Prelude Trust Share Discussion Threads

[jonwig] 01/2/2007 19:36

I see lots of 'old timers' [sorry...] still here from 2004, when I sold my PDT shares at a time when there was lots of anger at Managers' lack of concern for outing the value. Nothing much changes on that front, does it!

Anyway, recent posts here have persuaded me back in today. (My shares were bought on PlusMarkets through TDW.)

[hvs] 01/2/2007 15:50

Thank you again rivaldo,

I like this statement in particular :

"It's clear to me that SiConnect is offering a truly cutting edge technology to a sector that's set to offer tremendous growth opportunities," said Masom, "I look forward to working with the great team at SiConnect and helping them achieve the success that's due."

Glad I have been topping up at the bottom.

[hvs] 01/2/2007 15:24

Nice find yet again rivaldo,

Looks like M-SPATIAL is going to be a real cracker.

Hopefully the uptick has started today.

[rivaldo] 01/2/2007 15:16

The full version of the M-Spatial news is now out:



"M-Spatial and Orange UK Trial Java Mobile Local Search
January 31, 2007

Cambridge UK, 29 January 2007: m-spatial today announces a partnership with Orange UK that further enhances its reputation for innovation and leadership in the mobile local search sector. In an extension to its existing relationship with m-spatial, Orange UK is sponsoring a trial of m-spatial's new Java version of the Orange Local mobile search and discovery service.

The trial, which began in December 2006, is comparing consumer reactions to the differing user experiences provided by the existing Orange Local browser-based service and the new Java service.

"The success of the Orange Local service in the UK and its incredible value in encouraging consumer adoption of mobile data has confirmed mobile local search as a strategic priority for the business," said Steve Ricketts, Orange UK. "By partnering with m-spatial on this trial we expect to generate a wealth of usage and behavioural information which will be used to ensure we continue to deliver the most compelling and intuitive service to our customers."

Built on m-spatial's Local Search and Discovery Engine (LSDE)™, the browser based version of Orange Local was launched at the beginning of 2006. Downloadable onto the mobile from the Orange World portal, m-spatial's new Java service builds on the LSDE technology, offering users additional functionality including the ability to smoothly pan and zoom around a map-based view of local services.

As a thin-client, the Java service also continues to enable users to dynamically retrieve rich and up-to-the-minute information relating to the chosen venue, business or service via a connection to live mobile internet services aggregated through the LSDE.

"With ever increasing numbers of handsets being Java enabled, the time is right to uniquely combine the benefits of a Java-based user interface with live access to a wealth of local content ," said Andy Walker, CEO of m-spatial. "We continue to drive mobile local search forward, taking advantage of the increasing sophistication of mobile handsets to deliver state-of-the-art services to consumers. Today's announcement is testament to our commitment to innovation in delivering the best possible user experience and we are delighted to have extended our relationship with Orange UK."

The new Java version of Orange Local went live in December and is available for download from the Orange World mobile portal for a limited number of trial participants."

[rivaldo] 01/2/2007 11:24

My word - the share price is positively zooming ahead now :o))

Perhaps word of the successful start of commercialisation for a lot of the investees is getting around. And the CPS deal cash will have helped of course.

[mangal] 30/1/2007 12:53

Yes, as long as GB is supported by the strongest nation in the World, it doesn't matter whether his wealth is real or imaginary. But how long can it last?
Sorry guys/gals, this is totally o/t & I won't make any further comments.

[hvs] 30/1/2007 11:33

If GORDON BROWN was in charge the gold mine would have gone 4 years ago .

[hvs] 30/1/2007 11:14

Especially when the price of GOLD is GOING UP.

[mangal] 30/1/2007 11:13

If someone is paying you to look after their gold mine, why would you want to sell that gold mine?

[hvs] 30/1/2007 09:55

Lets be optimistic and hope they will be out of their slumber this year.

[timtom2] 30/1/2007 09:50

Management need to be kicked out of their complacency - somehow. The whole point is to make money and not just sit on value.

Sitting on value is easy.

