MARK TOBIN | from Coffee Microcaps

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A roller-coaster of risks rewards and returns. Mark Tobin from Coffee Microcaps
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From the regulatory complexities of drone operation with RocketDNA to the century-old timber enterprise Big River Industries, this episode showcases the diversity and opportunity within the microcap sector. Get an insider's look at the upcoming Coffee Microcaps conferences in Melbourne and Sydney, where industry leaders and emerging businesses converge. For those eager to join, Shares for Beginners listeners can enjoy a special 25% discount using the codes CMMELB for Melbourne and CMSYD for Sydney.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

From Tiny Acorns: Growing Wealth in ASX Microcaps (Episode 37)

Chloe: You shares for beginners. Phil Muscatello and Finpods are authorized reps of money Sherpa. The information in this podcast is general in nature and doesn't take into account your personal situation.

Mark: A lot of them started off in the micro caps, or definitely in the small cap end. They didn't suddenly IPO and, you know, at the next rebalance drop straight into the ASX 200. You know, they weren't that mature businesses at the time that they came to the stock market. And, I mean, that is part of the function of the stock market is to provide growth capital to companies who want to grow. And one of the ways of doing that is doing an ipo and getting listed.

Phil: G'day and m welcome back to shares for beginners. I'm Phil Muscatello, and I also host another occasional podcast series called talking companies with Mark Tobin from coffee microcaps.

Speaker D: G'day, Mark.

Mark: G'day, Phil.

Phil: We talk with, uh, ceos from some of the undiscovered gems at the smaller end of the ASX. And Mark's work began as an equity analyst in Sydney. I mean, Mark's been on, you've been on a few times. Maybe this is the fifth or 6th time, but if people haven't heard of him, he's had quite the background in the small cap sector, including at Wilson's asset management.

Mark: Yeah, thanks, Phil.

Mark: Been a while since I worked at Wilson's, but yeah, was, um, at Wilson's with Jeff and all the team there for a couple of years, and then back in 2018, started coffee microcap. So been in and around the microcap end specifically. And there's no real hard and fast definition of what a microcap is. In Australia, some people might refer to as small caps in general, but, yeah, down the very kind of bottom end of the ASX for the last, let's say, five years.

Phil: So tell us about coffee microcaps. Just give us a reminder about what coffee microcaps is and where people can see. It's mainly on YouTube, isn't it? That's one of the main places where people can catch up with your look at small companies.

Mark: Yeah.

Mark: So, uh, as I said, coffee microcaps, I started in 2018 mainly out of a bit of frustration for myself that there wasn't really a microcap conference happening in Sydney at the time. There's been one that's been going in Melbourne for many, many years. Happens around October, but there wasn't really anything in Sydney. And I was like, well, I'm going to start my own conference. So we did our first conference in Sydney in March 2019. And then I guess in the early days, we were just doing kind of conferences every six months after reporting season. So we do 1 March, April, depending on school holidays and Easter, after companies.

Mark: Report now in February, and then we do another one again probably in October.

Mark: Kind of after full year results were done and annual reports are out, but before kind of agms and that kick off in November. And then obviously we had the pandemic. And in the pandemic then, obviously we weren't doing in person events, so we started doing online events smaller than the conferences. So, uh, the conference, if we do the full day one in Sydney, we have 1213 companies presenting. It was more an hour. We'll get two companies in and we'll kind of do them on a weekly.

Mark: Or every two weeks.

Mark: And that's just kind of continued since the pandemic has ended.

Mark: So we had an event online last.

Mark: Week with four companies presenting. We've got another event actually happening online, I think, Wednesday week, and they just kind of happen. I would say maybe we do two or three in a month. Um, just depends on company schedules, where we are in terms of, like, reporting season. Obviously, down the microcap end, we have a lot of companies that report quarterly through their appendix four c reports. So we generally have a bulk of events that happen around those. And with the easing of the restrictions from the pandemic, we got back on the old horse of the in person events, and we did our first in person event in Melbourne. When was it? April 23. And I'm glad to say we're going to be back in Melbourne now in March 24 for our second edition of Melbourne. And we've got our big shindig, if you want to say, up in Sydney, which is, I'll say our main event only because it's been kind of running the longest, which is also happening in March. So, yeah, we tended, uh, my definition of a microcap are the companies you're going to typically find presenting, either online or in persons are capped under 300 million in revenue approaching cash flow break even, or indeed are ready, profitable, and indeed, in some cases, some of them are dividend paying. So when you say in revenue, that generally rules out a lot of the junior miners junior resources sector and a lot of the biotechnology, medical kind of startup companies. But I mean, there's plenty of opportunities for them, I think, to present their hotter events and I don't think they have any trouble getting their story out there with some of the other providers in the market. So we tend to focus on what I call industrial micro caps. But that spans everything, sorry, from technology to retail to professional services businesses, a whole plethora of other kind of industry sectors that just generally doesn't include resources and biotech, if we want to talk in broad terms.

