Vectura Share Discussion Threads

[0815exitstrategy] 15/5/2018 09:19

think so too. no news + not a very high volume, what else should it be?

[pooroldboy55] 15/5/2018 08:08

Is this another pump and dump ? Looks a bit like it to me.

[polaris] 14/5/2018 21:57

My medium term target is a bit dependent on the GSK litigation outcomes and the progress with development of the generic ellipta device, also GSK. If these go in VEC favour then you are looking at a £1Bn+ takeout, as the potential losses in the US respiratory market are just too big for GSK (Ellipta series are also their big growth market). They can outbid any other possible suitors, my guesses would be Sandoz, Mylan or another large player in the generics arena, because GSK are the incumbent and buying out a possible generic device means that they keep market share and pricing structure. no-one else is close with this type of device development. 1Bn would be about 150p, that is my base target from today's pov. Things can rapidly change should VEC find a good partner for the developments. I also cannot really put a timescale on that, sometime in the next 12-18 months is best guess with current public information.

[insideryou] 14/5/2018 18:30

Agreed paul et al... Bene449 became a good friend as he knew the inside track... The past is where it should be... Lessons were learned and we are in the only time frame you will ever control. This one. The now... For now, vec looking strong and i am sure a good fit for another suitor... What is your realistic price target for this?... Thank you for the clarity on pauly pilot being Paul scott... He too was prolific in the crazy days of throwing a dart at the tech mark and quadrupling your money in no time.... Since then, i have struggled to be fair... Far to nonchalant...

[ianood] 14/5/2018 17:54

Pauly pilot is still about, he is Paul Scott at Stockopedia and writes a daily small company update.

[flemster] 14/5/2018 16:25

pointing in the right direction

[polaris] 14/5/2018 13:42

Ah yes motley fool. No, i must have posted as polaris or something with polaris in it. My handle has been very similar over the years. I haven't posted on motley fool in many years, hence i forgot the name of the site and my handle. At the time, i was following Bene449 (i think that was the name) and a few friends of mine who also got into the game at the same time.

Yes, the following week GIM gave back something like £13. However, there were times in the 1998-2000 timeframe where, quite literally, you stuck a pin in the tech stock name list and you would get a multi-bagger. I wasn't even margin trading at that point either. It was all on full certificates, T+3 the norm and T+20 for 'trading'. Thinking back, it was all so basic cf. what i have available to me today. Crazy, crazy days.

Thanks for the trip down memory lane - some people made the sort of fortunes overnight that the average trader today can only dream of.

Now let's get back to VEC, which seems to have perked up over the last few days. Can't spend too much time with non relevant posts these days. ;-)

regards,

Paul

[insideryou] 14/5/2018 12:36

Great to read that paul... I watched that 10 poind rise that day on bbc 2 ceefax updated every 15 mins... I made 600grand in 8 hours, technically... The next day it lost i believe 8 pound.... Indeed crazy days... Did you post on motley fool as pauly pilot?

[cumnor] 14/5/2018 12:30

Two great, and entertaining, posts guys about the vagaries and madness of the markets. If we all only knew back then what we know now.......
The days of mad, speculative frenzy in particular shares-azm was one of my favorites-are gone. But even now with the Dow at 25000 it's anyone's guess where the markets in general are headed. Slow and steady, hopefully, with Vec will do me fine.

[insideryou] 14/5/2018 10:52

Paul, do you remember the irrational exuberance of the tech mark index? I happened to be in geo interactive, now emblaze at 36 pence and sold my 60.000 shares between 36 and 25 pounds netting massive gains. I threw away at that time 250k of it on a basket of tech mark cap but cleared over 1.5 million and living in dubai, the uk government couldn't get their paws on it... Since then, i have struggled in the markets, and now keep a 100k portfolio, mostly of old losers... I hold vec see and now pty again which i hope turned the page from a disaster movie to the heroes journey... Tough game this market and very grateful for my geo interactive ride of the century... Great post as most of your stuff is.