[fse] 29/1/2007 21:49

Its frustrating in the extreme. The portfolio has never looked stronger but the value is just not getting realised.
Of course we have a barrel of investments all maturing around the same point in time and this is why I have always been in favour of winding this portfolio up and them starting another one.
This in my opinion is the single largest hurdle in shareholders receiving value for their investments.
Management costs are high.
New acquisitions though have been on a more mature timeframe which is not bad.

The market cap here is 40M and there are a dozen or so companies in the portfolio, some of which PDT have major stakes in.
Some of which are likely worth a very great deal more than PDT have them down for.
Plus some cash !
Therein the dilema of it all.
The value is there

[timtom2] 29/1/2007 21:19

Well 8.5% of the year has nearly gone.
NAV is about £1.50 or so - if we can just close the gap it would be a major boost.
How do they intend to achieve that in the next 11 months?
What will happen that is so different to the previous 12 months?
I hold and like the look of the porfolio but have little belief this next 11 months will be much different as I cannot see what will make it so.

2008 perhaps with SiConnect and DisplayLink.

[hvs] 29/1/2007 17:59

Nice one yet again rivaldo,

I really feel we will see PDT deliver this year.

[rivaldo] 29/1/2007 17:52

Hvs, M-Spatial is one of my best hopes being on such a low valuation yet hooked up with the biggest names in the sector. After Vodafone comes news of Orange today:



"Local Mobile Search Gains Traction, Orange Extends Trials

Posted by Peggy Anne Salz Mon 29 Jan 2007 07:37 AM PST Orange UK has strengthened its existing ties with m-spatial, a provider of local mobile search solutions, launching a series of trials using m-spatial's new Java local search application. The trials will compare user reaction to the experiences delivered by the Orange Local service, which is browser-based, and the new Java service, which is a thin client downloadable onto the mobile from the Orange World portal.

Local mobile search is a "strategic priority for the business," Steve Ricketts, Orange UK, said in a statement. Through these trials the operator expects to "generate a wealth of usage and behavioural information which will be used to ensure we continue to deliver the most compelling and intuitive service to our customers." (The press release hasn't been posted yet.)

m-Spatial's Java client went live in December and Orange kicked off the trials around the same time, so it's not clear why we have a press release this week. It nonetheless dovetails well with the local mobile search announcements that made headlines in the last week.

For example, U.K. directory publisher and local search provider Yell (parent of U.S. yellow pages publisher) launched a local search service chock-full of features sure to give Google a run for its money. The application provides full access to Yell's listings. It also keeps track of users' regular queries and requests, providing an auto-suggest function to take some of the pain out of search for information on mobile. What's more it provides zoomable maps, and lets users save info to their contacts, or send it to friends via SMS.

Finally, Yell lets users click to call businesses, a lucrative search monetization scheme that execs tell me can bring in CPC rates of between US$3.90 and US$137.00 - a price driven by the potential value of a successful sale. Press release

On the heels of the Yell announcement, mobilePeople - the Danish mobile saerch company that designed Yell's app - released Mobile Search Trends 2006. The study speaks volumes about users' mobile search habits. A surprise: 6 percent of all mobile searches were for jobs and recruitment consultants just before Christmas 2006. According to mobilePeople's data the overall number of mobile searches conducted during 2006 grew ten fold on the previous year. (The study tracks trends in Portugal, The Netherlands, Belgium, the U.K., Ireland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden)

The top mobile search categories (in order of popularity) before and during the same period were:

1. Taxis
2. Takeaways
3. Restaurants
4. Supermarkets
5. Consumer electronics

Among the top 20 searches were banks and financial institutions, hotels, garage services, car parts, hairdressers, medical services, shoe retailers, cinemas, furniture outlets, toy retailers, department stores, pubs and coffee shops. The top 20 searches generated 80 percent of the entire search volume."

[hvs] 28/1/2007 17:13

This is very good news rivaldo.

M-Spatial will benefit greatly .

[rivaldo] 28/1/2007 15:54

An M-Spatial snippet - involvement with Vodafone on new projects is heartening to see:



"Vodafone to launch open source community portal called Betavine
Published by Paul Walsh January 26th, 2007 in Mobile web, Samantic Web, Mobile content, Fun, Search Thresher, News, Company news, Open Source and Testing.

