Molten Ventures Share Discussion Threads

[its the oxman] 10/12/2024 21:45

Yes just seems an excessive fall when other funds are flat or up augm chrysalis ctpe, icgt. Very tempted to add though unless something untoward.

[riverman77] 10/12/2024 20:56

I hadn't actually realised it's down by 30% since September, on essentially no news - strange how these things can drop almost by stealth. If it dropped 30% in a day you'd definitely sit up and take notice. Happy just to let this one do what it wants to do - portfolio looks to be doing fine and confident value will come out one way or another.

[peterrr3] 10/12/2024 20:22

I thought I explained that OX. But if you want a warm fuzzy feeling to ride this management created slump dig up Oak Bloke. His glass isn't so much half full as overflowing with rose tinted upside.

[its the oxman] 10/12/2024 19:33

How can this be back to 300p

[stef25] 07/12/2024 14:03

I remain a GROW fan but patience being tested on our slow recovery from 2022 dip. I still believe we will go up sharply over the next 3 years back to our peak share price at 11.82 and beyond. There has been only modest dilution and the portfolio has few write offs and I don’t think the valuations in 2021/2022 were wild never to be achieved again. retail wrapper over a normally illiquid base that only ever had hard price points every 2 or 3 years on funding rounds. So lots of room for sentiment to swing this up or down. Right now down. My strategic reasons for my hold are below:

1) Long run our share price is on average NAV/share. It only dips on stressed conditions and is higher in good conditions (lagging valuation discovery and difficulty in retail obtaining asset base in any other way). We have a 100% uplift coming based on this factor alone. I suspect this gap will close as soon as we start making profit again -which might be as soon as year end results.

2) EU/UK sector at historically low multiples of sales. Pitchbook predict this will start to change and with that all our valuations will go up with the sector even without last round or IPO hard cash discovery. Ditto for our seed funds which have not gone up for 2.5 years.

3) Gap between US and EU multiples and valuations will over time close. Irrational and long run arbitrage will eliminate it. Profit is profit regardless of the position of the Atlantic ocean.

4) BIg tech giant profits will get recycled up the sector development pipeline.

5) Dry powder will deploy into the sector as interest rates drop.

6) OUr portfolio average sales growth of 50% per annum will drive increasing valuations. We have zero portfolio companies in immanent trouble as well -a historically low %.

[riverman77] 07/12/2024 13:33

Returns are lumpy in venture capital and you can't expect NAV to go up in a straight line every period. We all know it's been a quiet period for the sector with limited activity, so personally wouldn't read too much into one flattish period - long term record is good.

[peterrr3] 07/12/2024 12:15

Flat NAV is poor given the number of holdings they have. Hanging everything on Revolut is fine if they had limited investments, but non core is a very significant holding and was written down without comment. Basically it shows the funds they took over were net liabilities, but I bet they allowed for a management deal bonus. I also suspect some of the top ups on core were more lifelines than allowing for the growth of profitable companies.

[riverman77] 06/12/2024 15:25

I think that sounds a bit negative - there was a write down of Thought Machine, but there was also a big write up of Revolut. The overall portfolio was pretty flat (even though revenues up sharply, valuation multiples went down). It was the FX imapct that pushed NAV returns into slightly negative territory. The key thing is most of the portfolio is performing well, so 50% discount doesn't look right. Agree, that the abrupt change of management won't have helped.

[peterrr3] 06/12/2024 11:06

They took a bath on Thought Machine and NAV went down because of this and the entire non core was written down. The CEO was given the boot at the same time without explanation so not a good look. New CEO is part of the old crew so same same, free shares rewarding his poor performance too.No real risk as most of the rest of the core look sound, but management a bit on the nose.

[its the oxman] 06/12/2024 09:01

Bit lost as to why this has fallen 100p from just over 400p this last month. What has changed so much. Or what have I missed.

[riverman77] 05/12/2024 19:09

Well the market sets the price, not the managers of the fund. You're right though it does often dip for no particular reason. On a 53% disc now.

[peterrr3] 05/12/2024 18:34

They do this quite regularly. You didn't think the fund was run for the benefit of the shareholders I hope?

[thunders] 05/12/2024 16:43

They issued shares to director at 1P?

[riverman77] 05/12/2024 16:28

Just to note that their biggest holding Revolut makes up only 10% of the fund, followed by a few others which make up around 7-8%. Barring a complete sudden write off of one of these larger positions I can see nothing to justify an intra day 7% drop in share price.

[blackdown2] 05/12/2024 16:12

Drop on small volume. I suspect shares are tightly held, hence large movements on relatively few trades.

[riverman77] 05/12/2024 15:26

What now? Presumably more negative headlines over one of their positions.

[peterrr3] 04/12/2024 10:48

Satvu further funding round.https://www.linkedin.com/posts/satvu_theworldsthermometer-netzero-earthobservation-activity-7270014072526372864-5mjX?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios

[mrscruff] 22/11/2024 08:50

Christine Lagarde live now at EU banking conference. Encouraging words for European VC.

[tania67] 20/11/2024 22:13

Nice to see purchases by CEO later today

[mrscruff] 20/11/2024 12:37

@Foetus in your brain, Yes, this was absolutely the case earlier this year when you could simply buy the smaller company indexes. However, now you need to stock pick in public markets, which is something very few private investors can do. I managed to grab ALPH earlier in the year and still think it's the pick of the FTSE 250 financial sector. It has growth and a price-to-earnings ratio of about 15 if we normalise net treasury income into the future. However, more broadly most fundamentals are now reflected in the price, and stocks need to deliver on earnings growth. This is why trusts and company discounts to net asset value (NAV) can add known value instead of speculative value (stock picking is based on one's bias and opinions).

Good to see recovery... I note a load of people wanting in cheap showed up on LSE to battle Steph. Hope he's OK over there. Stock is now recovering from the attack.

[foetus in your brain] 20/11/2024 11:24

The irony of course is that private markets are bigger than public ones now and many listed companies are being taken over at big premiums. So you could turn the question around and ask whether quoted prices for listed companies are accurate.

[mrscruff] 20/11/2024 11:21

"Can we trust the NAV valuations?" is an age old question in PE and one the FT like to tell us since forever. We've had plenty of time for NAV valuations to re-rate lower and we know valuations are TRUE when M&A is done at or higher than NAV. We are seeing that in other private equity sectors like infrastructure and buyouts but now we can look forward to VC. Stable rates will help and the neutral rate will probably be around 4%, while we wont see zero rates again, well probably not. Also recent IPO's like WISE starting to do well etc...

[foetus in your brain] 20/11/2024 11:14

They look credible but that's always the question. Revolut valuation is definitely right

[pugugly] 20/11/2024 10:55

Can we trust the NAV valuations?