Allied Minds Share Discussion Threads

[kooba] 23/2/2022 10:31

Specto you are not helping..i will end up in counselling over this investment it is that bloody frustrating !!
So Kooba what happened next …well they said their main investment would be a material up round at multiples of the historic valuation only as recently as a few months ago.
Fine and what happened
Kooba It was a significant down round to AM holders…and while I’M AT IT….

Could someone please restrain Kooba!

[spectoacc] 23/2/2022 10:28

If there's two things irk me with ALM:

1. The constant mentioning of the one single time they ever returned any money - they kept that up for over a year
2. Bleating about not having any control over portfolio companies - despite previously having such things as Board seats, executive positions, and in most cases enough equity to call the shots.

Oh go on - no.3, the vast amounts that have been paid out over the years in costs, fees, expenses, wages, and bonuses.

[kooba] 23/2/2022 10:25

Love a drop of Meursault me! And yes i am bitter and angry at this company and management, though my overall in price is high 20's after some more recent inappropriate aggressive averaging ..i was believing the company and the shop research which turns out was a major error..i actually thought they were putting out a correct reflection of the company its investments and prospects...silly me.I stopped getting responses and the ones i got were ill informed and massively defensive. No one ever takes any responsibility in this company..it goes from bad to worse whatever the expectations put out , year on year ,and it's no ones fault when they fail to meet any reasonable expectation.Would like to think RB and MP might both work to improve the shareholders lot both having skin in the game..but in the short term seems MP has thrown his hat in Harry's ring ( so to speak..feeling a bit queasy now!) so unlikely to be seeing eye to eye. Once Harry has been thrown out hopefully can work together.

[believer2] 23/2/2022 10:07

Kooba - I couldn’t agree with you more - it’s hard to not be so bitter and angry about something which initially showed so much promise. I follow FW on LinkedIn and they are chucking out lots of posts - I nearly choked on my Meursault when I read a quote from HR in their fundraising story - and had to sit on my knitting needles to not make an inappropriate response to Jill Smiths comment! I would love to collect a file on all HR email responses to us shareholders to present to the powers that be to show what a fraud he is - we really have to hope MP can exert some influence - protect his own interests (sizeable holding) and hope that RB succeeds with a plan in place -

[kooba] 23/2/2022 08:11

One must remember Harry R joined the board in Sept 2017..he is not some new guy..popped up to try to unsuccessfully save the day. When he joined (taking year end 2017) the company had $395m investments and $84m parent co cash.
We now seem to have $116m investments and £13m cash.
Yes Hawkeye’s paid out small.
However if anyone wants to look at the benchmark performance in US technology over that period it becomes down right appalling.
The assets and cash continue to fall under his stewardship ,and the position since the company committed to maximising monetisation is far far worse.
How can anyone support someone who has clearly as a director overseen strategy and should be held accountable over this period of extreme losses to shareholders.
The guy continues to mislead shareholders in communications in my opinion even with the last rns ..this is clearly a down round for AM shareholders and both the company and its brokers are trying to trick shareholders that this is an up round.He does not deserve any further shareholder support the company has not delivered on its strategy at all since his involvement.
His position is untenable.

[bobonumber1] 22/2/2022 21:03

Keep the updates coming Dave !

[wbodger] 22/2/2022 11:46

Thanks for that,psw1

[kooba] 21/2/2022 20:09

Where's that from please?

