BLT - Blis Technologies

[simla]

As I said, it's the names that match - search for them. Try page 32 anyway.

[Nigel]

Gourmet Icecream now available at New World in Victoria Park (Auckland). This is a great milestone, getting into the Auckland market; will be interesting to see how sales go. Definitely a positive development! Well done Blis

[simla]

Yes, that's brilliant. Thanks for telling us, Nigel. It appears to still be turning over steadily here in Wellington.

[simla]

Hard to know quite what to make of the interim report. There was an air of tail between the legs, but that seemed to be more about the current situation than the prospects. Their hopes for the future seem undimmed.

Half of the loss was amortisation and the tail of the pref dividends, p14 so that's less pressure on cash for the future. But they're still capitalising R&D, although less of that too.

And Asia finally got a bit of life in it, with sales of last year being 112k this half alone, compared to 52k last full year. We need more than that though. Sales in the US essentially zero. That may be because of the supply chain issue raised previously, but that was not explicitly said. It did say that had happened in Europe and Asia, where there were extra sales not reported in revenue. p3 A pity we haven't any idea of how big this supply chain is that is apparently being sold down, if that is the explanation.

They do specifically say the sales drop is a part of changing distributor (p3), but no particular explanation of that.

Gourmet running at a loss so far. p7. Is that startup costs of expanding again, or is it profit margin, or extra costs in developing probiotic product to show others? The margin looked good in the last report, so we'll have to wait for the full year report for more detail it seems.

The financial situation is expected to improve. p4.

More product launches expected this year, but no food ingredient sales expected this financial year. p5. So some after that?

K12 is okay to use in China, but they need another approval to make claims about it on the label. p6. Aren't rules great.

End of year guidance of -1.3m compared to -0.8 this half. Then that's -0.5 for the last half. Amort and depreciation this half was 0.25 (p14), which might suggest an operating loss of 0.25m expected this coming half? Worse things have happened at sea. It wouldn't take too much lift in sales to eat that up. But they are unsure if they will need extra cash in a year. p4.

The problem with Blis-watching at this stage is the lack of clear pattern. The last 18 months have seen a number of large moves and upheaval in sales patterns as well. It makes it impossible to tell what will happen next and you sense that the company itself has the same problem in forming expectations.

The potential just grows and grows with more and more market opportunities opened up. And the sales revenue doesn't. Yet. It could all change very quickly from here. Or not. You sense that they think they are going to make it, but nothing short of actual sales will ever prove that. So we wait and see. Another holding pattern this time. Or that's my impression.

Thanks to the company for soldiering on. Gourmet in particular deserve a special mention for getting the ice cream into the whole country now, which must have been a massive amount of extra work for them. But all are clearly working very hard. I recently noticed that the website ranking (visitor numbers, alexa.com) has improved a lot recently, and the report said a rebuild is underway now. Lots of seeds in the ground, and we wait for the sprouting.

[pierre]

Six month report just out. The financial news is no better - but there's a pretty positive tone to the commentary. Though, I suppose they would be like that, wouldn't they?

[POSSUM THE CAT]

Pierre How do you analyse the Woof Woof

[pierre]

PTC - I haven't a clue how to analyse this particular mongrel - not sure anyone else does either. Their words are all fine but the numbers are still horrible.

However, as we know there are a couple of Chinese investors who now hold almost 7% of the shares - perhaps they can assist the entree in to the China market and get some sales moving. Or, maybe they flew in on a Sky City sponsored Southern China flight and thought Blis was a better bet than the high rollers' room at the Casino - either way the odds appear to be against them.

Still, we live in hope of a takeover bid at a massive price of a least 2 cents per share - then we wont have to analyse anything.

[simla]

haven't a clue how to analyse this

That's certainly the problem. At the heart of this mystery is the most remarkable fact. The product is available through a stack of companies overseas. Do the maths, and any one of those companies would be making millions of dollars a year if they got sales levels in their country to match sales in NZ on a per capita basis, which are hardly huge revenues anyway. Where's the road block?

[winner69]

Where's the road block?

Maybe the product itself

[simla]

Yes, that's an obvious possibility, given that's it's new technology. But per capita sales here are in the order of hundreds of times greater than overseas. NZers just can't be that different. There has to be something else.