OB 24,25,26 update 19th July

A review of some of the ideas in the three portfolios

Released on YouTube 19th July 2026

Dear reader,

The picks for 2026 moves to a 25.6% gain. Gains in energy ideas ENI and ITH are offset by drops at precious metal miners ALTN, SRSA and SVM.

Drops I believe that will be temporary. The Gold, Silver and PGM stories are not over. There appears to be strong support at around $4,000 for gold, and demand/supply dynamics for physical silver remain strong. Producers remain profitable at current prices.

Gains at MPAC despite negative views by some commentators as potential bidders now accumulate a position in MPAC.

Others like IIG are undergoing a bit of dislocation ahead of its re-listing at AC8, Accelerate Ventures Plc. The whisper is that Lord Lee is on board to this deep value GARP share that has been misrepresented by some.

Part 1 - The Picks for 26:

#1 ALTN

AltynGold is down from £9.42 to £8.10 a share during July. £222m mar cap and poured 53.8koz of Gold in 2025.

So today and assuming steady state production you’re paying £4,126 per ounce of gold annual production, where each ounce generated £866 of net profit and that was selling in 2025 at an average $3,474 per ounce and the 2026 YTD gold price is $4,423 and today it is $4,016 an ounce.

£866 net profit per ounce in 2025 would be +£500 per ounce net profit in 2026 (assuming the $949 per ounce higher gold price is taxed at 30%)

ALTN plan to double production too. That would mean paying £2,063 per ounce of annual production of gold (assuming no debt and debt interest).

The economics are compelling particularly when you consider that the mine has a 90 year life (or 45 at double production). Then there’s a second mine Teren Sai, too.

The last time that ALTN was £8.10 per share the gold price was $3,743, so 10% below the level today. ALTN holds 90 years of reserves and plans to double production potentially in 2027.

#2 MPAC

Might we MPAC our bags soon due to a takeover offer? Strange that the takeover Titan has not spoken on this yet, despite this being one of his best ideas for 2025.

DBay, a take-private specialist, has popped up at MPAC with a 5.5% holding, also Richard Griffiths, a deals man. DBAy built up a stake and took private Alliance Pharma and Finsbury Foods and Anexo in recent times. They normally creep towards 29% to give themselves leverage and a profit if someone else offers more. One to hold until this plays out IMV. At 12 x next year’s EBITDA earnings post adjustments gives a 630p share price.

#3 FMET

Fulcrum’s mine waste recovery business is now better funded, backed by world-class engineers Bechtel and is preparing the maiden MRE. The pilot plant programme is underway. Engineering and permitting need to be progressed and the proposed royalty financing converted to a definitive agreement.

The potential for FMET is colossal but not yet assured. I remain excited for the upside potential here.

#4 Silvercorp - SVM

SVM is down 40% from YTD highs closely tracking the price of silver. A C$2.77bn or market cap is £1.5bn where the forward PE collapses to below 4X in the next few years.

Is it reliant on silver? Less and less. Silvercorp increasingly becomes “GoldCorp”, particularly when you consider the width of the yellows below are at $3,350/ounce gold. Reliant on China? Less and less - with new mines in Ecuador and Kyrgystan.

This summarises the SVM proposition:

#5 UTG

A good result in its trading update confirming on track to guidance.

It’s ironic that UTG reported a drop in valuation due to discount rate when the reason for that - Labour’s “far Worse than Liz Truss” 10 year bond yields -pictured below actually creates a moat for UTG since it is prohibitively expensive for a competitor to build PBSA.

Meanwhile the incumbent in the real world a cash-generative and low leveraged company whose moat is growing wider becomes worth more not less.

Direct lets are up 25% yoy and occupancy at 94%-96% is far better than what the detractors were forecasting.

Empiric has been challenging short term but a final 87%+ occupancy result is impressive. The benefit of multi-year residencies and providing a better alternative to HMOs for year 2/3 students and post grads will make Empiric seem a smart acquisition in time.

#6 HEX

World supply of helium in 2025 was 6,600,000 mcf (thousand cubic feet)

The re-eruption of the third Gulf War has had zero impact on the HEX share price as yet….. But 2,200,000 of that 6,600,000 mcf supply came from the Middle East in 2025 and helium-producing Ras Laffan was damaged in March and then suffered a “malfunction” on the 22nd June. What since? New attacks are being carried out by Iran as I write on “infrastructure” in neighbouring countries. How much of the Middle East Helium 2 BCF will be supplied to the world in 2026? How little is the question?

