Robotic Technology Share Discussion Threads

[chrisdgb] 20/1/2011 11:51

I am presuming that if they can be kept in perpetuity then the only way would be to buy a 'mini conglomerate', develop the businesses, and hive off particular units for (hopefully) a profit...?!

[joan of arc] 19/1/2011 18:53

Pentangle, the AGM may be quite a way off yet but if you go it would be appreciated if you can post whatever you find out and your take on it all.

[pentangle] 19/1/2011 12:18

Capital gains losses are not the same thing as trading losses. The latter can be offset against future profits.

If they were, at some stage in the future, to sell a UK subsidiary at a profit, then that is free of tax in any case. Beats me how they will ever find a use for CGT losses. Have you any ideas chrisdgb?

[chrisdgb] 19/1/2011 12:08

Company quote Pentangle:

The Group possesses significant unrelieved capital losses in the UK of £42.6m which it is anticipated will be available to offset against future capital gains in the UK.

[envirovision] 19/1/2011 11:14

LOL @ chrisdgb. Thank you for your advice, however I dont own any shares here so how am I expected to sell and move on as you say?

Also another thing, I am looking forward. Lucky really as thats probably one reason I dont own the shares.

I guess you will be telling people that they dont have a right to free speach next.

[pentangle] 19/1/2011 10:43

No, I am not that upset, though I do think that some of the actions of Directors this year have not exactly enhanced shareholder value eg halving value of Doerfer loan notes, selling the business for what, on the face of it, was a fairly trivial sum etc.

I am a qualified accountant, so I do have some knowledge about using tax losses and I cannot personally see that they can be used. However, I will probably be attending the next AGM so I will enquire as to the company's view.

Lets hope you are right and they can make a decent acquisition, or given the current size of this cash shell, a reverse takeover.

[chrisdgb] 19/1/2011 10:35

Well I am clearly encountering negative sentiment but you have to look forward and basically cash is way more than market cap, I DO think they will be able to use the tax losses and with a vested interest a decent acquistion should be made...

If you are that upset, sell and move on..

[pentangle] 18/1/2011 15:37

I think the tax losses are a non starter. Generally if you cease a trade, which they have, you lose the losses. Plus they are very likely to have been losses within the subsidiaries they have divested.

The one and only hope that I can see is that I believe one of the two remaining directors is representing Industrial Acquisition who hold 28.7%, so hopefully he has some incentive to get something out of this train wreck.

[joan of arc] 18/1/2011 13:42

They are not worth anything until they have profits. And when did that last happen!!

And they cannot be sold on to anyone else, so for now the market will discount them at 100%.

[chrisdgb] 18/1/2011 12:34

Don't forget the value of the major tax losses either..

[joan of arc] 13/1/2011 14:02

Enviro, my thoughts precisely!!

[chrisdgb] 13/1/2011 08:28

Well I am back in here this morning, used to hold RTS.

Crazy price now given the cash and tax losses...

Let us hope the shrewd IAV can get a decent acquistion...

Could well be a long term multi bagger...

I suppose we need a new thread as well..

[nailsaz] 12/1/2011 20:34

V.disappointing

Im sure they had their reasons but not sure what.

[pentangle] 11/1/2011 15:39

If they all sat around and did nothing, the payout should be 7p a share, assuming the loan notes which make up about half of this get paid by Doerfer (a US company which RTS sold a subsidiary to and who gave loan notes in part payment).

The problem is that the Directors have threatened to use their 'expertise' to invest the money in other companies which opens the very real possibility that they will fritter the money away.

So, no, its not fair to say there is no chance of shareholder value. There is every chance, but there is a risk.

[envirovision] 11/1/2011 15:24

so i guess there is zero chance of any shareholder value or cash return or the like here then?

[pentangle] 11/1/2011 14:54

..........and the market cap drops below the level of cash on the balance sheet, completely ignoring the Doerfer loan notes etc. Another statement of confidence in the Directors ability to add value..........NOT!

