Posts by ZenoOfElea

Sounds like the sort of thing Woodford might be interested in

Or you could write a book

Yes I know Jed and some others have written books already about cold fusion but the current interest in the topic is low.

Once it hits prime time then the world will wake up and there will be a huge appetite for books, probably serviced by authors who did not know anything about cold fusion till a few weeks before they wrote the book.

So Jed it could be your big chance to tell the real cold fusion story to the massed public.

As we have seen with Trump and Brexit many people are not too interested in loads of facts, just a good story with goodies and baddies that is topical and explains how they personally will benefit from the "new golden age".

Oh and maybe lots of pictures .

Or you could invest with IH via Woodford

Reverse engineering.

How far ahead of us are any space travelling aliens likely to be?

Ten years?

Hundred years?

Thousand years?

Ten thousand years?

Thought experiment; give Galileo an iphone and see if he can reverse engineer it!

Journalists, politicians, and financial talking heads are all queueing up to attack Woodford like a giant pinata filled with money (well not as much money as was hoped for).

At some point legislative bodies will probably start to get involved, shutting the stable door, as usual, long after the horse has made a mess in the kitchen.

As I said earlier, the super star has been made into a pantomime villain.

Polarisation is how the media works, grey areas are boring lets go straight from one extreme to the other.

All these people are looking for any information or story to use as a weapon.

Unfortunately because LENR is so controversial it makes a great angle to attack Woodford as being delusional.

After the Rossi fiasco IH tried to keep a low profile (apart from Dewey of course ), I would guess in part because they are dealing with proprietary research belonging to various parties that they need to keep confidential.

But also because of the skepticism and even maliciousness (Jed's word) that would be unleashed against IH.

So this whole Woodford toxic bun fight is risky for IH. I imagine they do not want to be dragged into it.

[Hmmm my metaphors are a bit weekendy; "toxic bun fight"; I might have to think about editing that.]

JedRothwell ; REALLY!

Google spent millions, and a group of researchers spent several years or their lives, as part of a conspiracy against LENR.

What has LENR done lately that would inspire such measures, have amazing advances been made that are threatening to certain parties that we dare not name?

Have I wandered onto ECat World by mistake?!?

No doubting that Nature took the opportunity with both hand and both hatchets to further sneer at LENR.

But LENR is currently not showing any signs of going anywhere, or do you suppose that Google and Nature are reading this forum and are concerned that there may be certain signs of progress. REALLY!

I personally think Trevithick is sincere, and not part of the deep state apparatus.

I could come up with several theories to explaining Google and their actions, but what is the point, they need to speak for themselves. And in that I agree with you.

I also agree with McKubre that maybe we should be grateful to Google, potentially.

Google need to communicate. But it almost looks like we are putting Google on trial. Things need to open up, not close down.

By the way; this is the Woodford\IH thread, not the Google so probably should be moved.

Well yes, I have previously highlighted my concerns over the Woodford "due diligence" and particularly as regards the IH investment.

Woodford claimed at the start that he and his team did two and a half years due diligence before investing in IH.

Sounds good, sounds careful, on the face of it.

But if IH got Rossi so badly wrong and they were working closely with him, then what kind of due diligence could Woodford do?

I would expect that it was Darden that approached Woodford for funding.

Certainly Woodford knew Darden well and they may even be friends. That comes back to some of the current criticisms Woodford is receiving for relying on the "cosy" factor in his business dealings.

Certainly some of Woodford's team flew to the USA and met IH and met Rossi and travelled around various places.

I would be surprised if Woodford had tried speaking to scientists with relevant experience in LENR.

I would be surprised if he directly had communications with any of the profs who have supported Rossi.

I doubt he or his team had any real technical understanding of LENR and the difficulties in finding heat.

So I suspect Woodford relied on the IH "due diligence". That does not really sound like due diligence to me when you rely on the company you are investing in to provide the "due diligence".

Anyway time will tell.

How long can they short for?

Woodford could keep this going till Christmas.