Phil: Yep. And also media and research houses, as exactly.

Mark: You know, we had, uh, Motio actually, I think you knew some of the team from there, from back in a former life in radio, presented at our last conference, who are in that kind of media advertising space would be one, but then on the other side, completely different business. We had John Lorenti from Big River Industries. They are supplying high end kind of timber and supplies into the construction industry. So it's a really wide mix of companies that do present, uh, coffee microcaps. I try and get as many sectors represented in there as possible, and various different market caps. Motio will be much smaller business, for example, market cap wise, than say, like Big river. So I also try and span that. When I say 300 million, we go right down to companies that are capped at 10 million and kind of everything in between, so that there's a good variety on the day for the in person events. And we also try and translate that across.

Mark: When we're doing online events, we generally.

Mark: Won'T have four technology companies presenting or, uh, we won't have four businesses linked to, say, like Big river that are some way connected to the construction industry. Um, if we do something like that, it'll be kind of advertised as a specialist microcap technology or microcap healthcare or something like that. But generally we try and mix up the market caps and mix up the sectors.

Do you ever take into consideration the balance sheet of the companies that are presenting

Phil: Do you ever take into consideration the balance sheet of the companies that are presenting? Do you like them to show a bit of cash on the books?

Mark: It's a bit hard to have cash on the books down this end of the market. A lot of them are in, although.

Phil: Some do, some do no 100%.

Mark: I mean, big river is a classic example of that where. That's right, it's down the small end of the market, but it pays a dividend. It's a well established business. I think John said it at the last presentation. Remember correctly, they've been going for over 100 years. As a business mightn't be listed for that long, but as a business itself, it's been going for over 100 years. Another example people probably familiar had been listed for a very long time is reckon kind of accounting software provider guys.

Mark: They're going to be presenting at our.

Mark: Upcoming conference in March. They've done a few of our online events. And again, revenue, cash on the books pays a dividend. Those appendix four C companies, the reason that they're kind of having to do appendix four C's every quarterly, every uh, quarter is the fact that they're still getting to that cash or break even point. And the ASX is requiring them to report. So you'll generally see they have kind of a cash outflow every quarter, hopefully getting smaller. And that is kind of pulling down on the cash balance that they have on the balance sheet. So, I mean, it is something I keep an eye on. And again, try and get the mix of those businesses where you have the reckons of the world, the big river industries, quantum IP, well established businesses, cash on the balance sheet, paying dividends versus the appendix four C reporting companies who are just in a different stage of their business. They're just not as established. They're trying to grow, they're trying to get to where some of these other ones are. And you just don't really find that at the ASX kind of 200 level. Those are big, well established business. Generally, they're all kind of making money. Might not be paying a dividend, but you won't really find ASX 200 company. That's appendix four C reporting.

Mark: This doesn't really happen.

Phil: And just to explain an appendix four C is certain size companies, because of the nature of their stage of development, they have to report every, uh.

Mark: Well, the appendix four C is not so much to do with the size, it's more to do with the fact that they're kind of not making a profit or haven't kind of made a profit historically.

Mark: So if they're still in that kind.

Mark: Of growth phase, ramp up phase, the kind of ASX says, okay, well, you need to keep us a bit more, or keep your investors in the market a bit more updated. So you'll find it's not really size related, but it just kind of does correlate with the bigger the company is. They've obviously kind of been more successful. The market cap's gone up, the revenue's gone up, and eventually the profits come true. Mightn't be continuous profits. They can flip between periods of profits and losses, but generally they're more profitable not. And then that appendix four C, uh, requirement, get relief from it, from the ASX markets committee, and it just kind of drops away. And then they get into, I think, what most people would be familiar with of the normal six monthly reporting cycle, where you generally get the half year results in February, and then we roll over into August and we get the full year results. With most companies on the ASX.

Mark: I mean, there are a few exceptions.

