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Confession time .....
The 2 sells for 9.9K & 9K this afternoon were mine.
I wasn't intending selling & certainly not at that price.
However the sheer drop on BBY at lunchtime made it impossible for me not to go there. Just failed to bank a nice profit at the close, will likely bank it early tomorrow morning & then start to get the cash back into CNE.
LOTM
HarrierResearch,
Blackrock is already a 5.4% shareholder in the company.
I hope its not a good play for private equity as I see this as a really good cash cow for shareholders, only the market doesn't seem to have worked that out yet. Perhaps its the current lack of annual dividends that's masking the true story for investors to see. By this time next year I think people will get the message.
Until then the rest of the tidying up needs to take place & hopefully in a way that means a bigger benefit further down the line.
As to value, £2.70 was turned down before, since then the special dividend effectively bought in over 50% of the company at £2.11 per share. So a bid / offer of £3.10 a share now would barely get you to that point. Given the $35M of G&A cuts in there as well & the current outlook for oil, I don't see anyone getting the 11 largest holders to budge for under £3.25
LOTM
My goodness this is getting complex ...........
The previous Goldman Sachs filing was for last thursday (not the friday as I thought)
The one for friday shows them getting rid of virtually all of there 10% holding.
Now Bank of America (Merrill Lynch) have disclosed on Monday 14th August a holding of 9.48% from none previously, with most of it through indirect voting rights - so this is where the Goldman Sach's voting rights all went to.
Merrill Lynch only took on the direct share holding and part of the indirect voting rights for a total of 5.66% . It doesn't say (or show) who else within Bank of America got the other near 3% of voting rights obtained.
So it could be to clients of there's or it could be to other parts of the bank.
Something sure is going on .............................. & we're going to be the last to know
LOTM
EGPC*
Furthering LOTM-13's posts: we know GS has recently accrued a 10.2% stake in CNE and, as of today, BoA have a 9.5% stake.
It's not clear who the beneficial owner of the swaps/shares are, but is anyone else getting the distinct impression that a potential buyout is in the works here?
CNE strikes me as a good play for a private equity firm that has the ability to wait out a few years for the ECPG to start paying for the Egyptian oil again, and to dispose of all the remaining assets. By my calculations of the intrinsic value, there's ~100% upside from CNE's current market cap - a very healthy return.
Goldman Sachs reporting's are 2 days behind what has actually occurred, ie today's filing relates to what happened in the market on Friday.
So we'll have to wait until at least tomorrow to find out if they bought the 2.6M Madison shares, if not then who did ?
LOTM
I was going to be writing to talk about the sudden stop to the buy-back program & all this Goldman Sachs activity until that Madison announcement came out.
Why would they sudden just stop the buy-back buying, when they could still be making progress (slowly admittedly) on a daily basis ?
Have they been approached recently, by someone regarding a merger or take-over & thus the buy-back has had to be put on hold until the market is made aware of the facts ?
Or is the broker they agreed to do the buy-back purchases through got a conflict of interest (ie is doing a lot of these transactions on behalf of Goldman Sachs) & has had to put the buy-back on hold until it has finished this other work ?
Maybe someone else will come up with some other possibilities because those are the only ones that I can come up with that make any sense.
LOTM
Hmm there is much more to this than meets the eye.
Goldman Sachs seems to be reducing the number of shares it physically owns, while at the same time increasing the number of shares it has the voting rights to, to keep its overall position stable.
Now who would want to buy stock & not having the voting rights attached to it ? & how much of a premium are they getting for doing so as well ?
Madison has just revealed a drop of 2.6M shares in its holding of CNE, which apparently happened yesterday, but there isn't any sign of that volume of trading going through the market yesterday !
LOTM
I was having a look at the CNE website at the weekend & happened to look at the major shareholder's list.
I didn't realise just how concentrated the share register is, with 10 groups each owning over 3% of the company as at 28th July. For a combined holding of 94.82M shares or 66.39% of the shares in issue.
Goldman Sachs is already in the list via "Goldman Sachs Collateral A/C" which is down for 10.6M shares or 7.42% of the company.
The recent major holdings announcements from Goldman Sachs seems to indicate (if you look at the 1st one from 8th August in particular). That this is a totally separate one to the other existing holding. (since the announcement on the 8th say there was no previous holding).
If that is the case then the top 11 holdings now control 109.3M 76.58% of the company & therefore the free float is down to just 34.4M of which CNE are trying to buyback around another 4M shares.
If you disagree & say no its connected to that other Goldman Sachs fund or the swaps are actually shares held by 1 or more of the other top10 holders that have sold/lent the voting rights to there shares instead. Then in that case the major holders now account for 98.75M shares or over 69% of the company & the free float is 44M shares.
I will return to this topic later to discuss the implications of the $100M special dividend that is going to be coming in the not to distant future.
LOTM
Well that was some "tree shake"
I wonder for who's benefit that was done ?
Were GS looking to shake out more stock or is there another buyer in the background trying to pick-up a decent amount of stock as well.
I do hope the buy-back program got some shares today.