Vodafone is looking to stimulate the development of new applications in the mobile and internet industry through a new community portal. And I'm lucky enough to be the first to tell people

The Portal called Betavine, has been scheduled for a *soft* launch on January 31st 2006 and I've agreed to help seed interest within the community to help grow awareness on the ground.

I was lucky enough to take part in a workshop alongside Andy Tiller from Shozu, Hakon Martinsen of m-spatial and Tom Hume, from Future Platforms to help Vodafone put together their requirements. It was interesting to see how they had put most of it together already, demonstrating their understanding of the open source community.

If you want to take a sneak preview and take part in a field trial between now and the 31st (possibly longer), then get in touch and I'll give you login details.

If you own a mobile application this is a great way to get free feedback and exposure.

About the Betavine portal
It's a research and development space run by Vodafone Group R&D. It aims to encourage collaboration in the area of mobile and internet communications.

As a user you can:

Download and test applications
Comment and contribute on the forums and blogs
As a developer you can

Create your own projects and host applications
Blog about your projects
Interact with your users and the Betavine community
On the Betavine Portal, interaction between developers and testers provides a testing ground for the latest concepts and technologies. New technologies are tested in real-world conditions, key technologies are identified and winning concepts come to the fore.

It's an open community that self-regulates. You are free to register and contribute to discussion threads and create or comment on blog entries. As a developer you can create a project space to upload your application, showcase your work and engage the Betavine testing community.

For students it's a chance to be involved in developing mobile applications through internships, 'externships' and competitions. Winning projects will be featured on the student page, and taken further through collaboration with the Betavine community.

Like featured projects and applications, the Betavine Web site itself is in continual beta testing by its users. Suggest new Web site features and discuss in the forum thread. Betavine's developers take their lead from the Web site community.

To participate in a beta trial before it's made public on January 31st 2007, get in touch with me.

This is a great opportunity to be one of the first to have an application on the portal."

[rivaldo] 22/1/2007 15:48

And now news from Kiadis. Sounds interesting, but more to the point is that Kiadis are out there buying and expanding, i.e they seem to be well and truly alive and kicking (unusually for a PDT biotech!), as are De Novo:



"Kiadis Pharma Acquires Assets to Develop Novel Cancer Treatments
18 January 2007

Acquisition of patents, compounds, targets, research data, tools and collaborations on the "Wnt-pathway" from Hybrigenics S.A.

Groningen, the Netherlands, January 18, 2007 – Pharmaceutical product development company Kiadis Pharma today announced it has acquired research assets related to the Wnt-signal transduction pathway from Hybrigenics S.A. This enables the company to accelerate its development of innovative anti-cancer medication. The agreement includes a complete research line, with all intellectual property, proprietary compounds, targets and research data generated.

Part of the intellectual property was developed by Professor Hans Clevers of the Hubrecht laboratory, who has become an alliance partner of Kiadis Pharma. His research revealed that mutations in the Wnt-pathway are associated with cancer of the intestine and a variety of other tissues. Kiadis Pharma will develop new oncology drugs based on the know-how accumulated in the multi-year research program it has acquired in this agreement.

"This is the first major acquisition after the merger with Celmed BioSciences and signifies another important step forward for Kiadis Pharma. The agreement ensures that we can continue to develop our product pipeline. We can add the new validated oncology targets, compounds in development and the rich knowledge base behind them to expedite the growth of our company." says Manja Bouman, CEO, Kiadis Pharma.

Kiadis Pharma becomes co-owner of the patent family "β-Catenin, TCF-4 and APC Interact to Prevent cancer". It acquires full ownership of the "TCF target genes" patent family, specifically covering several well validated and drugable targets, featuring the membrane protein GPR49 as showcase. These proprietary targets have a central role in the biology of colorectal cancer. The targets and the interacting compounds already identified will allow Kiadis Pharma to develop novel cancer drugs based on the Wnt-signal transduction pathway.

The agreement includes an upfront payment for the assets and an agreement on sharing of milestone payments and royalties in case of further licensing of IP on GPR49. Hybrigenics S.A. and Kiadis Pharma B.V. agreed not to disclose further financial details concerning this transaction."