I also am not an expert but my reading is that, while the facts have not changed the sentiment has changed radically.

Because Woodford was seen as an investment star over decades, who took contrarian strategies but ultimately was successful, this has exaggerated the confidence (or faith) that investors put into him.

Events that would have been red flags against run of the mill funds had a blind eye turned to them.

However the nervousness has increased until the redemptions have forced Woodford to gate the fund.

So now it is exploding all across the media.

Journalists are making hay with this story, and it is a big story.

So in my view the sentiment has changed and yesterday’s hero has become today’s pantomime villain.

Facts and reality can go out the window. Investor greed has turned to fear.

This is like a run on a bank. Nobody wants to be stuck at the end asking for their money back when all the good stuff has been sold and only the junk is left.

This will likely be a process over some months, due to the size, but I think this fund is dead.

The spill over is affecting his other funds. The Woodford brand is becoming toxic.

Additionally all Woodfords investing colleagues are distancing themselves and sharpening their knives.

They fear that the negative sentiment will cause many average Joe investors to think twice before giving their savings to Fund Managers to manage. These guys pay themselves a big bonus from the profits when things go well and still take a hefty fee even when things go badly.

So it is in their interest to try to turn Woodford into some kind of crazy, villain and not at all like the normal, professional, prudent, over-remunerated fund manager.

What will happen to his other funds is a matter of some debate online. Can they be saved or not?

Quote from Alan Smith

Comment by market watchers and regulators suggest that the capital resilience of other Investment funds need examining 'they have been taking too many risks'...some say another bear market is signalled, since the closure of a fund to withdrawals against the backdrop of a bouyant market is unprecedented.

Alan. Clearly this was Woodford's plan all along. To precipitate the next bear market so that all the momentum funds plummet and his defensive shares surge and he wins.

On a more serious point; to try to answer my question earlier about Woodford's IH shares a couple of possibilities occur. He could try to offload some of his IH shares to the "Laurene Powers Jobs Trust"

Or failing that actually offer some for sale on the Guernsey International Stock Exchange, assuming anyone would be interested.

SOT I did not think Woodford had invested in Theranos.

Do you have a link to evidence this please?

Alan, I agree.

First we have yet to find IF Industrial Heat have something worthwhile (i.e. that can be commercialised).

Even so, any announcement in the next few months is likely to be of limited scope and not boost the fund value significantly.

However, of all his controversial stock picks IH is the most controversial.

Woodford has been repeatedly slated for supporting "cold fusion".

If IH could come up with a positive and believable announcement then it would help to bolster Woodford against his many critics.

Personally I am invested in WPCT.

I did sell some of my WPCT a year ago but am now wondering how safe my remaining investment is.

WPCT is a closed fund so when people want their money back they just sell on the stock market. This makes the fund suitable for more illiquid shares such as early stage companies and proof against the situation with the WEF fund.

However he has linked his funds by swapping purchases such as Industrial Heat and having his WEF fund then buy into the WPCT fund. Again, when things go well linkage may be a good thing but when things go bad then not a good thing.

One interesting question will be what Woodford is going to do with his Industrial Heat shares. Is it possible to sell them?

It is true that if IH goes public in the next few months with amazing news about cold fusion research then that could impact the Woodford situation. But unfortunately, even if IH have something valuable, these sort of things can take years to come to fruition.

Woodford does not have time on his side.

Woodford is a contrarian investor. He sees an opportunity and goes for it with conviction. This has worked very well for him over decades ... till now.

In this case he was aiming for what he sees as undervalued UK equities and planning that Brexit would be smoother than many feared. Well Brexit is a huge mess with politicians unable to move forward. So he got that wrong.

His strategy also was banking on the current momentum market ending. Some think we are likely at the end of the longest bull market and the state of the US bond yield curve supports a reversal of the status quo. In this case Woodford may be right but he ran out of time.

The reason he ran out of time is that, not only was his fund underperforming as he went against the concensus, but there was a continuous stream of bad news surrounding his stock picks.

