32

cp

Do you have a link fella?

[chillpill] 23/4/2024 07:30

Good to see Panmure Gordon came out with a 478p pt note yesterday.

Hopefully they can break the 220p price resistance with results.

[harry s truman] 22/4/2024 20:45

Too difficult to guess Gareth.

At the interims (I think) Stuart said that he was talking to the auditors about more frequent reporting. At the time I thought that meant they were moving to quarterly reporting and if they do that then I think it would help our rehabilitation back into the FT250 (assuming that they continue on the path they're on).

That said, if they simply continue with the frequent business updates via RNS, then that's good enough for me.

A week today we should all be very pleased. Many of us can recall a lot of previous "transformational years" which actually weren't that transformational. This seems to be the real deal.

The other day I mentioned OXB programmes (wasn't it 30 this time last year and 41 at the interims? I think I wrote that anyway) and I was suggesting that really OXB should be on 50+ programmes by now, but I actually think it's more.

I'm cautious to go out on a limb, but if you think about it then they had 41 six months ago, they have since added everything ABL had on the go to that total, plus whatever Seb's team has sold in the last 6 months.

Seb told us that compared to his past experience (presumably he meant Merck) OXB's win rate is amazing. Two enquiries per week and he was able to win 11 whilst turning away people who wanted it "quick and dirty"?

Which leads us to what a programme is worth to OXB per year when you have so many running in parallel, but obviously enough for them to up growth from better than 30% to better than 35%.

[gareth jones] 22/4/2024 19:37

The futures bright, the futures....?

[steeplejack] 22/4/2024 18:53

Two back to back trading days of above average volume does indeed suggest we’re building nicely.

Stifel have sizeable coverage of small,mid caps companies globally but especially in the US.
It describes its UK equity research analysts as ‘recognized leaders in providing in-depth investment analysis and recommendations on small and mid-cap stock across 11 sectors’.A solid credible buy recommendation is more than welcome in stimulating an appreciation of OXB’s prospects which, along with some other UK SMEs, has suffered more from disinterest than investor scepticism.

[supernumerary] 22/4/2024 18:47

250K buy in the afternoon - £500K - somebody's convinced.

[harry s truman] 22/4/2024 18:21

705,228 shares traded which is quite a big day for OXB these days. Finished 4.7% up, which suggests to me that there were more wanting to buy than sell at this price.

Will be interesting to see how the next 4 days go. If it continues like this then maybe the penny is finally beginning to drop about the prospects which the company broadcasts whenever it has the chance.

Hard to believe that it's all down to Stifel rerating last week, but you never know.

[ch1ck] 22/4/2024 13:20

It look to have built a bit of support. A nice move from here would be great

[harry s truman] 22/4/2024 11:14

Brucie,

I am open to persuasion (honestly) just tell me the bad news lurking here.

Had OXB not been fortunate enough to go into the post-covid economy with a massive cash pile then it could have been very bad. We all know the story - sector wide the work went away and the cost of everything went up - including loan interest.

No company can see its regular trade decimated by halts and restriction as costs rise and not be hit by it.

I haven't studied Homology in depth, but I would be surprised if the covid / post covid effects weren't the straw which eventually broke their business - and of course lost us a major customer.

So yes we know that, but where is the OXB specific bad news in having a LV with 3x the industry yield and an AAV with 10x. Lots of safety data to reassure prospective customers that not only can we produce what we promise, but we can show patient safety years too.

A week today is our closure on a terrible time when the world went mad and was led by sheep, but that's the end of it. Somewhere north of £50m will have gone up in smoke during 2023, but it ends at that. Very fortunately we had it to burn.

We know there have been some big sellers (especially in US funds) but that's not because they know something bad about OXB, it's because they either needed the money or couldn't hold anymore as OXB went below a certain market cap or got booted from an index.

If there was any bad news here - even mud which didn't really carry much credence - then badger's thread of truth would be very busy.

OXB's prospects look brighter than I can ever remember - and I go back a long way, but I'm not going celebrate anything until we are back above last year's share price high - which was for a much smaller company which wasn't as profitable. A more than 50% discount on that price is insane.

[brucie5] 22/4/2024 09:51

Yes - all looking present and correct for BO; but beware the Monty Python effect "No-one Expects!" (the Spanish Inquisition): quite a few positive assumptions being built in here by accumulators including myself, partly relying on Harry's excellent, but hardly disinterested narrative. So beware the Observer Effect. The greater uncertainty may lie in how the market itself receives next week's results.

That said, like several others here, I'm bullish on the recovery prospects and notice that the share price has been toying with a BO of the 200 wma, though this is far from a confirmed signal. 2.20 was the resistance point since last November, when the share price first hit bottom at 1.70p. So that would be a first support to clear.

Upside from that point, I see nothing until £3 with the greater bowl up to the £4 level as previously stated.

But these are just tea leaves, obviously, so NAI.

[northstand] 22/4/2024 08:31

Morning all,well that's me done for now,been buying last week and just had my last order filled this morning.
Feel a bit privileged that I was able to fill this years Isa at these prices before the results are made public next Monday.
The last couple of years have been quite depressing for us all if you are just looking at the share price but behind the scenes things seem to be happening,I really hope that on Monday OXB's management are going to shove some great forward looking figures & statements right up those analysts rear ends and say 'right then disbelievers,analyse this!

[mirabeau] 22/4/2024 08:29

What's holding this back? Plenty of net cash and expanding its reach and yet the trading volumes are woeful for such an exciting company. Maybe it's the company's foray into Covid vaccine tosh that damaged its reputation.

I see OXB as a superb recovery stock if they can land material contracts