Mark: Here and there that have a December year end, but most companies on the ASX are a June 30 year end. Then you get the kind of final results then in August. I will say that the other major outliers to that kind of reporting schedule are all the New Zealand companies, uh, of which there are kind of quite a few that are listed on the ASX these days. I think it's been a bit of a growth area for the ASX to get more dual listings from across the Tasman, but I think that the New Zealand companies, March 31, I think, is their year end company wise and tax wise. So you'll see a lot of them reporting their full year results in May.

How has the Australian small and micro cap sector performed over the last year

Phil: So how's the sector been performing over the last year? Because we've seen quite an uptick in the markets in the States and here in Australia as well. But how has this sector been performing?

Mark: Yeah, we're still lagging. We're still lagging the big end of town. And I think it's a little bit of this end of the market, if anybody wants to cast their mind back to the pandemic, had a big run through kind of 2021 and the early stages of 2022, where we were really.

Mark: Outperforming, uh, the large caps. But that has now changed around where.

Mark: Large caps have been in a good space over the last 18 months, even two years. So we've definitely lagged. And there's been a bit of a bear market in the small and micro cap end. I see a lot of commentators and fund managers on other platforms kind of calling out the relative difference, the valuation differences, and that 2024, a lot of.

Mark: People are looking for that gap to.

Mark: Close and for kind of 2024 to be a year for the kind of micro cap and small cap end of the market. Um, it's early days. We'll have to see. We'll total up the final score at the end of December. But, um, what I will say for what I've seen so far, there are definitely some green shoots. There's definitely a little bit more interest coming back into it. I think just even from a pure valuation perspective, as you say, the large caps have run up. PEs are starting to look, uh, I won't say expensive, but, uh, compared to.

Mark: Maybe something you can find in the.

Mark: Small and micro cap end, there's probably a bit more value down our end of the ASX, ah, currently than maybe the top end.

Do you have any favorite stories of companies that started out as micro cap

Phil: Do you have any favorite stories, case studies of companies that started out as a micro cap who ended up in the ASX 200, for example?

Mark: There's so many. Uh, let's take the biggest one of all. When CSL listed, it was a microcap. And I mean, it's right up there in the ASX top 20 these days. I mean, sometimes it's number one. I mean, when that was spun out.

Mark: Of public ownership, it was a bit.

Mark: Like Telstra was a government entity that was privatized back in Commonwealth bank of privatization, I guess, in the 90s, has capped under 300 billion. And if you use that as some kind of benchmark, as a micro cap or definitely a small cap, I mean, when it listed, that's what it was. One that, uh, probably more recent example of that was afterpay. Also a micro cap, I think it was capped at less than 100 million when it first hit the boards all the way through to its ventural takeover by square.

Mark: Another one, the space that I remember.

Mark: Well has done quite well since is corporate travel management. Uh, and, you know, I remember that IPO happening. I was still working at Wilson's at.

Mark: The time, um, and met Jamie as.

Mark: Part of the IPO roadshow and really liked the business, really like Jamie and the team there.

Mark: And that was another one where started.

Mark: Off as a microcap and these days is multiples of what it was on the day it listed. So you can go through a lot of names that are in that ASX 200 that if you sometimes a bit like CSL, you got to go back far enough. But you'll find a lot of them started off in the micro caps or definitely in the small cap end, they didn't suddenly ipo and at the next rebalance drop straight into the ASX 200. They weren't that mature businesses at the time that they came to the stock market. And I mean that is part of the function of the stock market is to provide growth capital to companies who want to grow and one of the ways of doing that is doing an ipo and getting listed these days. Uh, and I think compared to maybe definitely when CSL first started out as a listed business, private equity and venture capital, those markets weren't as well developed.

Mark: As they are now.

Mark: So maybe that really wasn't a ah, consideration or an option for a lot of companies. Whereas today it is definitely on the smoker's board of capital options for companies who are looking to grow. But that is still one of the key functions of the ASX is a venue to raise capital for growth companies. And a lot of micro caps are in that growth phase of their business. So that's why we have so many, I guess, micro caps in the Asxme. If you look at DSX, got over.

Mark: 2000 companies listed there.

Mark: I think the last time I looked I think 1500 of them had a.

Mark: Market cap under 300 million.

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Phil: And of course not everyone can be a winner either. It's something where you really do have to manage your risk when you're investing in this end.

Mark: No?

Mark: Exactly. And I think the risk is higher for sure because the business models are still in that growth phase and they're.

