The Evil Diaries: The Beginning Of The Great Unravel

Evil discusses Mitie, Concha and Optibiotix…

Mitie (MTO) offer a market update this morning. The telling paragraph is: “As a result of the market pressures in the homecare and social housing businesses we expect our full year headline operating profit to be slightly below current market expectations.” This is just the beginning of the great unravel. Anywhere above the 200p mark is a sensible short, in my opinion.

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Concha CHA) today offers unaudited interim results to 31st December 2014. There is the revived offering of jam tomorrow (Concha must surely be the biggest jam tomorrow stock quoted on the London market). Concha advise that “we are in discussions regarding a specific global opportunity within our investment scope that, if pursued to a successful conclusion, the Board believes will lead to a transformation of the Company. At present, there can be no guarantee that this investment will be successfully completed…” It is on this illusion that the price stands at over 1p, its possibly sensible price (I myself am less charitable).

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Looking in my box of write offs yesterday I encountered warrants to subscribe for Ducat Ventures. I scratched my head and enquired: an hour later it transpired that I am the proud owner of Optibiotix (OPTI), now 32p. Since this is considerably more than I ever dreamed that they would be worth my first instinct was to sell stock. But since the racing was drab I diverted my energies to asking around. Apparently, Optibiotix could be very cheap indeed (it’s a great chart). I do not understand what it’s on about but it is claimed that it offers microbiomes.

I have no idea what a microbiome is (and nor do most readers, come to that). But it is pointed out that if one sticks microbiomes in a yoghurt it sweetens the stuff, thus rendering yoghurt more palatable, and causes a microbial reaction in the gut which reduces weight. Even I can see the appeal of this sort of additive.

The quoted competition is led by 4D Pharma (DDDD) which is capitalised at 570p at £350m. On the other hand, Optibiotix at 32p is capitalised at £23m. On this basis the choice is clear. That noted, I freely admit that this is not my specialist subject for Mastermind. I therefore welcome commentary from those who claim to know.