[rivaldo] 18/1/2007 20:58

Flyinghog, out of interest were they recent exchanges or are you talking historically?

Two more stories about DisplayLink. Have to say, with PDT having put in a large amount, this could be a biggie imo (no idea about competition etc, but judging from all these articles it seems to be a world first):


"Our demo used a chip/software from a company in the UK - DisplayLink. A PC driver transmitted the display data in a visually lossless, compressed fashion over standard Wireless USB. At the other end of the Wireless USB link was the DisplayLink chip that decompressed the data and drove the VGA or DVI input to the LCD monitor. The display looked absolutely great. What is good about our approach is that the laptop or personal computer doesn't need to be just 18″ away. It could be on your lap, or on your credenza. In addition, it is easy to envision using the same device with your HDTV. You could sit with your laptop on the couch and see content on your 720P 50″ plasma. Imagine looking at photos, watching YouTube videos, iTunes videos or music videos and more. Very cool!"

I like the "in production" and "many new products in 2007" aspects here:



"On January 9th, 2007 DisplayLink announced two new products the DL-120 and DL-160 capable of pushing video over wireless USB. The DL-120 is capable of delivering 1280×1024 and the DL-160 allows for 1600×1200 resolution wirelessly.

DisplayLink claims the wireless connections will deliver 32-bit true color quality and DVD quality video in realtime without loss of quality or color. Applications will include multiple monitors from one computer, wireless control of photo frames, and more.

The chips are currently in production with no distribution release date on their site. This is the beginning of many new products to come from DisplayLink in 2007."

[flyinghog] 17/1/2007 21:04

BUYBACKS
The Asset value per remaining share is enhanced if shares bought at discount to asset value, but the management fee reduces as assets go down. It is likely that there is no better asset enhancing investment in the short term but having had an exchange or two with the management - do not expect much.
Fiduciary duty to shareholders v Turkeys voting for Christmas.

[fse] 16/1/2007 21:48

DisplayLink does indeed look interesting plus near term action....

[rivaldo] 16/1/2007 19:55

Jimcar, Sciona said previously they'd sold 10,000 kits in the past year in 2004/5, so they're receiving considerable revenues:



Incidentally, Sciona are to be featured in February's Esquire Magazine in the USA - can't be bad:



"Eat Your Genes

DNA Testers Claim They Know Your Hidden Hereditary Flaws; and How to Overcome Them

Sara Reistad-Long
February 2007, Volume 147, Issue 2

Here's a way to feel bionic: Test your genome for deficiencies, then compensate by loading up on foods that, when converted to energy, can fill those exact gaps. A few easy adjustments and you'll live to be older than Andy Rooney. Or at least less cantankerous. That's the idea, anyway. Increasingly, private DNA testers are hyping nutrigenomics-the intersection of genes and diet-as health care's missing link. For a couple hundred dollars, merchants will churn out veritable tomes of customer-specific, DNA-derived wisdom, culled from mailin mouth swabs and lifestyle questionnaires. Lack a GSTM1 gene? Studies suggest you're exceptionally bad at smoke detoxification. Consider arming yourself with bok choy. (Or quit smoking.) Without the right MTHFR, you could be lousy at DNA repair, affecting heart health and colorectal-cancer risk. Hedge your bets by eating liver. Having one kind of ACE marker suggests you'll excel at short, intense physical activities; exhibit another and you can last longer at the gym. Got the former, need the latter? Guzzle fish oil.

All this may sound a little reductionist (and there is no shortage of scientists calling the DNA testers snake-oil peddlers), but advocates claim that's exactly the point: "People are inundated with health information. It's overwhelming. What we're offering is a way to prioritize," says Rosalynn Gill-Garrison, chief science officer at Sciona, whose Cellf kit retails for $269 (sciona.com). We'll drink to that-provided our ALDH2 liver-detox gene checks out."

[jimcar] 16/1/2007 16:20

Thanks for all the posts rivaldo

The Sciona product costs $269. I wonder how many they are selling? The margins should be quite good.