Tungsten Share Discussion Threads

[bs76] 23/3/2016 14:03

I bought small chunk as well. ??

[edwardt] 23/3/2016 13:49

just topped up - must be mad.

[k3vmc] 23/3/2016 12:30

Chem, good! I thought you were paying attention at the time.

About time they closed one of the 11 "things" that they had in the pipeline.

[edwardt] 23/3/2016 11:52

lets hope they pull something out their hat then.

[chemistdude] 23/3/2016 11:52

K3vmc when I spoke to Cynthia last week all I learnt was:

April tnf head announcement (also at capital market they said 8 weeks so I'm going to guess around April 5th)

Presenting at Goldman sachs - May

Presenting at Citibank - May

Presenting at Boston conference for investors - August

Results due July 25th

Website (new web positioning) - Connie still updating (was in development from before she started so she is putting her touches on it now).

[dollarzpounds] 23/3/2016 11:48

It does make you wonder about the running of this company ?! It feels like I got an invite to the madhatters tea party when I bought the shares in Tungsten?!??!!!

[k3vmc] 23/3/2016 11:48

bs76

Take out Odey's cfds and the 3.5m equity swap and it comes back to 100%.

Chem, when is the new bod member supposed to arrive? Has to be before 9th May, surely? I would have thought 3 months garden leave, maximum, so if he signed up before CMD, it can't be that much longer.

I bought more at 53.5p. This is what happens when I don't get in my garden, away from wifi.

[edwardt] 23/3/2016 11:26

agreed - had not seen artemis disclose at all. I doubt it is recent either as volume has been light...

[bs76] 23/3/2016 11:06

Tungsten site updated on 22nd March (yesterday)
hxxps://www.tungsten-network.com/us/about-tungsten/investor-relations/corporate-governance/

As at 22 March 2016 the Company is aware of the following shareholders holding over 3% of the ordinary share capital of the Company.
Investor Name % of Company
Odey Asset Management LLP2 19.28%
Edmund Truell1 15.85%
Indus Capital Partners, LLC4 10.08%
Morgan Stanley & Co. International plc3 8.27%
Sanlam Four Investments UK 5.80%
Hargreaves Lansdown Asset Management 4.62%
Artemis Investment Management 4.03%
FIL Investment International 3.63%
UBS Securities 3.42%


Couple of questions
When did Artemis and UBS got more than 3%? I haven't seen any rns.

Now total from above 9 investors is 74.98%

They still got the below info on the page-
"The number of ordinary shares in issue was 125,405,397 and insofar as the company is aware, the percentage of shares that are not in public hands is 30.56%."

I thought these 30.56% include's Edi's shares but it doesn't seem like that.

Then 74.98 + 30.56 is over 105%. Can somebody explain?

[debbie_does_dallas_twice] 23/3/2016 10:42

What utter garbage,bereft of any facts whatsoever.
What he actually offered was loan notes or basically an I.O.U to pay shareholders 80p over a set period of time.
If he did not want to stump up the actual hard 80p in cash now ,he's hardly going to do so at a pound share is he now?

[chemistdude] 23/3/2016 09:13

Tungsten Corporation – Who Knew eInvoicing Could Be So Exciting?

It is somewhat ironic that the business of eInvoicing which we might think of as somewhat dull and boring, has created one of the most fascinating business stories of recent times. Tungsten Corporation was created by the vision of Edi Truell, who created a publicly quoted firm from OB10, the well-established eInvoicing leaders, and a bank, purchased to provide the funding to extend the offering into supply chain finance (SCF). Truell is a well-respected City figure with some big successes to his name.

The firm was floated on the London AIM market at 225p a share in 2013, and after initial gains, was attacked by “short sellers” who felt the shares were overvalued and succeeded in driving down the price to some 50p a share a few months back. Meanwhile, Truell stepped back from day to day running, and under new CEO Richard Hurwitz, the firm seemed to have turned a corner with the share price rising a little this year. Meanwhile, the eInvoicing underlying business continued to be pretty successful, although uptake of the SCF offering was slower than planned and the firm is still loss-making. A spend analytics option (which we like, and indeed wrote about here) was also launched.

But now, there is drama in the Tungsten world. Truell, who owns 16% of the firm, has made an offer to buy Tungsten, at around 80p per share and stick it together with some of his private corporate interests, creating a new private business. “He set out a plan that stopped short of bidding for the full firm, but would see him buy Tungsten’s network arm and combine it with his telematics business Tantalum and various other assets” says the Telegraph.
Not sure I fully get that – the “network arm” would seem to be basically the core of Tungsten’s business. However, the Board of Tungsten have rejected these proposals, saying it “found them to date to be universally without merit for shareholders.” Tungsten shareholders would end up with a minority stake in a privately controlled and illiquid business.
Truell responded to that by resigning from the Board and implying that the Tungsten board had encouraged him to make an offer, and that he might even put in a hostile bid for the firm. Meanwhile his brother Danny (I’m thinking “Dallas” here, for those of you of a certain age) is still a non-exec on the Tungsten Board – and is keeping quiet.

