ATM - A2 Milk Corporation Limited

[nextbigthing]

My understanding NBT is that once you achieve a 5% holding then its a change of 1% of total holding that needs to be reported. That's 6.6 million shares not 33m shares.(may need to be corrected on that)
What I am more unsure about is the time frame of when more or less than 1% change is required to be reported by those holding over 5%.

Assuming I am correct with the 1% reporting threshold then has there been a big change in shareholding not yet reported, or are there lots of less than 1% shareholdings among the bigger players who hold over 5% changing hands, or are there lots of less than 5% shareholders selling, or is there lots of selling and buying back going on with the same shareholder, or is someone manipulating the SP somehow through derivatives, or what?

6.6m would've been cleaned up in a matter of days so I think we can assume that's not the case

[nextbigthing]

And assuming its not a short seller, who can borrow, sell and buy back the same shares forever.

Yes, I personally think this is looking like the most likely option.

That raises the question; if they are creating all this artificial sell volume then surely when they eventually give it up then it should return to its fair value (whatever that may be). And if they choose not to give it up, then they risk getting stung big time when the good news starts flowing or if their bluff gets called by someone with a bit of cash behind them.

[MAC]

MAC you may well be right that it is all a matter of awareness of the heath "issue" leading to sales. It may be in the interests of a2 (and holders) for the scientific "uncertainty" to continue. However that is not a terribly meritorious position for the company to take morally.

Morality, not sure I’d go as far as to make it such an issue Black Knat, very many products out there in the world are sold without clinical trials having ever been performed on a comparative basis. I’ve never seen a scientific study suggesting vegemite is any better than marmite.

The Australian chief executive Peter Nathan quite clearly says that ATM are "definitely not making a health claim", "We are simply saying that this is a milk which many people have reported enables them to enjoy the benefit of dairy without the discomfort."

What I would say though is that the a2 milk company truly have an exceptional marketing team, but, at the end of the day, if customers have trialled the product for themselves, have assessed the benefits at home with their family, and have voted at the supermarket checkout, who are you or I to say they are wrong.

[Harrie]

6.6m would've been cleaned up in a matter of days so I think we can assume that's not the case

These are the rules from the Financial markets conduct act Sept 2013

Thresholds
The thresholds for disclosure are when a person's relevant interest in voting securities reaches, exceeds or falls below 5% or more of a class of voting securities and where there is an increase or decrease of 1% above that. A disclosure is also required for any change in the nature of any relevant interest.

Also:
Deadline
Notify a change in holdings as soon as the disclosable event has occurred.

This appears to me to be that once the 5% of voting shares has been attained, securities bought or sold representing 1% of total shares must be disclosed within a reasonable time frame.
I think we can safely say that neither Milfords nor any other substantial shareholders position has changed by more or less than 6.6 million shares in the last couple of months.
Based on the number od shares NBT has indicated have been traded, and assuming there is no "borrowing" going on, its also possible that there is a whole heap of shareholders out there jumping out because the wholesale milk market has been kicked to touch, shareholders who have less than 5% of the companies shares could easily trade 33 million shares over a few months.
The same shareholders are likely to come back into the market when there is better news coming out of China, UK and USA.
I'm not sure that I subscribe to the theory that anyone would be stupid enough to play the borrow and buy back game on such a thin market...bloody suicide

[MAC]

I think it must remain a matter of engineered pragmatism Harrie.

Too many hard health facts and certainties released too soon risks raising the A1 companies ire before the a2 milk company has grown big enough to fend them off.

If ATM were to be taken over by one of the big multinationals, then boom, watch them take on the A1 bunch head on with trials galore and all that financial backing, but not yet as a small antipodean milk company.

Too much market share and similarly the knives will proportionally come out, we have started to see a bit of that in Australia already. My view is that the market share should be capped at around 15% in Australia, controlled from that point forward by retail price setting.