Mark: Still trying to entrench themselves as a.

Mark: Market leader or the dominant player in this market. And they're also probably taking a bit more risks of launching new products, branching into new markets, trying to move internationally, which we've seen a fair few australian companies get burned on the international expansion front, big and small. It's not exclusively to micro caps, but when you're building that business, it's day in, day out, taking maybe bigger risk than say somebody like a CSL where you've got a very established product lineup, very well established market share, like in CSL's case, a global leader in what they do. So when they're talking about we're going to do this and we're going to do that, I would say the risk level is lower than some of the decisions that the microcap companies are making. And that's just the nature of the market. Just where CSL is compared to where these other companies are. There's no kind of right or uh, wrong in it. And I guess it goes back to capital markets theory. There has to be risk reward. Do I think CSL is going to have the same return from the 1990s to now over the next 30 years versus a company that's a micro cap now to where it might be in 30 years? No, I don't. I think CSL probably is more in that kind of steady state phase, chipping along nicely. But something down the microcap end that's going to turn into a CSL that's going to be a huge multiplier over time. But you got to do your due.

Mark: Diligence, as you always say, Phil.

Mark: You got to do the work, do the research, speak to your financial advisors, speak to your brokers, because it is more riskier down this end of the market. It's not a bug, it's a feature of the market.

Phil: Yeah, we've always heard that one from uh, Andrew Page, I think.

Mark: I was trying to think who says it a uh, uh, mean Andrew Page from know. I think his platform, his community is a great offering and was actually badly needed in the market before Andrew started it. And a lot of very smart people cover a lot of the microcap end.

Mark: Stocks there where a bit like know.

Mark: I'm trying to give a coffee. Microcaps a platform to connect investors and for companies to get their stories out. You know, they kind of do a bit more of the deep dive and a bit more the research and share it around. And you can kind of benefit from that kind of community of knowledge and you've done a bit of work. But uh, I can't see like what Bell Potter don't cover the stock or shaws don't cover the stock, probably because it's too small for them. So it's hard to kind of bounce your ideas and test it against kind of what somebody else thinks where I think the straw man community, especially for microcap and small cap stocks, provides a valuable resource for people to get more information and get other insights from other investors about what they think about a particular company.

Phil: And this end of the market tends to be quite darwinian, isn't it? It's very much a win or lose area. And you either survive or you don't survive. And it's a place for experimentation, I guess to take that evolutionary analogy a bit further, a species is trying different things to adapt to an environment. And in the case of the small cap, they might be using AI, for example, or, uh, deploying some sort of new piece of technology that a larger company is not flexible enough or nimble enough to do. So. I don't know. I don't know if there's a question there, but it's kind of an observation. Do you feel that way at all about this end?

Mark: Yeah, I think you're right. And you talk about the large companies.

Mark: Not being nimble enough.

Mark: One of the reasons you don't see these microcaps sometimes get into the SX 200 is they get gobbled up by either other listed players or other large industry players because they have got a solution, a product, a service, or have cracked a particular market that will fit very nicely into a kind of a bigger enterprise. So you kind of start building it up, and then it just gets absorbed into something else, and you go like, uh oh, do you remember that business? They got taken over by whoever it might be, and they just kind of disappear from the boards.

Mark: But you do, at the other end.

Mark: You do have companies who, as much as they've tried, it just hasn't worked. And again, you just do see more of that. With the stage of the business and the lifecycle for microcaps at the Baham end, then it's not, I would say, totally unheard of for an ASX 200 company to enter administration. But if you're looking at, uh, a spectrum of these over a five year period and their market cap at the time the announcement came out that they're entering administration, you will find definitely more of them at the micro cap end than you will at the ASX 200. And again, as Andrew says, it's a feature, not a bug of the system. You just have to kind of recognize where you're investing at this end of the market and where those companies are at. And it's not for everybody. But to me, it's a very interesting part of the market. You get some really interesting businesses doing some really interesting stuff, and it's very, I find, intellectually stimulating.

Mark: And if you've got a bit of.

Mark: A natural curiosity, there's so many businesses to look at that change all the time with new ipos and kind of even spin outs from ASX 200 companies where once it was a division, now it's its own little business down our end, and you get kind of a deeper understanding of it. So from that perspective, it does offer an interesting challenge, I think, for investors and can be a very rewarding one.

So tell us about some of the companies that are attending in March

Phil: So tell us about some of the companies that are attending in March, especially the Sydney event. They're coming from far and wide, aren't they?

