TIDMTHAL
RNS Number : 5630E
Thalassa Holdings Limited
02 March 2020
Thalassa Holdings Ltd
(Reuters: THAL.L, Bloomberg: THAL:LN)
Trading update
This announcement contains inside information for the purposes
of Article 7 of Regulation 596/2014.
Given the current volatility in world stock markets brought on
in large part by the Coronavirus outbreak, the board of Thalassa
Holdings Ltd ("THAL" or "the Company") wishes to update the market
on Group trading ahead of the release of its financial results for
the year ended 31 December by 31 March 2020.
Thalassa
-- The Group was well positioned going into this period of
market volatility through being both long in cash and hedged
through a combination of different strategies that provide
unlimited upside but limited downside. These strategies include
short currency positions, long and short/inverse ETFs against our
long holdings. The board would emphasise that these hedges can only
partially offset the impact on long holdings of a prolonged major
market correction as the Group is set up as a net long buyer of
undervalued assets.
-- Thalassa currently has net cash balances of ca. $10.1 million
and ca. $5.9 million invested in Miscellaneous Holdings (as further
iterated below and which do not include Core Holdings) and
hedges.
-- Thalassa's investments in various companies total $3.3
million and hedge positions, excluding currency hedges, total $2.6
million.
Miscellaneous Holdings
-- Thalassa holds a number of undisclosed positions in listed
companies which the board believes are undervalued. Our policy to
not disclose the identity of these holdings, unless required for
compliance purposes as in the case of Newmark Securities (NWT LN)
where we have a disclosed holding of 9.04%, is solely down to the
often illiquid nature of the shares of the companies we are dealing
in.
-- In the year to date, Thalassa has realised gains of ca.
$570,000 from the disposal of long positions and hedges and has, as
at the time of writing, ca. $464,000 of net unrealised gains of
which ca. $400,000 are on hedge positions, $10,000 on currency
hedges and the balance of ca. $54,000 on long positions.
Core Holdings
Anemoi S.A.
-- Anemoi has been set up as a Special Purpose Acquisition
Company (SPAC) with the intention of acquiring a significant
operating company, which the board believes to be undervalued and
which offers significant potential capital upside. The Company is
currently seeking a listing of Anemoi on the Luxembourg Stock
Exchange.
Apeiron Holdings AG
-- As previously announced, Apeiron has successfully completed
the acquisition of id4 AG, which is working hard to secure
contracts for its RegTech software and recently announced a
technological partnership with the leading Swiss pension platform
lemania pension hub to provide id4's client lifecycle management
software.
Autonomous Robotics Limited ("ARL")
-- As previously announced, proof of concept has been achieved
and management is now, in addition to continued product
development, largely focused on securing commercial and/or defence
partnership(s) in order to commercialise the company's undersea
autonomous nodes. [Exploratory discussions with potential partners
are ongoing, although there can be no certainty that these will
lead to an agreement].
The Local Shopping REIT Plc ("LSR")
-- The board regrets that it is unable to comment outside of
announcements made by LSR. Information on LSR can be found under
the ticker (LSR LN) and Thalassa currently holds 92.6% of LSR's
issued share capital.
Gitone Beteiligungsverwaltungs GmbH ("Gitone")
-- As previously announced, Thalassa has entered into an EUR11
million convertible loan agreement with Gitone
Beteiligungsverwaltungs GmbH, Austria. The underlying asset in
which Thalassa currently has an indirect interest in is Liburnia
Riviera Hotels (LRH ZA) (www.liburnia.hr).
-- Clearly the Coronavirus outbreak is a concern to everyone in
the Travel and Leisure industry and the board is monitoring the
situation carefully.
Duncan Soukup, Chairman of THAL stated:
"The board of Thalassa has, since the sale of WGP in January
2018, undertaken a number of initiatives which, unsurprisingly,
have taken longer to develop than we would have liked.
"M&A transactions invariably take considerably longer to
develop and execute than instantaneous dealings in the stock
market. However, Thalassa's board is convinced that the best way to
generate substantial returns for shareholders is through long term
investing and the acquisition of undervalued assets. In the past
two years global stock markets have raced ahead, with numerous
story stocks such as Tesla and Virgin Galactic Holdings (SPCE US),
defying gravity, at least until a few of days ago. At its recent
high, SPCE US sported a very healthy market capitalisation of ca.
$8.3 billion (20 Feb 2020) but is now down, at the time of writing,
to $4.8 billion and looking like it is going lower. Still not bad
for a company with no revenues, much less any earnings!
"As a value investor the past two years have, on the one hand,
been somewhat frustrating due to difficulty in closing some
transactions but they have also reminded us that patience is
ultimately rewarded. The Company has succeeded in buying back ca.
35% of its outstanding shares at a significant discount to the book
value (BV) and the board believes the Company is now
well-positioned to take advantage of the current global stock
market correction, which we believe is far from over."
"We believe that the Coronavirus outbreak behoves comment; your
board is convinced that Politics and Medicine are the worst of
bedfellows and that the World Health Organisation ("WHO")
leadership is woefully understating the implications and severity
of the Coronavirus outbreak. Given that the only certainty of the
Coronavirus is that the world does not know exactly what it is,
where it came from or how to treat it, one doesn't have to be a
rocket scientist to suggest that the world should prepare for the
worst and hope for the best rather than just hoping it will
miraculously disappear.
"Europe's decision to keep borders open, notwithstanding the
spread of the virus, is clearly understandable from both a
political and economic perspective but appears, even to the
uneducated layman, to fly in the face of the belated action taken
by the Chinese government to ring fence Hubei Province. Clearly the
powers that be are fixated on their rear-view mirrors and will not
take action until significant damage has been done. Plus ca
change!"
"We do not envy any government the decision as to how to respond
to a major health crisis. However, if history teaches us anything,
the world was slow to react to both the SARS and Ebola outbreaks
and history will probably repeat itself with the current
Coronavirus outbreak. Between 2002 and 2003 there were 8,098 cases
of SARS virus and 774 deaths in 17 countries whilst the
1976/ongoing deadly Ebola virus, which is still prevalent in Africa
and which has so far killed over 11,323 people! In July 2019 the
WHO declared the Congo Ebola outbreak a world health emergency
(source: Wikipedia)."
"To date there have been 82,585 Coronavirus cases reported and
2,814 deaths...(source: www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ ).
"If the above statistics are any precursor to the future...it
does not bode well for rapid containment of the Coronavirus, nor
for the stock market; as a result, we will maintain our hedge
positions, continue to develop our core holdings...and prepare for
the worst whilst hoping for the best."
"To quote Winston Churchill, "Now this is not the end. It is not
even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the
beginning."
END
Enquiries:
Thalassa Holdings Ltd
---------------------
Duncan Soukup (Executive Chairman) +33 (0)6 78 63 26 89
---------------------
WH Ireland Limited (Financial Adviser) +44 (0)207 220 1650
---------------------
Chris Fielding, Managing Director, Corporate
Finance
---------------------
www.thalassaholdingsltd.com
Note to Editors:
About Thalassa
Thalassa Holdings Ltd, incorporated and registered in the BVI,
is a holding company with various interests across a number of
industries.
This information is provided by RNS, the news service of the
London Stock Exchange. RNS is approved by the Financial Conduct
Authority to act as a Primary Information Provider in the United
Kingdom. Terms and conditions relating to the use and distribution
of this information may apply. For further information, please
contact rns@lseg.com or visit www.rns.com.
END
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March 02, 2020 02:00 ET (07:00 GMT)
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