[bobonumber1] 21/2/2022 19:58

Allied Minds (ALM:19.5p), a Boston-based intellectual property (IP) commercialisation company focused on investing in early-stage companies with disruptive technologies, has provided some reassurance to its' long suffering shareholders.The group's largest investee company, Federated Wireless, has raised $58mn in Series D funding round that places a post-money valuation of $288mn on the company and values Allied Minds' 24.19 per cent fully diluted stake at $69.7mn (21.4p a share). That holding alone is worth more than Allied Minds own market capitalisation of £46.7m (19.5p). Federated Wireless operates at the cutting-edge of shared spectrum Citizens Broadband Radio System (CBRS) technology, which supports the explosive growth of wireless data. It has over 350 customers and 85,000 connected devices across the U.S.A., serving the defence, government, education, utilities and telecommunications.Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, GIC, and Cerberus Capital Management both participated in the latest funding round, the proceeds of which will be used to accelerate the expansion of Federal Wireless' Connectivity-as-a-Service (CaaS) low-cost subscription, high-performance secure private wireless network solutions that are delivered from the cloud. Federal Wireless is monetising the technology through collaboration agreements with channel partners AWS, Azure, Intel and Cisco. It's realistic to expect further valuation uplifts given the growth potential in this space as 5G secure private networks are a must to connect everything from robots, cameras, signage and machinery to virtual reality applications.In today's portfolio update, Allied Minds directors also revealed that they are in the advanced stages of disposing of the group's residual holding in restaurant supply chain software provider Touch Bistro for $4.3m, and have sold a 71 per cent stake in property insurance analytics firm Spark Insights in exchange for $0.7m of shares in Concirrus, a privately UK-based insurance technology company. This leaves the group with proforma cash at the parent level of $13.3m, a sum worth 4.1p a share.In addition, OcuTerra Therapeutics has closed a $35m Series B funding from new investors which values the portfolio company at $51.3m and places a $7.3m (2.25p) value on Allied Minds 14.18 per cent fully diluted holding. The proceeds will fund a Phase II clinical trial of its OTT166 asset in diabetic retinopathy, as well as for other working capital needs.Allied Minds' portfolio company, Denver-based BridgeComm, is also engaged in discussions with multiple investors in a new funding round, having developed and commenced sales of its Optical Inter-Satellite Link terminals. These are used in programmes for space and ground applications with commercial and US Government customers. Specifically, the patented technology provides ultra-high-speed mesh connectivity for terrestrial, airborne and space systems that require 10-100+ Gbps throughput. Allied Minds retains a 62.9 per cent equity stake that was valued at $23.9m (7.3p a share) at the last funding round. Boeing HorizonX Ventures, the venture arm of Boeing Company, is co-investor.Allied Minds 24.1 per cent holding in Orbital Sidekick should have investment upside, too. The stake was valued at $11m (3.4p) following a $16m Series A financing round in April 2021. It was led by led by Singapore-based investment company Temasek and valued Orbital at $46m. The company is developing aerial and space-based hyperspectral imaging and analytics to enable efficient monitoring of natural resource assets and infrastructure integrity. Later this year, Orbital plans to deploy four advanced hyperspectral imaging satellites with edge processing capabilities to provide daily targeted monitoring for the defence and commercial markets.By my reckoning, Allied Minds portfolio has a read through valuation of $125m (38.5p) using the valuations at the last funding rounds, or double the company's current market capitalisation. Importantly, the investee companies are now attracting the interest of some shrewd technology investors. So, although Allied Minds share price has drifted from 24p to 19.5p since I last covered the investment case ('Five investment company bargains', 8 April 2021), I feel that there are catalysts for a narrowing of the 50 per cent share price discount to sum-of-the-parts valuations. Buy.

[bobonumber1] 21/2/2022 17:58

Silva Smith Piganto Rein. Serial failures. Silva started the trend

[casholaa] 21/2/2022 17:22

I have started to think that this company is not being run to succeed for the benefit of existing shareholders.

[kooba] 21/2/2022 16:33

The additional dilution they do not explain could be new buyers having warrants , special stock who knows but the full dilution on AM is 32% ( 36% down to 24%) having put in an additional $4.2m as well , whilst the straight dilution of $58m over $230m is 25%..so there is an element of the funding that is not transparent. Things like this and the highly dubious Numis numbers i find quite concerning because it is BS and they should be honest with shareholders.Same with Spark..but won't go into that now as small money but again something rather misleading giving the impression this management treats shareholders like fools..not good.

[believer2] 21/2/2022 15:59

Jill Smith - useless and totally responsible for the slide after MP - imo

[davidjbr] 21/2/2022 15:53

I wonder if the missing piece in the ALM holding in FW post the funding round is that Cerberus (or others) bought it (us!) out of the full pro-rata funding round as it didn’t have the funds to stand its ground? (And painfully this was at a discounted valuation!)

[kooba] 21/2/2022 15:33

The other problem is the....could have got same price 3 years ago theme is the fact it costs $5m a year to run this company ..even without any on going losses on investments. If you do the numbers and they are not explained properly this FW funding is a down round for AM from last valuation 2019...against any benchmark US technology index being up 80% plus over same period.The company is (still) on the cusp of serious commerciality apparently having burned through the last funding but it is worth less to us now 21/2 years later...VC type returns you say !!