Mark: Yeah, we generally do have a few companies come interstate this time we've got cash converters. I think people would know them. It's been listed for a good while and obviously you'll see their shops all over the country. So they are actually based in port, but they're coming to present in Melbourne and Sydney. And then we've got Avada Group, which are based up in Brisbane. If you do a lot of the. If you see any roadworks happening or big construction projects, those people who are doing traffic control, they do quite a, provide that service to quite a lot of companies and subcontractors. And they are coming, uh, down from Brisbane to present in Melbourne. They unfortunately can't join us in Sydney. And then we have Rocket DNA who are coming across from Adelaide. They're also going to be doubling up a bit like cash converters. They're going to be doing Melbourne and Sydney. So those guys do drones for the mining industry, predominantly. So running drones across mine sites for safety, for planning, for mine expansion work. Quite interesting business. And you talk about drones. They use AI then for the processing of all the images. So, uh, if you're looking for a business, I think that's kind of definitely on the edge of drones, AI, that kind of stuff. In the market today, Rocket DNA is one. And then you've got a business on the other side, like cash converters, which has been around for a long time, very established business, but has got some interesting kind of growth avenues that they're pursuing. Um, but totally different space. You can probably more call it financial.

Mark: Services than retail these days.

Phil: Uh, we'll get back to the show.

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Phil: It's interesting, the previous episode of shares for beginners, we had Chris Clark from Rocket DNA on talking about it. And, um, it's a great episode and hearing about how they've deployed it. And they're not just a drone company. It's not just about getting the drones up in the air, it's about the regulatory approval to do it. They actually use a lot of real pilots to fly the drones. And as you say, the artificial intelligence, the way that that's being deployed, because they've got such an enormous amount of data. Again, a lot of these companies are becoming more data companies. No matter where they are. It's all about the data. That's where the real gold is, isn't.

Mark: I mean, yeah, Chris definitely gives a good overview of the business. And you're right. When people kind of think of they're flying drones, as I just said there, they think it's some guy who bought one from JV hi fi or somewhere online, and they're just kind of using that. The stuff that rocket DNA have, it's proper professional kit that is licensed by the aviation authority. And the pilots have to go through specific training and licensing as well. This is real serious stuff. This is not any kind of amateur. You can kind of get anybody in to do it if you give them a quick half an hour lesson. It's much, much more advanced than that. And I think that's maybe one of the things that kind of people underestimate about rocket DNA is that what they are doing is a very specialist service. And there's not many people who have ticked the boxes from a regulatory and a compliance and licensing point of view in the australian space where they operate. And I think that's one of the kind of key messages that Chris and the team at Rocket DNA are trying.

Mark: To get across, that it's a growing industry.

Mark: And I guess for Lahadi's big mining know, safety, compliance, all of that is a huge, huge part of mining today, modern mining. And they are able to tick the boxes for a lot of those big customers.

Mark: Yeah.

Phil: Again, it's interesting because you referred to big river Industries previously as well, and they've been around for 100 years. You don't necessarily have to be a new company to be in this end of the market. And they've proven themselves over a long period of time.

Mark: Yeah, exactly. I mean, big River, I think, know it's a classic case. It was a family run business for a long, long time. And then it eventually came to, you know, maybe being that family run business for a long time. It was the slow and steady know. Their headquarters in Grafton, up in the northern rivers in New South Wales. So you're slowly expanding from there. And they bought a little competitor business or set up a little outlet store or whatever, maybe a bit further down the coast or heading up north, closer towards Brisbane, and funding it themselves through their own kind of internal family capital and profits. And over 100 years, it has expanded to be an ASX listed company now. But at the same time, we're still not talking if I take, and they're probably not a good competitor to compare somebody like Big river to, but it's a name that people will know. Compare that, uh, to a, uh, James Hardy, which is kind of a well established ASX 200 name, and then you get Big river that's been around for as you say, 100 years, but still got a market cap. I think it's around 161, 70 million. So it's definitely not a small business, but it's by no means something as big as the James Hardy's of the world.

Phil: Yeah, that's right. And interestingly, with Big river as well, one of their largest shareholders is an LIc, I believe it's uh, Naos. And um, quite a big chunk of them, don't they?