[joan of arc] 07/1/2011 11:03

Smacks of ego and sheer bloody stupidity to me. Given they went soft on the loan notes as well it doesn't give me much confidence in their ability to run any form of business enterprise, let alone start another from scratch.

[pentangle] 07/1/2011 10:34

Sounds a bit of a pyrrhic victory, given what Nailsaz has said above - £300,000 of which some will go to cover costs, which are presumably outstanding legal fees, is not a lot considering the £1.5m invested in pursuit of a claim for about half a million.

Lets hope they do better than this with their investing.

[nailsaz] 08/12/2010 13:28

pentangle,

I did a bit of research into the court case after the Supreme court ruling (i actually trained as a lawyer originally). The whole process seemed to be a bit of a vanity exercise for RTS. I think the original contract was around £1.7m in 2005 but you have to dig into the fine print to see that Muller actually paid 70% of this in 3 payments and the legal proceedings were over the final payment of a little over 500k. This is a sizeable amount but from looking at RTS's annual statements since 2005 I can see approximately £1.5 million in legal costs spent on recovering this. Im not 100% sure if all these costs were cash flows or simply balance sheet provisions (which has huge impact on the actual costs recoverable from Muller). I would imagine Muller will have to pay the 30% of contract and reasonable costs. This would seem more certain in my view than the Doerfer loan notes but im not sure why it has taken since March to hear news.

[pentangle] 07/12/2010 13:25

Nailsaz

In the disposal document it referred to the following assets:
Cash - £2.0m or 3.2p a share
Loan Notes - £2.3m or 3.65p per share (plus interest of $1m to 2014 or 1.0p per share)
R&D Tax Credits - up to £250k or .4p a share
Legal Dispute - unknown, possible recovery of costs and payment due to Flexible Systems?

Thus if the loan notes perform, and we assume nothing from the tax credits and the legal battle that gives us 7.85p per share. The rest is upside.

What really worries me is the implied threat also contained in the disposal document ie 'The Company will draw on the deep expertise of the Directors in engineering and industrial technology in order to differentiate it from pure financial investors, but will benefit from the application of the same financial disciplines.'

These guys have do not have the greatest record at RTS (or HEP as I guess we should get used to calling it), and I imagine they are quite capable of frittering away this shareholder value. So the jury is out, though I obviously hope they succeed.

BTW Doerfer are a large private US company, hence no figures available, but who have clearly struggled to pay these loan notes. Therefore getting them paid is not a given.

[nailsaz] 05/12/2010 20:21

Pentangle, Im holding this too. The way I understand it the company currently has 2 million in cash and is owed a further 2 million by doerffer. By merely collecting this and not receiving any costs order from the legal battle we are worth 6p a share. that doesnt seem an enormous risk for 100% return does it?

what/who are doerfer and why are they dragging their heels so much?

[pentangle] 01/12/2010 22:13

I really think that if the gents running the company want to maximise shareholder value they should consider sacking themselves and employing someone on £20,000 a year for a day a week to collect in the legacy assets - well perhaps £5,000 a year and a day a month would be enough.

That way the long suffering shareholders could pick up 7-8p a share. I do not have a lot of confidence in the Directors to use their 'expertise' to improve on that. Not unless they can engineer a decent reverse takeover. Even then, if they really want to look after existing shareholders, they should insist on them getting some sort of differentiated class of shares which would enable them to benefit from the legacy assets.

Not overly convinced that halving the face value of the Loan Notes and letting the business go for £600,000 has done a lot to maximise shareholder value.

[pentangle] 22/10/2010 11:14

Suggest you read yesterday's RNS. The answer is £600,000 which just about covers its losses so far this year.

[wakeland] 22/10/2010 10:12

Any thoughts on the value of the life science business, just picked up a small ammount as I would imagine the business is going to fetch more than the current mkt cap plus this has 1.2 in cash.