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Online Shareholder Event

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UncleEbenezer
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Online Shareholder Event

#323461

Postby UncleEbenezer » July 3rd, 2020, 9:42 am

Proven G&I Annual report. Big loss in NAV and TR, dividend 1.75p (from 2p same time last year).

On the positive side, they've announced the intention to the Right Thing re: shareholder event:

https://www.investegate.co.uk/article.aspx?id=20200702074627H5653 wrote:Shareholder event
The Company’s annual Shareholder event [...].

[...], we will be hosting our first fully-digital Shareholder Day in the Autumn, using an online platform to deliver our usual insights into fund performance and market conditions, as well as providing an opportunity for you to ask questions of our investment team and hear from our portfolio companies.

We will soon distribute invitations to this digital event, as well as providing you with further information on the format and logistics for the day and we would encourage you to join us for the session.


I say "announced the intention" because it remains to be seen whether they'll make it work in practice (i.e. pick a competent delivery partner, and not do anything too dumb to subvert the whole thing). I shall certainly hope to be there.

UncleEbenezer
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Re: Online Shareholder Event

#347575

Postby UncleEbenezer » October 14th, 2020, 9:54 am

Email received today (interesting I'm still on their list, as it's 18 months since my shares went into a nominee account).

The invitation to register takes me to Zoom, which looks like a clue as to what platform they're using ;) Date Nov.17th. I've registered.

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Re: Online Shareholder Event

#357071

Postby 127tolmers » November 16th, 2020, 4:18 pm

Reminder of Proven event tomorrow. No goody bags and nibbles this year

UncleEbenezer
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Re: Online Shareholder Event

#357154

Postby UncleEbenezer » November 16th, 2020, 7:53 pm

FWIW, I sent them email back when I registered, including:

Thanks for holding this event online. I hope this will now be permanent, and you'll continue to provide online access even if you (also) return to a physical venue in future.

Regarding questions, I can't really anticipate what you'll say at the presentation and what questions might arise. I'll be expecting someone to address how you've been affected by the rule change that (among other things) banned VCTs from MBOs. I understand that has little direct effect on you (at least if we discount Mobeus poaching Trevor Hope) but, for example, to what extent is the market now flooded with much more money from other VCTs seeking the same investments? And is Equity Crowdfunding - the new kid on the block - making inroads? There's demonstrable overlap: for example former Beringea investee Tossed has successfully crowdfunded.


I expect others will have asked similar questions, and they'll tell us something.

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Re: Online Shareholder Event

#357168

Postby ukfire » November 16th, 2020, 9:29 pm

127tolmers wrote:Reminder of Proven event tomorrow. No goody bags and nibbles this year


What's normally in the goody bags?

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Re: Online Shareholder Event

#357280

Postby scotia » November 17th, 2020, 9:56 am

ukfire wrote:
127tolmers wrote:Reminder of Proven event tomorrow. No goody bags and nibbles this year


What's normally in the goody bags?

We need to re-think the organisation of on-line VCT events. We (the shareholders) all need to get fully into the spirit of a real event - so we should all register a few weeks in advance, and the goody bags, nibbles and drinks should all be distributed by the VCT (free of course), using snail-mail. Then when the online meeting starts we can all be as convivial as would be the norm at a real event. OK - I appreciate that there may be some problems with perishable nibbles, but if that is a bit problematical, they can just increase the alcohol supply, and that should ensure we all have a good time. :D

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Re: Online Shareholder Event

#357352

Postby Vulgaris » November 17th, 2020, 1:04 pm

I only caught the second half of this -with the case studies- so am maybe being unfair. However struck by how full of touchy feely buzzwords, rather than cold hard numbers. Far more impressed with Albion last week and with Guinness EIS a few weeks previously.

Perhaps the first half was drier and more informative?

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Re: Online Shareholder Event

#357369

Postby UncleEbenezer » November 17th, 2020, 1:34 pm

The online format worked (mostly) well, particularly the first half - which was also the more interesting. As for goodies, I have my own kitchen just downstairs, and much enjoyed a good cuppa - and for less than the cost of travel to a London event I could buy myself a year's supply of goodies. Numbers were higher than for a physical meeting, and quite a few investors shared my preference for the online form.

They made the sensible decision not to share regular users' cameras and microphones, but to beam us the speakers and provide text chat for interaction. At the end of the first half they responded to questions raised in chat, including mine. In the second half they disabled chat, which I think detracted from it.

The first half gave us an intro from Malcolm Moss, and presentations from Stuart Veale and Karen McCormick, interspersed with recorded presentations from investees (the latter left me cold - just have to hope they benefit my bank balance in due course, and one of them was the purest cliché-machine I think I've ever witnessed). Veale gave us a lot of graphs and figures: lots of big exits around 2-3 years ago leading to quite a substantial return of capital - big divis at the expense of NAV (some investors challenged him on that in chat). Current situation is that a large proportion of the portfolios are newer investments, so he's holding out the carrot of Good Times ahead as those mature. McCormick presented Beringea as a pillar of Political Correctness, to the point of having some activities from which you're actually barred if you have the misfortune of being white and male.

