He was coming by the end of 2020. Then he was going to appear during Q1 2021. Then Q2 2021. Then by the end of the year. And then by the close of Q2 2022 – ie yesterday…….and surprise, surprise, he hasn’t come. But he is most certainly coming tomorrow. Honest, guv’.

In today's podcast, I discuss SUPP (Formerly WPCT), Argo Blockchain (ARB), Cinworld (CINE) and the Vela (VELA)/Truspine (TSP) farce. 

In an extraordinary announcement this morning, AIM-listed Vela Technologies (VELA) has announced that it has just discovered that – unbeknown to its Board – it had apparently invested £300,000 into Aquis-listed TruSpine (TSP) as part of a subscription announced by TruSpine on 31 May 2022. What???!! And then this afternoon a clarification.

On Monday I asked When Will The Money Run Out? at Aquis lobster-potted TruSpine (TSP) and yesterday we got the answer, in the form of a placing, subscription and a debt-for-equity exchange raising £700,000 (before expenses) of new money and converting a stack of outstanding directors fees and third party creditors. Eat your heart out, Mystic Meg! Oh, and er…..oopsie…..the company “forgot” to mention that it had issued 724,902 shares to third party creditors back in November, failing to issue an RNS or apply for those shares to commence trading. Move along please, nothing to see here!

Aquis-listed TruSpine (TSP) is yet another of the disastrous recent IPOs to have sullied the London markets. Having joined the lobster-pot in August 2020 at 36p, the shares have utterly collapsed in the wake of an IPO subscription doing a runner and multiple delays to the approval of its Cervi-lok spinal stabilisation device, which was supposed to have seen FDA submissions completed in Q4 2020 and we were promised commercial sales in 2021. Here we are at the end of May 2022 and the FDA has not yet been satisfied, there is no sign of any sales and the shares are now just 4.3p in the middle. Ouch! But has the company run out of cash?

Our old friends at Aquis-listed TruSpine (TSP) have been at it again, releasing interims results to September and announcing yet more delays for its Cervi-LOK product during no-one-is-watching week. Oh, and the cash is running out yet again. What’s not to like?

Noting I would keep my watchful eye on Aquis lobster-potted Truspine (TSP) in the wake of a Christmas 2020 update that its FDA-approval paperwork was three months behind more-or-less on deadline day, I see that the company has announced that it has applied for its Cervi-LOK spinal product to be designated as a “Breakthough Device Technology”. Whatever……here we are in November and the FDA 510k application for this device, originally due last Christmas, has still not been filed. But it gets worse……

This website has made no secret of its cynical take on the valuation of one of Neil Woodford’s most controversial investments into Acquis lobster-pot listed Rutherford Health (RUTH), formerly Proton Parters. There was a tiny investment made at its IPO allowing Woodford to mark up his original investment heavily, but since Woodford held all the cards apart from Rutherford’s management, there was nobody to sell and thus the apparent price was, we argued, totally illusory. We predicted problems when the cash ran out……

Aquis lobster-pot listed TruSpine (TSP) has announced a placing raising just £650,000 – of which only £500,000 of actual cash was raised (the balance being fee shares, one presumes to the fine Broker involved to cover coke and hookers costs). Quite why anyone would pay 10p for shares which are trading at just 8.75p (up 0.65p) even after the announcement) is beyond me! But the highlight was the update over FDA submission for its Cervi-LOK product.

After yesterday’s shambles, when Aquis-listed Truspine (TSP) finally reached the inevitable conclusion that £250,000 due for shares at the IPO last year in August at 36p a pop was not going to come in. Not surprising, as the shares have since cratered by 75%. The shares dropped on the news by another 13% to just 7.3p. Truspine has been somewhat tardy with regard to updating the market on progress….or lack of it……but has been rattling the tin at 10p per share. One would have thought that under the circumstances the computer would just say “no”, but…..

Having noted the potential for entertainment at Aquis-listed Truspine in the New Year Red Flags Sweepstakes special, when the new listing on the lobsterpot announced disastrous Interims to add to its Christmas Eve announcement of a delay to the FDA application for clearance of its Cervi-LOK product due at the close of the year which apparently it had only just noticed, we have more news……no sniggering at the back!

I noted the huge potential for free entertainment at Aquis-listed TruSpine (TSP) in the New Year Red Flags Sweepstakes results, when TruSpine had achieved the dubious double of a Red Flags Christmas Eve RNS (a three month delay to the application for FDA clearance of its Cervi-LOK product that was due at the end of the month which it apparently had only just noticed) and another on New Year’s Eve in the form of Interims to September 2020 showing net current assets of just £511,813 after a loss of £423,148. This week saw some news. No sniggering at the back……..

And so New Years’s Eve has come to a close and the Red Flags in the form of no-one-is-watching o’clock announcements (or in one case, non-announcement) of bad news have come to an end.