You'd think that's a possibility @lastever -- maybe a Honeywell or Thales Group?

But it could be little solace if it's taken out at 12c or something. The company would spruik it as a positive "20% premium to the VWAP" etc etc, but potentially still below what shareholders would consider attractive.

M&A aside, because it's dangerous to rely on takeover potential, AVA is a very small microcap company, and while management always matters, it matters SO much more with these smaller companies (and with ALL miners IMO, but that's not relevant here). The importance of management quality and being able to trust management has been highlighted here again and again by many members, and if we analyse our own biggest losses, we will usually find that a common theme across those loser companies has been poor management or management who say one thing and then do another, or else management who just keep overpromising and set unachievable goals and/or timelines.

In the case of AVA, we had poor management prior to Mal who put their own self-interest ahead of the company's longer term interests - by selling off their most profitable division and then using the proceeds of that sale to reward themselves with massive bonuses and distribute most of the remainder of the sale proceeds to all shareholders as a large special dividend. Bad capital management and poor strategic decision making also. They should have been investing in the business and making sure it was fully capitalised and would not need to do any CRs to grow from there. Instead they took that money out of the company and most of it ended up in their own pockets.

Then - since Mal has joined, we have had overpromising followed by underdelivering. It doesn't matter how good a company's potential might be, or appears to be, when that company's future relies on management and management isn't particularly competent or trustworthy.

If the company isn't doing what they say they will do and meeting their own guidance, then my advice based on personal experience is: Get out. Don't believe the hype.

As with 3DP. Same deal - lots of overpromising and underdelivering. Moving the goalposts. Quietly dropping any reference to "big" deals and potential sales that never panned out into anything at all, or anything of substance. AVA is nowhere near that level of management dishonesty, but they still overpromise and underdeliver.

I'm happy to remain on the sidelines with such companies, even if they do eventually get taken out at a premium to their price at that time, because their price at that time is often a lot less than it is when you have multiple chances to exit. Always try to have your money in your best ideas. Is AVA really in the top 10 list or even top 20 list of anyone here - STILL? Is there not multiple better opportunities for us to invest our money in? Be smart Strawpeople. Think logically and let past experience inform your decision making.

It's also worth remembering that even if you have a 40/60 ratio of good calls vs bad calls when making initial purchases (in companies via shares), you can still outperform the market as long as you have discipline and cut your losers early before they do too much damage and let your winners run. The trick of course is to identify the losers and to be able to differentiate a loser from a company who has been oversold but that will most likely be trading significantly higher in future years. So it's not all about what the share price does. It's much more to do with what management say and what management do, and if those two align well.

It took me many years to learn such discipline, and I still don't get it right all the time, but there's a reason why most of the positions on my Strawman scorecard (currently all of them) are green, showing positive returns. You can have a portfolio full of winners, you just have to learn to sell out of the losers.

Well said @Bear77

Exactly the kind of direct, if uncomfortable, thing i need to hear. A key weakness of mine has always been being too slow to sell out. Occasionally that's been a good thing. Usually it's not.

When I was living off trading for a bit I kept stats on info like this which also helped keep me focused (positive feedback loop). The portfolio I ran was 70-80% core investing positions but I ran the 20-30% tail on high turnover trading which made the money to pay bills. I found my strike rate on calls being up or down gravitated around 50/50 (neither good or bad analyst LOL) but the money was made from risk managing, keeping losses on a position tight and letting winners run. Winners averaged +60% and losers were -18%. Total returns from the portfolio then became a function of turnover rate. This was from a while a go and I put portfolio notes out quarterly on twitter but the key summary stats from my last note (March 2021) are below:

Yes, I agree with the general sentiment and voting with my feet on this one while I hopefully break even. Sorry $AVA, but nothing is more annoying than over-promising by management (who bloody should know better). Yeah, I know it's a fashion parade out there where clickbait rules but be fair dinkum with those that take the time and effort to invest.

Was, until today, an investor/holder IRL & SM