I haven’t met Truell although Jason Busch has. However, we did question some of his more optimistic claims when he was running the firm; for instance, he got investors rather excited about the prospect of a huge German public sector eInvoicing deal.

Anyone who knows the German public sector always thought it very unlikely that the central government would ever mandate some national eInvoicing solution when the states (Länder) and even cities are so powerful. So we’re not sure he did a lot of good for the firm with some of those claims about future growth prospects, and his whole "buy a bank" strategy unwound with the bank being sold a few months back. The current management have been much more measured and seem to be focused on steadily building the business.

Having said that, shareholders who bought at £2 a share might not be averse to selling out having seen their investment drop considerably. So there is a price as always at which Truell could buy the firm; but would he want to be the guy who floated the firm at £2.25 and bough it back at £1? That would not do his reputation too much good.

Does any of this matter to customers? Tobe honest, not really, as long as it does not lead to a period of uncertainty. It is more important to the firm that the SCF and analytics offerings realise their potential, building on the market-leading eInvoicing position. But the dynamics of this tussle are fascinating to follow anyway.

[bs76] 22/3/2016 17:10

shorts increased 3.27=>3.28

GSA increased from 0.69 => 0.70 on 18th (on Friday before this latest drama started)

[manics] 22/3/2016 13:33

Well I'm not interested in selling my shares under £3 and certainly not IPO. Edi can take that to the fact bank.

[andrewdbl] 22/3/2016 12:40

and IC upgrades to a hold!
(is that a buy or sell signal?)

[bs76] 22/3/2016 11:47

:) I will be buying this now in small chunks. I was in buying mode when price was between 30-45 and then was reducing position between 65-75.

My reasons to buy

- "A source close to the deal told City A.M. that there were two offers on the table: one a clear cash offer for 80p a share, and other, in which the business would be consolidated into a larger firm, for 111p a share."
hxxp://www.cityam.com/237231/tungsten-board-rejects-edi-truells-offer-as-universally-without-merit-for-shareholders

Minimum price is 80p which is 30% upside from current price

- Shorts will go down as this will turn into a deal stock.

- Even though some long's might want to get out but i doubt they will sell massively for less than 80p

- There were some doubts raised about Odey as his fund went down 20% last month but it went up 15% month before. Even if they have to liquidate for redemptions, 20% share of tung is only worth 15m (in fund size of 800m-1b). Share price will collapse if they try to get out and will get quite less than 15m. So probality is quite low.

[pshevlin] 22/3/2016 10:41

Moved my cash to PAYS now. Too much risk here with all the squabbling that is going to go on for not too much upside in the medium term.

[edwardt] 22/3/2016 10:22

us small guys invariably get rolled over. I suspect if this goes private we will not have an option to bat on. If I were guessing, he will do the classic private equity trick of injecting a lot of debt into the balance sheet. we shall see but he is not the sort of chap to lie down, his ego will not allow for that. tung needs to show that it can stand on its own two feet - some acceleration of the business plan needs to happen pronto - give us news on a new jv etc to demonstrate this is the trophy asset in the truell empire. the issue of cash coming from the bank sale is evidently the trigger for all this. the managers at tung appear to want to keep it there as a contingency but eddie as a true 'private equity' man will see that as a non starter. all good fun if it were not my money they were all squabbling over!

[k3vmc] 22/3/2016 10:16

Treat them mean to keep them keen?

ET will be smarting from that public slap in the face. Luckily for us, there is little chance of a cosy deal between Ed and the bod, which would have been typical of AIM. Grease the bod and shaft the PIs. Lucky for us them, that Odey is as out of pocket as some here are.

For the sp, the only way is up, IMHO.

[dollarzpounds] 22/3/2016 10:11

I can save you the wait on that one - it won't be in OUR interests.

[chemistdude] 22/3/2016 10:02

Rightly or wrongly Edi has been given a lot of the blame publicly, however it is wrong to infer he doesn't know how to do business. Yes the deal was rightfully rejected but the board shouldn't have kind of chastised him on Monday in the decorum they have and publicly at that - they should have chosen their words more carefully. Sky should never have got wind of it. He'll be back making a big move, imo (whether it's in our interests or not is tbc)

We can't expect Edi to take all the blame and then on top of it get disrespected by the bod/press and then not do anything about it.

[abcd1234] 22/3/2016 09:49

“Don’t be surprised if I come back with a public proposal,” he told The Times"

[chemistdude] 22/3/2016 09:28

It's started

[chemistdude] 22/3/2016 09:13

SophieR on blueshare made the point, Edi was trying to offer us 80p/share using money from the bank sale (i.e buy us out with OUR OWN money!). Can't disagree with the boards decision on that one.