Nature Technology Solutions Share Discussion Threads

[malkie] 12/2/2007 20:35

thanks Tabaka - I didnt realise you have come across him....
Sorry to be so vague, but these are the kind of finer points that are lost on me - I'm more of a big picture person! Nontheless I can appreciate what you are saying.

I am loathed to speculate with such little info in the public domain.
What is more i dont think we are likely to hear much more from the Company until they are obliged to tell us by way of an announcement.

So if the share price starts moving ahead, no doubt the speculation will start in earnest....a bit like the blind leading the blind!!

[tabaka] 12/2/2007 18:55

Malkie,

I am not aware of any real overlap between dry and wet waste in the areas that Nigel Sandy usually operates in, compared to NSO who operate in a specialist wet waste area.

Whilst I was not suggesting that he would not have any contacts in the wet waste business, his contacts would be more in the area of the general wet waste business, rather than the more specialist area that NSO operate in.

Giving this a lot of thought the one exception, in contact terms, may be VES, who I think have recently got into rig de-commisioning.

Then again perhaps I am looking for something in his appointment thats not there?

By the way he certainly talks a good talk! in that respect he is an impressive guy.

[malkie] 12/2/2007 16:46

tabaka - perhaps there is sufficient overlap between dry & "wet" waste as far as his contacts are concerned...or he talks a good talk!!

One must not forget that he is Non-exec, so he is not likely to be going out chasing business in the same way as an account manager would be expected to do.

Presumably he will do a bit of networking and pass on a few phone numbers of useful contacts.

whats with all these trades today anyway??

[tabaka] 12/2/2007 15:44

I have been wondering about the appointment of Nigel Sandy as a non exec.

Whilst he has held a senior position with the ESA as well as being with WRG and therefore has many senior contacts in the waste industry,this is mainly the dry waste side of the industry, rather than what NSO gets involved in. So I am not sure what added value his involvment will bring, unless some diversification plan is a foot?

[abubryn] 12/2/2007 12:53

Good post malkie ,
As a long term holder and ex civil engineer with quite a lot of water treatment experience .I wrote to see if I could [paying myself ] visit their fabrication yard because I was interested both from technical side and as a shareholder . I still await a reply as much as a get knotted .

[malkie] 12/2/2007 12:06

Nigel Sandy is probably a serial Non-exec. Not a full time employee. Notice a lot of waste related experience though, which one would hope to be of benefit.
The 1.25m shares he holds is hardly a serious commitment, just a token vote of confidence and hardly going to set the world on fire.
This Company is run like a private family business, which really makes me wonder why they even bother with an investor info site??

Also very surprised to hear that Management don't reply to their emails. Whilst it may be a bit tedious to have to deal with uninformed private investors from time to time, I would have hoped that every enquiry would at least receive the courtesy of a reply.
It says a lot about the character of the Management if they think they dont need to reply to emails from their shareholders.

I will sit on what I hold, but I will certainly not be thinking about buying any more unless we get a lot more visibility.

The story sounds great, but what we really know is very sketchy. Being so short on detail it is easy to get carried way and start filling in the gaps ourselves, making assumptions which could lead us to believe we know more than we actually do.

[velvetide] 10/2/2007 20:54

IMO the reason why they appear to be so terrible at investor relations is that the directors are still buying the shares and hence why would they want to push the price up. For the record I also emailed them about a year ago and received nought in reply. Still think there are potential multibagger prospects but the timing of such could be next week or next decade.

[abubryn] 09/2/2007 11:58

I think probably most of the companies were in the same group .I was once group engineer for 25 companies but all that meant was i raised an invoice on the left of my desk and then passed it over to the right for approval.

[quidnunc] 09/2/2007 08:11

Yes, one wonders whether 70 successes or 70 failures?
Is that a pandora's box we're prepared to open?