[spectoacc] 21/2/2022 15:22

If Ceberus & GIC willing to back FW in this fundraising, what price from them for ALM's stake? That's what I'd be asking. Then I'd be trying to shift the remaining holdings as one.

If they'd done that 3 or 4 years ago, they'd probably have got the same as they'd get today, but I'd rather they did it now than in another 3 or 4 years.

*Not that I'm a holder.

Big question is what today's mixed RNS does to CRS's EGM chances - seems designed to head it off. Yet CRS need to be a seller of ALM at some point, they can't have it just continually limp on.

Agree Numis have some questions to answer.

[kooba] 21/2/2022 15:14

Thanks...Who do you think is accountable for the fall from $1b market cap to where we find ourselves then? Or the huge fall in absolute assets or even bigger fall on any relative basis...some incredibly bad mistakes were made in structure, strategy and ultimately most of the investments made ..whose responsible if not MP in any way?Currently not banking on much from the CMD far easier to talk growth than achieve it as we find with FW ..i follow the investments and not much coming out on their feeds of new orders.Numis 42p target i think it just drops every year as things pan out...todays note is an exercise in shop trying to furiously backtrack after calling it very wrong all year..fed by over optimistic narrative from the company.We see multiples of current NAV 46p..this must have come from the board only in August and reinforced in Oct results...how very wrong to get that expectation out there..they had no idea on the likely valuations of their assets. There needs to be real change not shuffling deck chairs..The Chair here is responsible and should do the right thing and resign...maybe an easier exit than getting thrown out.

[bobonumber1] 21/2/2022 14:48

My points on MP were off the top of my head. He took ALM from a startup to flotation and a valuation of over $1billion. Believer is right regarding being forced to step down as he could not be a the CEO of a US company. He has also successfully floated at least 2 other companies to my knowledge. Again the valuation is disappointing. The funding is there now spear headed by Ceberus who manage assets of $55billion. Note GIC also participated. It is a big year for all the subs. Orbital predicted high double digit revs for 2022 at The CMD as did Federated. Bridgecomm also forecast double digit revs.

[kooba] 21/2/2022 13:24

ML was indeed nominated by RB but is not a CA representative is my understanding..he did do a very good job of sorting Leaf Clean Energy out and must say seemed the right guy ..unfortunately in this situation not sure he is as effective. The positive is that FW has raised some money ..the quantum and the valuation are not reflecting a businesses knocking the lights out but since they missed this years revenue forecast I'm sure that was a good way of new investors getting the price down.Federated might come good but can't seem to get real commercial traction..no idea what last years rev was or whether this year is on track for the target of $35-45m previously forecast if the orders are just coming in late, we will probably never know. The valuation doesn't necessarily point to a particularly sharp jump in prospects to me.Bridgecomm appears a looking at all options ..this is not necessarily a good thing ! We are the majority shareholder and the company must be running short of funds. It's a hot area for the right companies but how well will our negotiating be?I liked touchbistro and like orbital as businesses..touchbistro's going at a discount to last raise (2019) though the business is substantially larger and orbital is relatively small though in hot spot.

[believer2] 21/2/2022 12:36

Haha - It’s like putting your hand in a rattle snake lucky dip - I am desperately trying to find some positivity - I will be sending another stern email today to HR but I do know his inbox is rather full!
I think MP will be more proactive pushing for sales and ML was RB man ? I just don’t want HR to do something so compulsive if we throw too much at him - he is capable of deliberately (petulantly) screwing us all up at this moment in time he has autonomy!

[kooba] 21/2/2022 12:09

A consultant has no authority..to be fair i believe Mark Lerdal has been sidelined by the Harry and Bruce ( connected parties) show and he's a director. Harry and Bruce are mates..Harry brought Bruce in without any process, they serve on an external board together if you dig a little ..and Bruce is the SiD responsible for Chair performance. Under code he would not qualify as an independent director.Shame that Pritchard wasn't offered a seat on the board if everyone is convinced he can make a material difference to the outcome here..he might have actually been able to exert some genuine influence then.Believer2 don't go and say that about US citizenship it spoils the narrative that he decided to get out near the top!