A fellow Helium stock reported this week:

The North American helium market continues to exhibit strong pricing fundamentals, driven by sustained, structural demand across high-technology manufacturing sectors, particularly semiconductor fabrication, aerospace engineering, and advanced defence technologies. The global helium market continues to be affected by structural supply chain disruptions, rationing and surcharges, particularly resulting from prolonged instability in Middle Eastern supply routes, which has materially increased demand for reliable, US-sourced domestic supply.

Merchant Bank North Wall CEO spoke about Helium:

“Over $2,600” is beyond anything I’ve modelled and even at $1,200 my calculations were mouth watering. At $500 it was highly attractive.

Helium is critical to semiconductor manufacturing which is critical to AI. Everyone is giddy about AI and now about SK Hynix and Samsung - but what do both of those companies require and why?

The Russian have banned exports of Helium. The Chinese joined them this week too.

Another factor here is how little is primary produced. As Nick Lawson tells us:

Helium rides on the same infrastructure. It is a byproduct of natural gas and LNG processing

So Helium can be mouth watering but for the likes of Exxon and its LaBarge in Wyoming (largest producer of Helium in the USA) it is a rounding error. Will a 4000% increase mean Exxon produce more?

Nope.

World demand is 6.35 bcf so there’s a circa 2 bcf demand destruction in the making.

Seems to me that this isn’t a fish in a barrel as in swimming around, it’s a dried fish with a gun directly adjacent clamped to and pointed at that dried fish. Fishing around I struggled to find anyone with reportable profits from Helium. Plenty of companies including HEX reporting losses.

Detractors would scoff at the Jam tomorrow. Looking at history that would be true.

But the past performance indicator can work both ways.

This is why I believe the past is not necessarily the future.

Part 2 - The 25 for 25

The 25 for 25 are on a YTD loss of -3.7%. Following a 53.57% return in 2025.

UUUU and MKA are down since my last update end of June, and we’ll talk about both of those shortly.

Gold ideas THX and MAFL are down while SQZ squeeze (its Triton) is up 10%. Both this and SEIT are up due to the rising price of energy.

Considering the hype around robotics BOTG is down nearly 10% and PRTC is about 5% down. BOTG has been affected by the Japanese squeeze on the Yen strengthening (depressing export profits), but also at holdings like Nvidia and Intuitive Surgical.

“Do magnets. Do magnets”. The leader of the USA says. “Do you want to make money? I’ll teach you how to make money. Do magnets”.

Can it be any clearer for investors?

15% of the 25 portfolio is attracted to magnet production via Mkango and Energy Fuels. Both in their own way are US-based on have a US operation and offer end-to-end mine to magnets, but are distinct where one is focused on recovery of magnets alongside an actual REE mine, while UUUU is focused on recovering rare earths from Heavy Mineral Sands.

#7 SQZ & AVAP

They say Airline Travel is a good proxy for Oil Consumption. The IEA claim "demand has been destroyed" for Oil in 2026 despite Oil being just as cheap today as it was Jan and Feb 2026. If ASK (seat kilometres) flown is a good proxy for world demand then where is the year to year demand destruction exactly?

Part 3 - The 2024 Picks

A 12.1% return so far in 2026. Helped by some that have more than doubled such as CGEO (+288%), BSRT (+209%) and KZG (+131%) and offset by some failures (SED, BELL, DGI9, I(X)).

A 25% return in 30 months is a 10% net return a year.

Of course the detractors won’t give a balanced view, they quote just the failures. Least I own those failures. I celebrate them. Learned a lot from those. Losing money is always painful but no pain no gain.

#8 POW

A £13.5m market cap vs £26m estimated book value (including nearly £6m cash), makes no sense with progress and drilling programmes at Molopo, at Fermi, at FDR and at FCM during June and July.

It’s nearly ‘alf price guv’nor to its book value, as though book value even reflects the true market value of success at any of these holdings.

