Bisichi Share Price (BISI)

On first read, £600k better than I had pencilled in.

For coal, the forward looking tone is un-Bisichi optimistic in terms of volume, exports and costs.

Property looks ok, particularly West Ealing.

John Wong is not wrong so far, but investment details remain absurdly scant.

AH said at the last AGM that JH was pushing for higher dividends. I very much doubt we would have got 7p in 2023 under the old regime.

Hi EdwardSeaton,

You don't get it, there not interested in what the share price does, because there not selling, there in it for the long haul. That's another 10, 20, 30 years or more & possibly passed down to another generation as well.

I forgot to include something when talking about salaries/bonuses etc & I've closed down the files I had open & can't be bothered to re-open them to get the exact amount.

In one of them, LAS I think it was, it outlines Sir M Hellier's salary which was around £200,000 but he also got "office services" ie use of an office & all the things that go with it worth at least £300,000 to run the rest of his empire. Private or minority interests in public PLC's etc.

That will have been passed down to Andrew, John & the rest of the family. They gain so much more than just the headline numbers & those caught in the trap, fund 40%+ of it all annually.

It will be interesting to see how much John gets paid by BISI & Andrew by LAS for there directorships.

LOTM

I seem to recall Andrew and Mike held 10% of Bisichi outside of LAS?

Irrespective, their shareholding are currently a fraction of the NAVs, to the benefit of nobody.

As I have repeatedly said, I am in no way saying their bonus was earned and justified.

I am simply saying that the route to a share price that reflects the value of the company will only come when their clarify what they are trying to do with the business, and what the dividend policy is.

Until such time, whether there is a bonus or not, the share price will continue to languish at a fraction of NAV per share.

Hi EdwardSeaton

You don't seem to be separating salary & bonus as 2 separate things.

They are not going pay there salary as a dividend, because that would mean having to distribute wealth to the minority shareholders.

Bonuses mean rewarding themselves, for a job poorly performed in 2022 & no-one else. £2.6M disappeared out of the company's assets that way. All shareholders got was a mere £2.38M between all of them.

You seem to think the Helliers share holdings are worth £30 or £40M which is simply not the case.

The net assets of LAS along with its 41.52% of BISI & 50% of Dragon + another 41.52% of 50% = @ 71.5% of Dragon in total. Are worth £32.56M of which 56.5% belongs to the Hellier family, ie under £19M.

We'll find out in the next few days roughly how much the whole business was worth at the end of Dec 2023.

LOTM

I agree with all of that.

I would only make the following two points:

1. If the two companies were sensibly structured, the Hellers (and all other shareholders) would be substantially wealthier. If they sold/liquidated the companies, they could generate an income from the proceeds well in excess of what they currently draw. They are basically going to work pointlessly if a luxurious income is the only goal. As currently priced, they could take both companies private without a call to the bank. But they have no apparent interest in doing so. Being a plc at this scale is insanely expensive and laborious.

2. Yes, they could have paid their salaries as a dividend instead. But they could also have paid 4 or 5 times the dividend that they did, and still drawn their salaries. I am inelegantly trying to say that it wasn't an either/or choice.

I stand by my contention that I have never come across a pair of companies that would be easier and cheaper to transform. The Heller shareholdings should be worth £30m or £40m, not £5m.