At the end of the first half came the Q&A, addressing questions from the text chat. This worked rather more smoothly than at a typical in-the-flesh event, and on balance they did a pretty fair job of addressing the actual questions as opposed to the politicians approach of answering a set of questions they had prepared. Though there was nothing too surprising, so they were no doubt prepared for more-or-less these questions anyway. On mine (as posted here yesterday), there's not too much overlap between Beringea and other VCTs (but that answer was vague, and I regret the inability to press them on it), and on Equity Crowdfunding it's complementary to what VCTs offer and the two can serve different purposes for investees (yes, that's my expectation too - at least for now). A certain Steve pressed them on charges: they said (unconvincingly) theirs were below industry average, ignored the question on charges on cash piles, but pointed out more convincingly that VCT investments take a lot more effort than investing in quoted companies.

The second half gave us live investee presentations (one of them also from the first half - she repeated herself somewhat), followed by two "fireside chats" - one involving the two investee founders, the other involving Beringea investment folks/NEDs to investees. I shall leave it to others to report on those.

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Re: Online Shareholder Event

#357371

Postby UncleEbenezer » November 17th, 2020, 1:35 pm

Vulgaris wrote:I only caught the second half of this -with the case studies- so am maybe being unfair. However struck by how full of touchy feely buzzwords, rather than cold hard numbers. Far more impressed with Albion last week and with Guinness EIS a few weeks previously.

Perhaps the first half was drier and more informative?

It was: see my post just now.

I was trying to recollect the order of things: was Ms Cliché (Anastasia something) in the half you saw?

p.s. How about a writeup? I missed out on Albion: guess they don't see me since my shares moved to a nominee account.

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Re: Online Shareholder Event

#357426

Postby james188 » November 17th, 2020, 4:53 pm

I hope (and assume) that the VCTs will make a recording of the event available on their website, once it has been edited. I thought that it worked fairly well and I concur with previous posters that a lot of the interesting financial and related detail was contained in the briefings before the break.

I would highlight the slides presented by Stuart Veale - particularly his comments on the typical hold life of portfolio companies before exit (3-6 years) and the current maturity of the portfolio following the significant number of exits a few years ago.

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Re: Online Shareholder Event

#357443

Postby Vulgaris » November 17th, 2020, 5:51 pm

Uncle E. Thanks. If I had time I would write up, but alas, I'm behind on scientific papers, slide decks, consultancy work etc and have multiplied my professional workload, without recompense, by trying to help people fighting the worst excesses of the COVID restrictions.

Several whom I saw fitted the Mr/Ms Cliche title. On investee company was in the business of reselling secondhand (sorry 'pre-loved') handbags and was at lengths to explain how socially sound this was. What she didn't explain was the economics.

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Re: Online Shareholder Event

#357451

Postby IJ49 » November 17th, 2020, 6:23 pm

I see that Albion have put up a link on their website to a youtube recording of the Shareholder Seminar held last Friday (13th), with Q&As to follow.

Missed the live streaming, so will watch the recording.

IJ49

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Re: Online Shareholder Event

#357453

Postby parallellines » November 17th, 2020, 6:34 pm

Link to the Albion event

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGyuAwyWFFo&t=9s

For structure I preferred the Proven event , with a break in the middle. 150 minutes solid was beyond my zoom attention span, and the porfolio review was at the end not the start.

Albion performance seems to have held up well so the story was better and they were more bullish on economic recovery. We couldn't see the chat feed to tell if Albion's event got similarly carpet bombed by "Steve".

UncleEbenezer
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Re: Online Shareholder Event

#357473

Postby UncleEbenezer » November 17th, 2020, 7:52 pm

Vulgaris wrote:Several whom I saw fitted the Mr/Ms Cliche title. On investee company was in the business of reselling secondhand (sorry 'pre-loved') handbags and was at lengths to explain how socially sound this was. What she didn't explain was the economics.


She's not the one. Not by a long way.

Her warpaint was horrendous, and her business left me stone cold. But then, so does a secondhand car dealer, and that's a long-established line of business. If she has customers who want to pay silly money for handbags and such things then good for her - though I find it less easy to see why she needed to raise finance for it.

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Re: Online Shareholder Event

#359115

Postby Mainwaring » November 22nd, 2020, 11:38 pm

So far only watched Proven but looking forward to 150 mins with Albion next week.
I recall the handbag lady but what comforted me was the ex Watchfinder appointment to hold her handbag.
Nothing here to persuade me to part with any money but I’m hopeful within this portfolio we will have another pay day or 2.
Board needs a refresh, made a poor fist of explaining the costs of running a VCT when they are also being paid by our companies.

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Re: Online Shareholder Event

#359232

Postby Vulgaris » November 23rd, 2020, 11:19 am

My wife, who scans ebay assiduously, tells me that there are two sorts of sellers of fancy secondhand handbags: sharp people who know what they are worth, and rich girls who buy things they don't need and then periodically declutter. The art is to buy from the latter, who aren't too fussed about obtaining full price. Whether or not this is a serious scalable business is quite another matter.


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