[gantenbrink] 08/2/2007 22:41

I only just spotted the Rns today and the track record of Mr Sandy. I'm glad I read your post first Abubryn as your thought that he has given it all up to come to NSO is a more reassuring slant to my own thoughts of he can't seem to hold a job down for long. :-)

[abubryn] 08/2/2007 12:42

Now then lads, guy here been director of 70 or so companies in last 5 years and he gives it all up to come and work for us .Be upstanding you peasants ,and great the man .If he buys a few more shares he may catch up to some of the long holders on here .a few of the companies I recognise are from yorks area so can we assume he is from that area .
Intriguing to think what he is doing for little old nso .?

[quidnunc] 08/2/2007 08:27

The trouble with such a long play is that it has no effect on the share price
Bootstrapping interspersed with dilution and a newsflow about as slow and turgid as the stuff they clean isn't a strategy that endears itself to the market.

Quiddy

[tabaka] 07/2/2007 20:54

Communication is essential for a company like NSO and I said as much in an email to Eldridge back in March last year, just before they established their rather poor attempt at an investors site. My email, which never received a reply, is reproduced below:

Dear Mr Eldridge,

As a small private investor in your company, I would like to comment on the absence of a shareholders section within your web site; and hopefully receive your views on this.

I realise that news flow from NSO is infrequent for the purely practical reason that long lead-in times for contracts prevail within the business sector. However, I do feel that an active investors section within the website could help to maintain and encourage shareholder interest in your company during periods between market news.The section would obviously need to contain information of a non price sensitive nature but I do believe that this could be done and still offer content of interest to investors and potential investors alike. Content could perhaps include such things as director profiles, copies of media coverage, press releases and project update reports.

Yours sincerely

Tabaka

[malkie] 06/2/2007 11:46

Wiganer - I agree with you re the "All fur coat & no knickers" type of Companies.

I truly hope you are right & that I am over reacting.
However there is a huge difference between "PR Fluff" and normal market communications & updates.

The company has invested in a market awareness site. The non-performance of that site and subsequent lack of market updates prior to this placing has led me to raise an eyebrow.

Call me cynical, but why state your intention is to raise the profile of the company with a dedicated investor site, then not even bother to apply resources to keep it updated??



Whilst our share price remains at around the net asset value (at cost) of the
Group we believe that the potential of our technologies should be reflected in a
higher value. Shareholders may wish to further support the evolution of this
potential, and so benefit our share price. A new Nature Technology investor
website at www.investnature.com has been established as a medium for advising as to progress on the key elements of our planned developments. This site has a
direct link to our technical and industry marketing website www.naturetechsolution.com. In addition we expect that our new offshore unit
will be featured shortly in a leading industry oil, gas and offshore journal and
such articles will in future be posted on our investor website.

and since that one pdf - absolutely ziltch!!

I like Companies actions to match their stated intentions.

Otherwise...


The El Oro chairman's report is a hoot - I particularly like the line "Praise the Lord & pass the ammunition!"

I'll wager he has consumed a glass or two of port in his time! Fabulous stuff!

M

[wiganer] 06/2/2007 10:46

As I said before, El Oro are no mugs and I'm very happy to see them involved in the placing. I'd be surprised though if El Oro wanted to snap up the whole of NSO.

As for long term shareholder value depending on market communications, I disagree. NSO is so far off most folks radar that I'd rather they concentrate on business development than PR fluff.

I speak as someone whose biggest ever losses have been on companies that were great communicators, just a pity their businesses turned out to be tripe. I now tend to be of the view that on microcaps their is a long-term inverse correlation between the amount of "communication" and the performance of the business.

That said, sometimes communications can be worthwhile, for entertainment value if nothing else. I do recommend people have a read of past El Oro Chairman's annual statements; they're great fun. Imagine Warren Buffett as an English Country Gent whose had a couple of bottles of fine claret with his lunch.