[rathean] 14/5/2018 08:39

More steady buying this morning, nice tick up heading towards 90 ceiling in the short term, fair value imo.

[rathean] 11/5/2018 16:11

Great post Paul, I think we all fall for the same mistakes and adjust a strategy over time.Impressive number of PIs buying in the last hour, looking for momentum no doubtful unless I didn't get the buy now memo :/

[polaris] 11/5/2018 14:34

justiceforthemany - don't take it personally, i don't mean it that way.

There are too many who just pot shot at a share and then wonder why they lose money by selling too early or holding too long. If people are not willing to put the time in to understand their investments then they are better off plain gambling or putting their money in an index tracker.

Hedge funds short shares because they can. That can be based on short term newsflow, lack of it, the shareholder mix, whether the company can defend itself as in a closed period before results, a market rumour, a leak, to cause a Bod change, other activism, the list goes on. I don't give a monkeys about their motives as they are always short term and i look at a company based on the full case. Sometimes i look for it, as the elastic effect of a winding up of a short position can be a very nice bonus. The market is a voting machine in the short term and a weighing machine in the long term. You pick an investment strategy based on this and many other variables. Hedgies make their money on the voting machine aspect, in general.

Buybacks are one way to return value to the shareholders. Sure, a dividend is money in the hand, but a share buyback will lead to a higher EPS and so a higher price keeping the same PE ratio. Paying a one-off dividend is not a way to bring in and keep returns shareholders. If VEC have a forward strategy that involves cap-ex then it is dangerous to pay a dividend. Better to use some spare cash for a share buyback than disappoint the dividend brigade. They expect a payment every year and that payment to, preferably, rise.

Looking to buy exactly at the bottom or sell at the top is impossible. I set my buy and sell ranges and then let them run. Emotion is your enemy. Always leave room for someone else to buy your shares when you sell and to sell their shares when you are buying.

I look for fundamentally undervalued shares or other markets that are unloved for one reason or another. I am long VEC, SHP, IMB, RRS and short in GBP/SEK at the moment. I've recently held AZN, RIO, SSE, VOD and BP - those hit my targets and i sold and moved on. Each has risen above my sell price but i set my limits and stops and hold to them. Leave room for the other guy who wants to buy your shares. All turned me the profit i was looking for, which is the name of the game.

VEC for me is a longer term 'project', where i expect to build a position and try to turn a 6 figure profit. These are hard to find and execute. The last ones of those i got right were AVM and AAZ some number of years ago. AVM - I bought at something like 55p average and sold at 220p on a 125k holding. AAZ i bought up 370k in the low 30s and watched it spike to over 80p over a christmas trading period. That was before i put in place my target strategy and i gave almost all of that back. i then threw most of my AVM profit on a poor judgement call in POG as my understanding of the company was flawed.

Getting a margin call when the last time you looked you had 250k GBP in your account is not something i wish on anyone. Each mistake teaches you something, the bigger the mistake the bigger the lesson. I now only trade what i can truly afford (not i think i can afford) to lose. My pot is bigger than most, but not as big as it has been and i am less gung-ho than i was 10-15 years ago, operating at a much lower level of leverage.

Good weekend all,

Paul

[justiceforthemany] 11/5/2018 11:31

The £15M on buybacks should have been returned to shareholders in the form of a dividend.

[justiceforthemany] 11/5/2018 11:29

I meant a bad day for the share price FFS! Long and strong here. Worth double but question you need to ask is why hedge funds are shorting this!

[polaris] 11/5/2018 09:26

Why is that a bad day? Mylan petition denial is not an issue for Hikma/VEC, except that it 'may' lead to Sandoz getting their generic onto the US market ahead of the others. The US market for Advair took at 20+% hit to revenues in the last reported GSK Q, probably a result of them switching patients on to other more advanced products.

For VEC, the IP battle with GSK, progress with Flutiform, the pipeline studies and the other respiratory delivery generics are way more important.

