RE:Taking a BreakGood post, below is my 150k position.
Aphria in 2018 has been the worst investment I have made in this sector, plain and simple.
Vic and his vision was the main reason I invested, only to get stabbed in the back by his greed.
Will break even...eventually not really worried but it's been dead money for the last 6 months?
Nothing seems to move this dog, and I too have given up on it.
skyplt wrote: To be clear, I regret selling my WEED shares at 55 in Sept 2018 to buy Aphria at 18. Last November I averaged this down to around 14 just before the short attack, though I am not simply down 2.50 as I did have to sell a lot of shares I bought on margin. Since then it has been a tough four months watching not only Aphria, but the entire sector. As I watched legalization flounder I realized I made a huge error cashing out a bunch of blue chip dividend paying stocks (which ironically have done phenomenally well these past four months) to go heavy in this sector. Wow, such greed! Harsh lessons were learned. I thought Aphria had the best CEO in the sector; turns out to be the worst. But this is not intended to be my sad story of Aphria. It is intended to set the tone for what to do next.
Last night I poured a glass of 15 year old scotch and looked out the window. I considered just throwing in the towel on Aphria today as the grind is becoming a little old and a little too repetitive. It seems there is always “something” that snatches defeat out of the hands of victory; two steps forward, five steps back.
What happened yesterday? The big surprise was the 50 million dollar write down on LATAM. That’s a lot of money to be sure, but it essentially amounts to 25 cents a share. To think the short attack and all the fall out was primarily due to LATAM and in the final analysis it cost us 25 cents a share to satisfy the auditors. Hardly any mention was made of the 100 million or so that will be coming from the LHS divestment or the GGB failed hostile takeover.
It all begins to make sense now. Perhaps in fact there were some serious “whales” looking at APHA last Fall, but I expect even the least bit of due diligence on their part exposed Neufeld’s less than either honorable or capable activities. So they walked away in succession. The last hope of a deal was likely big tobacco…no angels themselves. I fully expect they saw the double dealing, but were willing to look the other way to get into the sector. I suspect greed hampered that. I see it entirely plausible that Slick Vic held out for another dollar or two. Slimeball.
Yesterday was another gut grind. As I pondered it last night I really cannot fault Irwin Simon for what is being done. Sure, perhaps some warning that a write down would be coming may have caused me to reduce exposure; however, ultimately I am hopeful this ends the whole sorry Vic/Andy era of self dealing and now the company can get on with the business at hand. I think it was a brilliant strategic move to focus less on getting product out (especially while our government continues to mess it up) and get the new greenhouses populated. Well done! It was also pragmatic to warn the next quarter would be the same strategy as they get Double Diamond up to speed. Wow…they will have lots of product just as edibles become legal, the wellness market kicks in, and the extraction facility comes on line.
The fly in the ointment is Nuuvera. Will there be a surprise write down of this? I tend not to think so given APHA has a foothold in Germany. If Irwin had to satisfy the SEC on the LATAM one would think a Nuuvera writedown would have had to happen first. I am just guessing, but I am thinking the 50 million dollar write down satisfies the regulators.
My conclusion is although I wish I never bought a single share of Aphria in the first place, now that I am here it would be unwise to have gone through these last four months only to sell just as it appears as though new management is getting its affairs in order. I am hoping yesterday was the final wave of out with the old. Unlike TRST, some analysts are actually raising their price targets on APHA. That is telling.
We were waiting for the new board members to be announced, and these are good ones and indicative of where APHA is headed market wise. This group is far better than a bunch of questionable characters like the ilk of Andy D. I hope we become the Phoenix we seem to be headed for. Even if 1B is not quite attained by 2020, 500 million (using conservative 12:1 PE) puts this at least a 6B company…30 dollars a share. If that 1B mark is actually reached, that’s 60 dollars a share. Ambitious, but achievable. In for a penny, in for a pound. I’m staying in the stock, but taking a break from Stockhouse and Reddit for a bit. Like other longs, I will still be watching the stock, and occasionally visiting the blogs…but it is time for a break. Good luck…and stay calm if you can.