Mark: Yeah, I think the Naos guys, I think would be there, Sebastian Evans, and mean, that would fit into, from what I know, the Naos guys in their know, they do like a lot of the companies that kind of do present a coffee, know they do like ones with, let's say, a more proven business model, revenue profit generating, but at the same time look good value to them, um, based on what the kind of future prospects are. And in Big river, if we go back, I mean, John Laurenti is, I'll say, relatively new CEO. I think he's been there about two years. You know, John's trying to expand the business. Mergers and acquisitions is going to be part of that. Bringing on new products, opening in new locations where they think there's a gap in the market for their offering. So all of those bits and pieces still shows you, even after 100 years, that there's still growth ahead of this company and, uh, growth from a few different angles. So I think that's also something to.

Mark: Kind of bear in mind with these.

Mark: Companies that they seem, that they've been around for a while or they've been listed for a long time, but a lot of times they're coming out of family ownership structure that has evolved over 40 or 50 years and now is the time that the next generation don't want to take over or the next generation are taking over, but they really.

Mark: Want to kind of kick on and.

Mark: Take the business to the next level. And going through an IPO process and raising some extra capital to accelerate their growth is one of the options open to them.

So in Sydney, coffee microcaps conference is in March; Melbourne in February

Phil: So in Sydney, coffee microcaps conference is in March. What's the date in March?

Mark: So Melbourne is the, uh, twelveth of March, which is the Tuesday of that week, and then 14th to March, Valentine's Day, the Thursday of that week.

Phil: And in Sydney, it's at the, um, state library, isn't it?

Mark: They're both at the state Library. So Melbourne, we utilize the state Library of Victoria, the Wheeler center within there. And then in Sydney, we've always been at the Metcalf auditorium, which is at the back of the state library in New South Wales, just off Macquarie street by the domain. Yeah, it's a very kind of central location, as is the state library of Victorian down in Melbourne.

Mark Tobin: Tickets are $40 for both events and that includes GST

Phil: So is there a discount code for listeners of the podcast?

Mark: Of course, I wouldn't let your listeners.

Phil: I forgot to ask, I've got it on the script here and I thought, hang on, I'd better check. So for listeners of the podcast.

Mark: No. So tickets are $40 for both events and that includes GST booking fee. So it's around $40 number and 25% off for listeners and friends of the podcast. And, uh, code for Melbourne is Charlie, Mike Mike, Echo, Lima. Brava. So it's like CM melb, I guess, short for Melbourne. And then Sydney then is Cmsyd M. So Charlie, Mike, Sierra, Yankee Delta.

Phil: Yep. That's great. I can really highly recommend these conferences. So, uh, please come along if you've got some time. They're great fun and it's really good to see a showcase and a beauty contest of some of these companies that you would otherwise never hear about. Mark Tobin, thanks very much for coming and joining me on the podcast.

Mark: Thanks, Phil. And yeah, uh, hopefully we'll get to see some of the listeners and that's one of the other things I think I really enjoy about the conferences. You speak to so many people. I say speak now, engage with them on Twitter or X or some of these other platforms, like Strawman, for example, we mentioned earlier, and you never kind of get to really meet them in person. And I've met so many microcap investors from around Australia at these events, and it's really great to put face to the name. And we do networking drinks after events in Sydney. All, uh, was very well attended. Very well. You know, it's just great to catch up and chat about stocks that either presented in the day or you kind of know from interactions between the two of you in the online virtual space of you both hold. And you can kind of chitchat about common stocks of interest. And it kind of builds up a bit of a community and a bit more of a relationship between the kind of microcap investors, which is one of the goals I had at the start.

Mark: As well, was to try and get.

Mark: A bit of a community going and have a forum for microcap investors specifically to kind of come together because it was kind of very disparate. And as I said, there was no event happening in Sydney, so there wasn't really anywhere to kind of meet these group of fellow investors and like minded.

Mark: Investors other than if both of you.

Mark: Happen to turn up at an AGM to one of the companies you are both invested in. But that's very company specific. So I thought with the conference, you'll get a much wider network of people, and hopefully we've created that. I hope we've done something in that regard over the last five years.

Phil: Anyway, fantastic. Okay, Mark, see you at the conference.

Mark: Cheers, Phil. Looking forward to catching up in person again.

Speaker A: Thanks for listening to shares for beginners. You can find more@sharesforbegners.com if you enjoy listening, please take a moment to rate or review in your podcast player or tell a friend who might want to learn more about investing for their future.

TONY KYNASTON is a multi-millionaire professional investor thanks to the QAV checklist he developed . Tony's knowledge and calm analysis takes the guesswork out of share market investing.

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