Mereo Biopharma Share Discussion Threads

[marben100] 15/10/2007 16:37

Afternoon all,

Sorry about the late response. Cantors still have 20K on offer at 113. Interesting that they have not moved down, when MM's have. The 50K trade was not done on the order book - a broker-to-broker trade.

Thanks for the updates momentos. Good stuff!

Let's hope we see some decent interims and that the share price reacts positively in response.

Cheers,

Mark

[momentos] 15/10/2007 16:09

Burberry anyone? Innit?

[momentos] 15/10/2007 16:02

Good to see Marchpole attracting the best talent (well, in Finland at least!)



"Design Forum Finland's Young Designer of the Year Prize will be announced at 3 p.m. on Tuesday 9 October 2007. The prize was instituted in 2000, the 125th anniversary year of the Finnish Society of Crafts and Design and is now awarded for the sixth time. This year's prize goes to shoe designer Julia Lundsten (born 1975) and industrial designer Janne Kyttänen (born 1974)."

....

"Living in London, Julia works as freelance consultant for Marchpole, and her clientele includes top brands such as Topshop, Kurt Geiger and Jaeger."

[momentos] 15/10/2007 15:00

John Harrison had 80k shares (last Annual Report)

Perhaps he is the source of some of the sells.

First resigned on 25 July, now appears to be gone???



Even though we await news of a replacement....

Morris marked as IR contact on website also.

[momentos] 15/10/2007 14:48

"deeply embarrassing"

Not sure about that, just a snafu....!

"deeply embarrassing" if they then cant work out the sums on shares for authorisations on share allotment figures....!

Perhaps John Harrison (who stepped in on a temporary basis to start with in October 2005) more "got resigned" than resigned. As we can all see the standard of the financial etc work done at the company clearly merits the 212K bonus paid to the FD!

[lex1000] 15/10/2007 13:00

Good afternoon wbj,time for MPH to play catch up with o/t which i no longer hold.Game of snakes & ladders.Ridiculous share price @ 22.3p old money.Got to bottom somewhere.Like before patience should be rewarded again. regards lex:o)

[browncm] 15/10/2007 12:59

Marchpole in dividend 'breach'

By Richard Fletcher
Last Updated: 8:04am BST 15/10/2007

Luxury goods minnow Marchpole has admitted it breached company law when it paid shareholders more than £1m in dividends last year.

The "technical breach" is deeply embarrassing for the company and its advisers and has forced the group to call an extraordinary meeting at which shareholders will effectively have to reapprove the dividend payment.

In documents sent to shareholders, the company admitted: "At the time... dividends were paid, sufficient distributable profits had not been transferred to the company from its subsidiaries."
It added: "As a result of the technical breach in the legislation, the company may have a potential claim to recover the dividends from shareholders. The board does not wish to make such a claim."

The board now proposes to pay lawful dividends in the same amount.

"These dividends... will be deemed to be satisfied by the receipt of the dividends paid in... 2006," explained Marchpole.

[deanroberthunt] 15/10/2007 12:21

I concur wbj, there's ittle downside risk here, even in a general slowdown scenario....30 MCAP for a comany looking at 6-8m profit....pull the other!

[wbjunior] 15/10/2007 12:19

This price drop from the £1.90's is madness, surely investors will see this soon and pile in, the margin of safety is huge.................................wbj

[deanroberthunt] 15/10/2007 11:10

well after some thought I've ploughed my divi back into MPH, was thinking of puttingit into AZM instead....but post 2387 swung it.

MPH is in my ISA so I'm in no rush to do anything, bought in at 111p, watched it go all the way to 193p, did nothing, and watched it come all the way back down (just so I could top up, thats the way I look at it)...

so Mr. Market if your reading this, you have my permission to send her back to £2 now, OK!

RGS

[momentos] 15/10/2007 10:48

Well the 50k got sold as a B trade @ 112p so picked up by another member firm from Cantors. Or at least thats what I assume that 50k is....

Is there another one there now?

[fardistanthills] 14/10/2007 19:49

From the Sunday Telegraph

"CLOTHES RETAILERS HAVE WARM OUTLOOK

We have been bearish on most clothing retailers in recent months because of the slowdown in consumer spending that has affected all high street chains.

So we were intrigued by a note last week from Morgan Stanley called Apparel Retail: Surprisingly Attractive. The note said the outlook for British clothing retailers over the next 12 months "may not be as bad as the market expects". The bank said the past year had been so bad for clothing retailers – thanks to poor weather and the lack of strong trends – that comparative figures for the year ahead would be easy. This could lead to possible "upside surprise" in like-for-like sales over the next six months.

On a broader outlook, the bank's view is that the clothing sector is a very good defensive play. We have never seen it as such. We would, for instance, always advise readers to invest in supermarkets ahead of fashion retailers: should the apocalypse come, food will be more important than clothing.