POW has numerous shots on goal across a range of commodities. Let’s not forget that Uranium, Copper, Lithium, Chromium, Tungsten, Tin, Aluminium and Rare Earths are all at or near record levels. Gold, PGMs, Nickel are not but they are certainly not at depressed levels.

Its new investments will increasingly turn cash positive, with near term royalties, while it holds a good level of cash in any case. Cash gives optionality in a market that remains asleep to the need for new mines - the price of commodities and outlook speak to scarcity and POW is well positioned to address that.

#9 Petrotal

PTAL is a £231m market cap, and is down in price after canning its dividend last year. It was the right decision to preserve cash but are we seeing the corner turning?

PTAL announced 2Q26 results: They give numbers and reading between the lines they invested over $40m in Capex in 2Q26.

The 2Q26 FFO appears far stronger than the market gives credit….. I believe it exhibited an operating Funds Flow of £142m annualised…. for a £231m marcap!!!

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These are my estimates based on a production (but not a financial) update:

PTAL recorded 12,557 bopd which is 1.14m bbls for the quarter. Brent was on average ~$95/bbl and deducting a -$6 assumed discount = $89/bbl revenue for PTAL

1.14m x $89 = $101.7m rev.

Est. lifting costs = 1.14 x -$8.5 = -$9.7m

Est. transport = 1.14 x -$14.5 = -$16.5m

Est. royalties = 13% of $101.7m = -$13.2m

COS Total = -$39.4m

NOI = $62.3m (or $54.5m per BBL)

Assume:

G&A = -$15m

FFO = $47.3m (£142m annualised…. a £228m marcap!!!)

We know that the pre-W/C FCF was $5.6m

Therefore by deduction I believe Capex for 2Q26 was -$41.7m

W/C change (Payables reduced) = -$11m

Rig Inflow = +$13.4m

Reported Movement in Cash $8.7m

Of course not everyone agreed. They couldn’t say why they didn’t and made a weird comment that PTAL’s own guidance proved my numbers made no sense. An oil and gas tourist indeed.

The screenshot is PTAL’s guidance for 2026 and that they planned to spend up to $108m on capex in 2026 (including opex project expenditure on Erosion control which is Capex by another name in my opinion).

So is spending $41m out of a $108m budget during a quarter when there are strong oil prices nonsense? Seems much more likely it’s nonsense to call it nonsense - especially if you can’t put into words any kind of coherent reasons I’m wrong.

It is extremely encouraging that we might see a faster resolution to some of the issues hampering PTAL for the past two years. I remain of the view that this can return to delivering vast levels of cash. Nothing has changed. Averaging down at 20p was a gift, and even now at 25p it remains exceptionally cheap relative to its potential.

It was at 40p and target price 90p not so long ago.

Using metrics like its valuation of 3P as equivalent to $1.65 per barrel of oil. That includes nothing for the broader 2C resources of 534 mmbbls, or the 4,580 mmbbls high estimate across the entire block. Or paying $25,000 per flowing barrel where that production can increase 2.5X to 30 kboepd over eighteen years….

Implying a $10k per flowing barrel per day. Or $27.40 per barrel per year. Can I make a $27.40 net profit on that yearly barrel? If so I’m buying at one times price earnings aren’t I?

#10 PINE

Stock commentators were claiming this week that M&A deal volume for software companies was significantly down year on year due to the SaaS-pocalypse. Where is the evidence to that? That doesn’t appear to be the case as counter-evidence from the BCG and LSEG contradicts their view and instead found deal values were up about 50% year on year in “TMT” and “Consumer” (typically the two sectors affected by the SaaS-pocalypse)

If the prestigious BCG - Boston Consulting Group - and London Stock Exchange are correct (as opposed to stock commentators) then this is highly positive for Pinewood Technology, where we are days away from a potential renewed 500p bid. PINE is only 305p today.

#11 FAIR

FAIR started the year at NAV €4.242

Delivered -€0.269 in dividends in 2026

NAV growth to June 2026 €0.077

NAV June 30th is €4.05

YTD FAIR has delivered a 3.8% annualised NAV return which sounds rubbish - but that’s despite:

1. The SAAS-pocalypse hitting a portion of its borrowers

2. Fears around interest rates

3. The Third Gulf War

4. Fears around liquidity and credit risk

5. Closing down a US CLO warehouse and pivoting to Europe

6. Disposing of its Realisation Class of shares.

So a strong result - considering.

