Prelude Trust Share Discussion Threads

[tiltonboy] 29/3/2007 14:48

It is more likely to be the MM finding a line of stock and passing it on for a halfpenny turn.

tiltonboy

[fft] 29/3/2007 12:11

99% certain its a rollover. Adding up the two trades at 13.50 comes to 440,00, which is far to close to the trade in the middle at 439,069. I would guess that he has rounded upto 440K.

That would be why the spread was so high. It looks like about 2200 commission (which is way too high for a rollover), but if that also accounted for another 931 shares to round up to 440K, then it doesnt seem so bad....

[rivaldo] 29/3/2007 11:57

Hope so FSE :o))

Interesting trades - 879k of sells reported, yet the price is stable and L2 is 3v2! Must be delayed reporting of buy trades to come...

[fse] 28/3/2007 22:53

Re ZBD Look at Episys clients for a possible link .... Sears ?

[rivaldo] 28/3/2007 22:17

More coverage for both ZBD (mentioning the Co-op) and Tribold:



"By Lautaro Vargas, 28 March 2007, emailed 7 times

East of England investors, Prelude Ventures, TTP Ventures and Esprit Capital Partners have backed liquid-crystal display (LCD) specialist, ZBD Displays Ltd, in a £10.5 million funding round.

What a catch: The ZBD technology in one of its many applicationsZBD, one of the first spin-outs to come from the Government's Defence Evaluation and Research Agency – now QinetiQ – will use the financing to roll out its 'zero-power' electronic displays to the global retail market.

The financing brought in new investors, Esprit Capital Partners and Lansdowne UK Equity Fund, who contributed 50 per cent of the round with the balance coming from existing investors, Prelude, TTP, QinetiQ and Dow Chemical Company.

QinetiQ led the round with a £3.5m investment. Prelude's contribution of £0.5m lifts its stake in ZBD to 22.9 per cent for which it has invested a total of £6.4m. TTP and Dow are thought to have matched this figure with investments of around £500k each.

ZBD, which spun out of DERA in 2000, manufactures zero power, bi-stable displays that only require power to update the display content. Its initial target market is retail signage where ZBD offers wireless signage with excellent optical performance, data content and battery lifetime.

Early adopters include Tesco and the CO-OP, but with the new money, ZBD will look to expand international operations and bolster manufacturing processes as it pushes to become a major supplier of a new generation of retail signage.

Bob Hook, who represents Prelude and Esprit on the ZBD board said: "This is a great result for the ZBD executive team and rewards them for a great deal of hard work over the last two years. This cash should enable them now to begin to build a successful global business and become a strong candidate for IPO in the next two-year time frame."

The ZBD financing was one of two new investment companies backed by Esprit in the week following an investment in software specialist, Tribold as part of a syndicated $15m (£7.6m) Series B funding round.

Esprit entered the round with an undisclosed sum with existing investor, Eden Ventures, to enable the international expansion plans for Tribold's industry leading suite of product management application software for communication service providers – phone companies, satellite companies and internet service providers (ISP).

As part of the investment, Esprit partner, Nic Brisbourne, will be joining the Tribold board.

Esprit Capital Partners is one of the top-tier technology venture capital firms in Europe and was formed in July 2006 when Cazenove Private Equity merged with Prelude Ventures to establish a new, independent management company to manage its existing funds.

The combined team has invested in many of Europe's most successful venture exits of recent years, including the sales of KVS to Veritas and AlphaMosaic.

Esprit has $500m of assets under management including Prelude Trust and the Esprit Capital I fund."

[rivaldo] 28/3/2007 19:00

I have other activities than posts on bb's that make me sleep better at night...but moving on swiftly...

Interesting stuff here mentioning M-Spatial here - of course Vodafone are an M-Spatial customer too:


Extract:
"Problem is, Internet companies have struggled to strike deals with wireless carriers for access to user location data. Instead, it's the operator-branded mapping and search applications, such as Orange Local (using a hosted service from start-up m-spatial Ltd. ) from Orange UK (London: OGE - message board), that are delivering the best user experience today.

Things could be changing, however. Vodafone Group plc (NYSE: VOD - message board)'s recent statement that it would work with Google Maps on auto-locate and local search services is explicit recognition that customers prefer to interact with services and brands they know and love from the wired Internet."

[hvs] 28/3/2007 18:05

Thank you for the posts riv,

Makes me sleep better at night.

lol !!!!