However, Morgan Stanley has a different view. "We consider there to be as much upside risk as downside risk to near-term earnings," it said. This is all the more "exciting" given how much three of the sector's biggest stocks have been derated. Marks & Spencer, Next and Debenhams shares are down by 13 per cent, 7 per cent and 24 per cent respectively since May.

We think M&S and Associated British Foods – Primark's owner – are still worth picking up. But we remain sellers of Next."

[wbjunior] 12/10/2007 13:06

From interactive site, interesting view point
Regarding investor losing money on mph purchase
'll second that, it's never good to hear that someone has been caught out like that when buying a stock. I wouldn't let it bother you too much though because you have still bought stock in a great company that is making lots of money regardless of what you have paid for it I would be very surprised if you make a less than adequate return if you hold them for a few years.

I've been keeping an eye on this one for about 8 months now and it is getting to the point where it is becoming rediculously cheap! I was very tempted at 150p having worked out the sticker price to be around 200p, but on consideration of the fact that it doesn't quite have as strong a moat as the likes of Tesco, RBS, Homeserve etc i was unwilling to take the slim margin of safety that 150p was offering me.

Well am I glad that my diciplined approach has paid off! It is now trading at 114p and a near 50% discount to what I would consider fair value. The only thing that keeps me away from it at the moment (despite it being obviously undervalued) is some cold hard numbers relating to the business "post-YSL".

Once these figures are out in the next results I will have the certainty I need make my decision... Although it could be too late by then if the market decides to revalue MPH in the mean time!

Either way, unless the wheel really falls off this wagon I would be very surprised if anybody who buys in sub 200p will make a less than adequate return on investment over a 5 year period. Seem like much of the downside is priced into the share and even if profits do fall in the short term it is still a business with superb economics that produces a lot of surplus cash... I don't know about you but these are exacly the sort of companies I like to invest in! :-)

Best of luck.

Wrex

[wbjunior] 12/10/2007 12:42

Interesting comments and probable a storm in a teacup,I must agree though more clarity regarding such situations would do the company no hard at all imho.............as Remy said , time will tell.............wbj

[chap1889] 12/10/2007 11:51

remy - have to disagree entirely with your thinking there. if you want to exceed the thresholds you need to explain to shareholders why. the board treat shareholders poorly imo and then bemoan the share price.

I'm also reasonably confident there is nothing of excitement here - I agree it most likely is a simple mistake. It's just the cloak and daggers and treating shareholders like idiots that irks me.

time sure will tell ;o)

[remynapoleon] 12/10/2007 11:28

chap1889

You are making an assumption that all of the requested/proposed share allotment will be used. It may be that only a small proportion of the same may be necessary.

In my experience it is always better to be over capatilized rather than put yourself under negotiating pressure.

As always, time will tell.

remynapoleon

[momentos] 12/10/2007 11:19

Anything that big would raise a different type of issue anyway as a Class 1 Transaction (as the Moda America acquisition nearly was then wasn't)

Class 1:

A major transaction for a listed company, the size of which results in a 25% threshold being reached under any one of the class tests set out in the Listing Rules

Class Tests

The class tests are:

The assets test.

The profits test.

The consideration to market capital test.

The gross capital test.

[chap1889] 12/10/2007 11:06

doesn't fit because at that size it would be a reverse takeover and require shareholder approval anyway. you don't go seeking shareholder authorities at your agm on the basis you may do a reverse at some point in the year.

[remynapoleon] 12/10/2007 10:44

Instead of conspiracy theories, how about a simple explanation.

The " modest acquisition " may be either partially or wholly share based.

remynapoleon

[chap1889] 12/10/2007 10:35

True - it fits nicely and may be described as "technical reasons", but a mistake like that is easily resolved by informing shareholders of the error and the vote could have legitimately gone ahead at the agm. Even if the chairman was not happy continuing with the votes at the agm, then why not say that there was a mistake with the authority numbers? why the cloak and daggers?

wbj seems in regular contact with folks on the board/the company - if it was a simple "doh!" style mistake then why do they not just say so?

[chap1889] 12/10/2007 10:06

renewing s80 and 89 each year is standard, but the numbers are stunning imo.

institutional guidelines are 33% for s80 and 5% for s89 (up to 10% for wee companies like mph).

27,151,246 x £0.05 = £1,357,562 nominal value

from the notice of agm:

requested s80 £2,265,000 = 167%
requested s89 £340,000 = 25%

I am surprised that there are no explanatory notes to any of the resolutions proposed. Never a good sign. It would be useful if they would now put the circular up on the website, but (good corporate governance being something far removed from mph) in its absence, it would be useful if someone could post it here?

[momentos] 12/10/2007 09:24

Item 9 (limit 6.8m shares):

"Section 89(1) of the Act provides that a company proposing to allot equity securities shall not allot them to any person unless it has first offered, on the same or more favourable terms, to each person who holds shares, a proportion of those equity securities."

Is this "standard issue" or should we be more concerned?