With the USD Realisation shares now gone, a €0.56m cash buffer and an arbitrage spread of Asset Yield 3.55% vs Financing Cost -1.8% there’s a 1.75% net spread as of June 2026’s report.

Assuming 10-to-1 leverage that’s 17.5% pure arbitrage yield.

Well above its own 12.5% target yield.

That’s with growing over collateralisation, lower % ccc and lower defaults.

Shareholders (in my opinion) should be able to see a bonus tickle (+

€0.10) later in the year on top of the €0.40 annual dividend (€0.10 per quarter). Meanwhile the NAV “should” grow by €0.20 despite a forecast 2026 -€0.50 pay out.

#12 ANIC

ANIC continues to make progress across its portfolio. This was the update for 2Q26:

• All G: Received an FDA “no questions” letter (GRAS notification) for its precision-fermented bovine lactoferrin.

• Tropic Biosciences: Received regulatory approvals in Japan and Brazil for its non-browning banana variety. It also acquired Rahan Meristem for $20 million, turning Tropic into a fully integrated banana genetics and propagation business.

• Bond Pet Foods: Received an FDA Letter of No Objection for its Lamb Protein Yeast ingredient for adult dog food.

• HydGene Renewables: Selected as one of five global companies for the ‘Greentown Go Make 2026’ decarbonisation accelerator program.

I’ve been adding to ANIC at 5p. Inflation in food, and the need for food security will provide a huge tailwind for ANIC’s alternative proteins. It has the backing of billionaire Jim Mellon.

Its holding cos need to solve the scale problem because once they do the economics of success are compelling. Take Solein for example. Compared to other protein sources like soy, pea or whey, Solein is nutritionally unique, as it combines the best qualities of animal- and plant-based proteins. Animal-free, dairy-free, lactose-free, soy-free, and non-GMO, Solein has all 9 essential amino acids without cholesterol or saturated fats. Solein contains 10% nutritious fiber, as well as iron and vitamin B12, which plant-based proteins lack.

The market appears to have completely overlooked at SFOODS (listed on Nasdaq North) and one of ANIC’s holdings that they’ve been funded for their Factory02.

Yes there are challenges at some holdings. Some have been reduced to zero and failed. Others face challenges. Liberation Biosciences for example. 75% complete but stuck in a chicken and egg situation where lenders won’t release funds without binding contracts while CEO Bendheim is holding Letters of Intent (LOIs) which are non-binding LOIs representing over 200% of the available capacity for the Richmond plant’s first five years.

Will Mellon step into funding the log jam? He stepped in recently to buy out a fellow shareholder who planned to sell their shares in the market. Again this is worth many times five pence in my opinion where 12.93p book value doesn’t reflect the fair value - with Biotech coming back into vogue will cellular agriculture not make a return too?

With foods like Kimchi off the charts popular, will precision fermentation not be successful even if cultivated or cell-based meat is looked at by some with distaste? Of course the counter argument is to look at factory farming as inhumane and distasteful.

If cultivated meat has imperceptible taste and price to a consumer, and has the strategic benefit that a country is not reliant on overseas import, will it not succeed? The UK (just about) in living memory remembers what it was like to face a food shortage as desperate people were told to “Dig For Victory” and u-boats were sinking merchant shipping at alarming rates.

Could drones and naval UVs bring the UK to our knees today? Population growth, a cynical attack on farmers (who are not traditional Labour voters) and a greater reliance on imports means the UK desperately need alternative ways to achieve food security in today’s dangerous world. And if not the UK then somewhere else. The Middle East for example. The capital starvation of Clean Food will change I predict. ANIC will not be priced at 5p in such a world when it comes.

Good luck as you make your own investment decisions.

Regards

The Oak Bloke.

Disclaimers:

This content is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not consider your personal circumstances and is not financial, investment, tax, legal, or professional advice. Nothing here is a recommendation, offer, or solicitation to buy, sell, or hold any investment. Investing involves risk, including the loss of capital. You are solely responsible for your own decisions

Micro cap and Nano cap holdings and even mighty S&P 500 companies might have a higher risk and higher volatility than companies that are traditionally defined as “blue chip”