[malkie] 06/2/2007 09:52

Tabaka - I dont think they will have a problem in closing deals. They have raised money in connection with their Offshore Treatment Units proposition and I expect the sales channel to be part of the proposition.

What I am concern about is Investor awareness and the little information that gets fed into the market is not sufficient for shareholders to get behind the story.

If this doesnt happen then they are missing out on the potential momentum which can be created by a broader investor base.

Techies they may be, but if they are trying to create long term shareholder value, then market communications at this crucial stage is essential.

Now is the time to tell the story to the market. Unless of course your interests are indeed not aligned with those of shareholders...and you are working towards selling out early before reaching your full potential with healthy compensation packages for directors and guaranteed salery packages going forward............

This company would fit nicely into El Oro's portfolio....

[quidnunc] 06/2/2007 08:57

Perhaps the new NED might knock them into shape but I'm not holding my breath. Once they had investors money in the bank, they promptly forgot about them.
As you say, unproffesional.

[tabaka] 05/2/2007 19:47

Malkie,

I couldn't agree more with most of your comments. In fact I communicated with the company some months ago about a lack of communication and the fact that they had no shareholder information site. I never got any reply but the pathetic site you refer to did come into existence shortly after that!

Its very frustrating isn't it, like you I feel that this is a company with a product. However, I am not so sure that I agree with your view that they have a contempt of PI's. If I felt that I would have sold. What I do think is that they are a bunch of techies, who have developed a potential winner and now don't seem to have anyone around to market it and close deals or drive decent PR.

[malkie] 05/2/2007 10:26

interesting - I have held for a few months and not a regular poster here.

Just one comment, whilst I see today's announcement and level of participation from informed parties as an extremely positive indication,( I am particularly impressed by El Oro's involvement - a very traditional & extremely shrewd outfit - worth checking them out ELX - www.eloro.co.uk - Chairman is a bit of an Eccentric - but non-the less they have near on £100k invested in NSO!), I am quite disappointed by the fact that the Company seems to want to keep to an absolute minimum, the level of visibility & information voluntarily provided to the market.

They are clearly making significant progress with their Offshore Treatment Units and have managed to garner significant support for this placing.
But no updates from the Company between the initial announcement and this placing has caused that the share price to languish at these levels for several months and thus benefited the placing participants with a nice low entry point.

I fear that this lack of clear market communications and low visibility may be an indicator that, if things do take off, the long term interests of the private investor may not be as clearly aligned to those of the Directors & Major shareholders as one would have hoped and expected.

The pathetic state of the Company's own investor awareness site is an example of how they hardly seem to even pay lip service to the retail investment community.

Don't get me wrong, I feel that the fundamentals are there for a very significant business enterprise, but how much we as retail investors will see of the benefit remains to be seen.

Continue to hold and would be interested in other views, hopefully to the contrary, but I feel that the way this is playing out indicates a bit about the psychology of the management and perhaps a bit of contempt for retail investors.


The biggest indicator of this is of course the fact that no shares have been traded as yet today!!

[wiganer] 05/2/2007 08:36

El Oro are no mugs.

[2magpies] 05/2/2007 08:34

I think that the new appointment suggests (strongly) a strategic move planned for the UK waste management industry/market. That could have a huge impact on NSO fortunes.

Also I like the El Oro stake!

[abubryn] 05/2/2007 08:19

I think .55p is taking the mick a bit but I cynically think that the share price will move up now news can be given out.It was obvious over last 2 weeks that some juggling was going on with share price .Keep plodding on keep your place beneath the high table and hope the greedy will drop a few crumbs for you .better this than an empty table to start with ?

[k123] 05/2/2007 08:02

If 0.55 is good for them is good for me,i hold.

[gantenbrink] 05/2/2007 07:51

A placing is never great news due to dilution but at least it's not at too much of a discount. Hopefully they had some intimations of positive news in the offing with which to get it away to thos who bought. Certainly it would be good to see something upbeat to move this share price