Some of his largest investors were getting increasingly alarmed and the final straw was Kier dropping by 40% a few days ago. This prompted a large pension fund to ask for their money back triggering the current situation.

Woodford has largely caused his own difficulties; the WEF fund is supposed to be invested in safe stocks that pay a dividend but he increasingly dabbled with more risky unquoted stocks.

In turn this restricted the liquidity of the fund. In addition he has leveraged his funds with borrowing. All these things are fine when people are putting money in but problematic when many start wanting their money back.

WHOOOOPS!

bbc

CityWire

• The value of investments and any income from them may go down as well as up, so you may get back less than you invested
• Past performance cannot be relied upon as a guide to future performance

So I do not understand why Woodford is not mentioned in the list of shareholders that Ahlfors has uncovered.

There was a later fund raising in late 2018 that caused the price uplift but the dates on these documents are 2015.

The initial fund raising seemingly was in early 2015 and I believe Woodford was part of that.

Alfors evidence seems to show that there were in fact many parties who bought shares.

The Woodford shares are mostly preference shares which (according to Google) provides higher priority on company assets but generally no voting rights.

Alan quotes;

"and these afford liquidity opportunities that we will be able to take advantage of where appropriate." If IH have nothing then there is no liquidity. If IH does have something then you would have to be nuts to start liquidating stock at such an early stage.

However Alan and Shane speculate maybe something may be occuring.

"It is also the case that some of the smaller early-stage companies in the fund have developed so quickly that they will, over the next few months, be launching full IPO processes (typically on Nasdaq)."

Still speculation but amazing if it happens.

One other thing;

Woodford was in the news because 3 of the companies that he place on the Guernsey stock exchange were suspended in early April pending an investigation.

Within days the suspensions were lifted on two of the companies.

The one suspension that we have heard nothing further about is the one in respect of Industrial Heat.

On the face of it that is a bad sign, or maybe I am speculating too much myself.

In respect of Woodford; in late 2018 the IH shares have had a major uplift in value and I suspect the ones in WEIF may have been transferred to the WPCT fund so now it is much more difficult to work backward.

However in the reports around March 2018 shares were held in WPCT and the WEIF funds.

Industrial Heat appears in WPCT at three placings.

Industrial Heat A1 Pref at 0.87.

Industrial Heat A2 Pref at 0.5%

Industrial Heat A3 at 0.04%

So in total = 1.41%

1.41% of fund value approx £906m = £12.75m.

Woodford also had Industrial Heat in his WEIF fund with a value of approx £7.72bn .

Industrial Heat A1 Pref at 0.10%

Industrial Heat A2 Pref at 0.06%

So 0.16% of 7.72bn = £12.35m.

So total investment amounts to £25m.

Which tallies with what most people expected at the time.

Alan may find this interesting about how solar lanterns are such a boon in parts of Africa and off-grid communities around the world.

https://medium.com/power-afric…an-continent-ce46f99accfc]

Obviously portable LENR power would take this to another level.

Bringing a product successfully to market requires many skills.

A great inventor will not likely get very far without good market strategy and good financial backing and money for good legal advice.

Inventors like James Dyson who manage to achieve his level of commercial success are very rare and he has certainly had many battles to fight.

Alan’s approach sounds more like Trevor Baylis who was more interested in helping his fellow man but I am not sure that he got much money from it.

Making money may not be seen as an important personal goal for inventors but in the case of LENR I think, if it can be commercialized, there will be the biggest patent war in history.

Many well intended inventions have been strangled at birth by large, aggressive companies like Microsoft and other entities that are nothing but patent trolls.

So I am guessing financing to get things off the ground and to build momentum is critical from the start and not long after financing for legal battles.

The easiest path may be to partner with some large corporation, but then you are supping with the devil. The sad truth is that an altruistic inventor will find financial backers (in general) and large corporations are not so much interested in humanitarian results as in taking the path that maximizes profits.

Clearly Alan has been thinking about this much more than I have so maybe there are alternative paths, such as funding by a charitable foundation or some form of open source path.

Anyway good luck.