If you are unhappy with your investment then sell up and move on. Surely you made an investment case before you bought in? Check your list of pros and cons wrt your price targets and then re-evaluate. If you bought in on a whim then stop gambling! If here just to cause trouble by random posting then move on, nothing to see here.

[justiceforthemany] 10/5/2018 23:00

Another bad day then. MM's toying with the share price
CEO email address to voice your thoughts
[e-mail]

[taffy100] 10/5/2018 21:10

FDA Denies Mylan Petition on Advair Generics

[polaris] 10/5/2018 13:47

It is all a strange state of affairs. However, in the short term the market is a pure voting machine that is open to manipulation, sentiment and other vaguaries. The gross distortions possible are evident - just take a look at recent share price movements (3 month window) in GSK, SHP and IMB for example (three i hold).

It's not beyond the realms of possibility that VEC can revisit the post results lows in the short term. All we can look at are the longer term prospects or be part of the sentiment driven short termism (i.e. trade). It is almost impossible to catch the low or pick the high.

Right now i'm reasonably comfortable with my position in VEC because i follow the long term case - i might be wrong of course, no guarantees here!

I will look to transfer more of my available funds (now 25% invested, rest in cash) if opportunities arise going forward. That remains the low 70s for VEC in my opinion. I will probably not go above 200k shares here, but that remains news and timescale driven. I've only got 55k here at the moment.

regards,

Paul

[cumnor] 10/5/2018 13:32

I acknowledge the above but think ye are also being too kind to an impotent CEO who wasted £15ml on a share buyback and who has overseen a rebasing of the share price to high 70s-80p level from 140p (post advair announcement) on nothing but imo manipulation by large holders and/or hedgies not averse to planting the odd story with gullible journos. The company was rife for a cheap takeout and perhaps there is an agenda which should have been considered by management?
From the business point of view not a lot has changed, and there are opportunities as well as the litigation and advair which may go either way, to justify the share price drop. But for a CEO to oversee such value destruction-for eg we have no idea who was behind the huge volume days a few weeks ago-in what is basically a pretty solid company without comment or action confirms to me at least the manipulators can spot a dodo a mile off and know they are fairly safe having a go at VEC. Lets see if he is up to the job at the next AGM. aimo

[alexchry] 10/5/2018 12:55

I agree with your comments polaris but I feel any significant investor would be looking at EBITDA as well as the headline figure. The next 12-18 months are very significant for the future of Vec. They have a drug completing ph2 and one completing ph3 this year. If successful, Vec want to find a partner for each of these. I would have thought they would already be having preliminary discussions with potential partners. I hope they are also making progress on finding a partner or partners to make use of their device now the FDA seem to have no issue with it. The GSK litigation is the big concern, UK decision should be known early next year but may be quite a while after that before the US decision is known. The FDA decision on Advair should be known by the middle of next year. I am sure that a lot of investors will be put off by all these unknowns, particularly the GSK litigation, so I can't see the share price making much progress before we get some news, I just hope the AGM next week will be positive and give the share price a bit of a boost

[jimboyce] 10/5/2018 12:22

Perhaps the amortisation is too severe. The accounts should reflect fair value. Does this infer that Skyepharma was overpriced to start with?

[polaris] 10/5/2018 11:53

The major problem is the amortisation for the takeover. It distorts the headline figures and makes many think VEC is loss making! There is a fair chunk to be amortised over next 5-7 years too.

In terms of sales and products, VEC continue to make steady progress. It is clear that the GSK litigation on Ellipta IP could be a significant plus towards YE (EU) and 2019 (in US).

Generic device partnering and development will be key. I expect updates on that as the year progresses.

I don’t see much downside from here, but then I did buy in at the low 70s so still in profit.

There are more exciting pharmas out there right now for price action on TO news. VEC time will come. Until then let’s hope for a steady ship.

[rathean] 10/5/2018 11:02

Pffft. 70s again :/