[timtom2] 28/3/2007 12:28

Thansk riv - I read it in a mag yesterday whilst out and couldn't find a link - guessed it was old news and I had missed the ADVFN BB post about it.

[rivaldo] 28/3/2007 11:53

TimTom, no - no-one's posted it, but you've got me to Google and I found this, which is I assume what you're referring to? Great news again. Looks like ZBD are going for global domination!



"Display firm signs breakthrough deal in US
by Richard Wilson
Monday 26 March 2007

Low power display firm ZBD has lined up a breakthrough deal which will see its LCD-based sales and advertising system piloted with a retailer in the US.

The Malvern-based firm already has pilots running with three retailers in the UK, which are Tesco, Dixons and John Lewis, but this will be its first US deal. "We have pilot running in Germany with Metro and our first US pilot is due to begin in May," said a spokesman for ZBD.

The company is moving into commercial production of its display system and the US deal comes at a time when the company is expanding its international marketing activities. This follows the injection of a £10.5m investment in a new venture funding round.

"We're in a strong position to start seeing commercial benefits and this new round of funding gives us the basis to deliver our growth plans on a global level," said Clive Mayne, CEO of ZBD.

The display company was a technology spin-out from Qinetiq in 2000 and the R&D giant remains a principle investor, contributing £3.5m in this latest funding round.

ZBD's original core technology was the bi-stable LCD, but to this it has added memory, a controller and a wireless interface with its own proprietary comms protocol called Bounce. This it claims has lower power consumption than Bluetooth and even ZigBee standards.

The result is a display unit complete with radio, called electronic point-of-purchase (epop), which can be used to distribute and display pricing information and advertising images around a supermarket or department store.

The actual LCD, based on the firm's in-house zenithal bi-stable technology is QVGA (320x240) with 100dpi resolution. Being bi-stable, it only needs power to change the image, and not to maintain it. As a result the display units are claimed to run for five years between battery changes.

The company said it will use the new funding to develop its manufacturing operations and it has established partnerships with manufacturers in Europe and China."

[timtom2] 28/3/2007 10:42

Might have missed it but has anyne posted on the ZBD deal in the US with a US retailer?

[rivaldo] 27/3/2007 22:42

Oh gawd hvs, it's only an opinion and it's probably wrong! Still, I know from your postings on other stocks that you have a lot of patience, and that may well be necessary here.

[hvs] 27/3/2007 14:42

I agree rivaldo,

Just have to sit tight.

In view of your positive feed back just bought another 10K.

[rivaldo] 27/3/2007 14:25

One day hvs. PDT is almost a safe haven now it seems to me! With almost 40% of the m/cap in cash of around £15m, plus the investee valuations more than justified by the CPS sale price and the ZBD funding, there's a big gap to be filled up to that 150p or above NAV.

Another "up" funding round or investee sale would go down well, and until then it's just a case of sitting tight and seeing if we get some more "inside" institutional interest since private investors don't seem to be interested or have the patience at present - even though this is a lovely ISAble stock.

[hvs] 27/3/2007 11:16

Still cannot get to grips with such large discount to NAV.

Surely share price has to catch up soon ?

[rivaldo] 26/3/2007 22:43

150p for me TimTom - the CPS gain will probably be reduced as usual by fees etc, and there don't appear to have been any significant "up" funding rounds in the last 6 months.

[timtom2] 26/3/2007 17:11

Any NAV predictions? Always interested to knwo what others might think on that point - who can get closest. Say 155p?

[hvs] 26/3/2007 10:37

FSE,

Thank you,

You are making a very valid point.

[fse] 25/3/2007 16:29

Colour is a problem but with signage its arguably better to have a clear black & white display with the information and let the product speak for itself.
Its not like a flyer that you read which needs the colour , these signs will sit next to the product in question.
Colour will come but its not as important perhaps as in other media.

[timtom2] 25/3/2007 10:45

Colour next but certainly not as easy and isn't there a problem that needs a backlight with colour?

[hvs] 24/3/2007 21:31

FSE ,

It could have been colour ,

Nice face though.

[timtom2] 23/3/2007 17:35

Thought I'd see a picture somewhere !!

[caradog] 23/3/2007 16:06

Oranges have good memories!
Back in Wales now. And I was right about that thrombowatsitsname test.

The most interesting part of the Pricer announcement is that Ishida are paying a million pounds + a deferred 1.5 million + royalties for the Japanese and Korean rights.

[timtom2] 23/3/2007 15:12

Depends on the qualiy of the picture. ZBD could do a picture too. My money is on whoever can get in with Tesco.