[Harrie]

Morality, not sure I’d go as far as to make it such an issue Black Knat, very many products out there in the world are sold without clinical trials having ever been performed on a comparative basis. I’ve never seen a scientific study suggesting vegemite is any better than marmite.

The Australian chief executive Peter Nathan quite clearly says that ATM are "definitely not making a health claim", "We are simply saying that this is a milk which many people have reported enables them to enjoy the benefit of dairy without the discomfort."

What I would say though is that the a2 milk company truly have an exceptional marketing team, but, at the end of the day, if customers have trialled the product for themselves, have assessed the benefits at home with their family, and have voted at the supermarket checkout, who are you or I to say they are wrong.

Could not agree more MAC. The science may never "prove" a correlation between A1 and health issues, so if consumers rely totally on absolute undisputable scientific evidence to prove that A1 has health downsides they will be waiting a long time. In the meantime more and more anecdotal testimonials continue to pour in favouring a switch to A2 for a variety of reasons. That is a lot more powerful than the science.

[Tsuba]

I thought I was going to try my first A2 today. I phoned Fresh Choice in Queenstown yesterday and the chap I spoke to said they were getting in 10 units. Well I went there this morning and not a sausage. The lady I spoke to said they had some in for an Australian customer request but dumped it due to not being popular and hard to get. The A2 label was on the shelf $4.99.

New World in Frankton do not stock. Sorry for getting NTs hopes up.

[NT001]

I think a bit too much can be read into a reported comment by Peter Nathan (CEO of A2MC Australia) that "we are definitely not making a health claim" in relation to the Curtin University trial. He was just making the point that by publicising the Curtin results, A2MC was not infringing the law against "health claims". He was certainly not playing down the Curtin findings, nor was he denying the central theme of the company's sales campaign, that drinking A2 milk can bring health benefits.

It comes down to a technicallegal issue. A2MC's rivals would love to see the company prosecuted and tied up in legal proceedings for allegedly transgressing the strict laws barring the making of "health claims" for food products, and Mr Nathan is not about to walk into that trap.

The company's policy is to mainly let scientists and medical professionals do the talking. The lead scientist in the Curtin trial has been speaking widely on its findings and getting great publicity, especially in UK media.

The Curtin trial's conclusion that people drinking A1 milk tended to suffer digestive problems not experienced by those drinking A1 was not a "health claim", it was a scientific finding. And it is prominently publicised on A2MC's websites.

[Harrie]

NT. I'm delighted to hear that Curtins scientific anaysis is getting some traction in the UK. Its all "griss to the mill" along with anecdotal evidence. The study however is centred around digestive discomfort and I'm not sure that this alone will encourage increased sales for A2. For me the biggest impact would be if evidence could show that in a large number of cases, "deemed" lactose intolerance is more to do with A1 beta casein than the lactose in the milk which is also found in A2, so A2 is not going to work for those who are actually lactose intolerent. If a study could show that, especially in the UK, where 20% of the market are supposedly lactose intolerent, then A2's future would look pretty bright, because it could lead on to other "perceived" health benefits. Apart from that study, the science would need to prove correlations with type 2 diabetes to get traction, IMO and that is a much longer process to prove.

[MAC]

Fair enough MAC, however a number on this thread and in the wider community go well beyond Mr Nathan's comments, and claim numerous health benefit that are established scientific fact.

Oh well, each to their own you know, to be fair though there are over a 100 scientific papers in support of a2 benefits that cannot be totally ignored, probably many papers that don't support it too.

Science in the lab is just that but if that is enough for some folk to believe, then there’s nothing wrong with that Black Knat, that's fine and harmless.

It is only clinical trials on humans though that would provide any definitive proof, the science alone can’t do that, and I don’t think ATM should feel a need to do any trials to be honest.

Many years away may a conclusive outcome be, it makes for much better marketing for mum’s on the internet to discover a new feel good product, than it does poking an a1 juggernaut in the eye with clinical trials.