Roll on Monday for more fun & games I guess.
LOTM
I enjoy reading his notes,
The BB would be dead without them, and you dont have to read them, and there is thread view
Have you considered buying a notebook or diary so you can record your fascinating thoughts on buying or selling shares - rather than continually post them on here? They hardly constitute a discussion.
Rightly or wrongly changed my mind, stopped my limit order & just bought 2400 shares at 178.6p instead.
Lets see if this bounces now or not, I wonder what GS will make of it all this afternoon when USA comes online ?
Hopefully the buy-back program has mopped up a little stock in the meantime as well :)
LOTM
What the heck is going on this morning, where has this massive price drop come from ?
Didn't see this come, should have bailed at least one trading block yesterday !
If I'd even seen a hint of it I would have but everything looked to be on an upward trend then this massive drop on no volume, is it a tree shake ? who knows
Anyway I've put in yet another buy order this time for another 2,500 shares.
LOTM
That's no stock bought in for 3 days in a row now - very strange indeed. I'm guessing there is no stock available or too many buy orders occurring in the background that is mopping up al available stock !
Oil price is nearly at its highest level since mid November 2022, that has to be helping the bottom line in Egypt & the payments they get for the north sea stuff they sold on.
Not sure where the trading exit point should be now ! history is saying just short of 190p, but my gut is saying its going to go higher than that !
I'm guessing we'll see weakness 1st thing in the morning & then the price strengthening from there as the day progresses which is the current pattern (which is no doubt driven by GS at the moment & there stake building & there instructions are probably coming from the USA - which would tie in with the above).
LOTM
Well it looks like Goldman Sachs have been busy getting a sizeable position in place of CNE shares & voting rights & SWAP's (some for as long as 10 -years) to reveal voting rights to 10.2% of the company, compared to not having any disclosure requirements on the stock previously.
They clearly see long term value here.
LOTM
1st significant point to note today is the fact there was no share buy-back announcement, so no stock bought in on friday.
I was going to comment about it anyway, but this gives me the chance to highlight it even more. The buy-back has ground down to a mere 40,000 shares or so being bought in daily. Given there is £8M still to be spent on the existing buy-back that equates to over 4M shares or 100+ days of actual trading at the current rate to complete it. Meaning it wouldn't be completed until December. So they really need to step up there game & be more aggressive in buying back the stock because we don't want a situation where the buy-back is continuing when there going to be paying out that special dividend in Q4 (don't know the size of it yet or whether it will be a share reduction as happened the last time, or a simple cash payment or a combo job). The less shares outstanding at that time the bigger the payment will be for everyone.
Early indications are that there is a bit of a stock shortage today, which is squeezing the price higher, bots are not selling into the rising price as much as they usually would do.
Question is how many more buyers are there out there to push the price even higher, I guess we'll get the answer to that as the day progresses.
LOTM
Only 149 trades on Friday, with 50 of them coming in the 1st 2 hours of trading, during which time they tried to get the price above 180p which was met with small selling each time but total volume during this time was just 20,000 shares.
Next 2.5 hrs saw little trading (7K) the 6K bias of more buys than sells lifted the price to the verge of 180p being the bid price by 12:45 then 2 identical trades of 83K 14 secs apart at 181.2p (possibly a b&b or move from 1 a/c to another).
Caused the bid price to reach 181p into which 2 O trades for 6K seemed to trigger the bots into starting to sell stock, taking the offer price all the way down to 180p again before the 100th trade. At that point the bots started light buying again. This only lifted the offer price to 181p at 3:30
Then no trades at all for over 30 mins during which time they marked the offer up to 182.4p & then when the bid hit 181.6p an O trade occurred which got little reaction from the bots.
Auction volume was light but very much on the positive side.
So all in all can't complain at all about Friday. Especially price wise with the near 3% gain on the day.
The next question is what will happen on Monday ?
Oil price is firming up all the time at the moment & the Ukraine attack on an oil tanker in the Black Sea might reduce Russian supplies further. There will also be the OPEC news to factor in as well.
Overall market sentiment doesn't seem positive for now, so that might be a hinderance.
Hopefully the price pushes on towards the top of the trading range again in the next couple of days at which point the trading profits can be banked.
LOTM
What can I say other than ............ it was an even stranger day's trading.
Not a single trade ( not even the bots) until 9:10 when a large sell of 14K hit home, only 3 trades until 09:54 when the bots decided to get involved. 40 trades later, its 10am & the price is 170 - 171 ! It then bounces back up within 5 mins on little trades/volume to 173 - 175 & doesn't trade again for 45mins when 2 x 63K trades go through. (also of note 2 x 133k trades 12:35) Bots were mainly buying & trade sizes were larger than usual.
Certainly looks like they want to push the share price high, lets see if they follow through with that tomorrow. If so then it should get to at least 180p during the day.
Not selling that 2nd parcel when I had the chance has proved costly :( as those funds could have been re-used at a much lower level. On the plus side it looks like we kind of have a trading range mapped out ! lets see if the share price acts accordingly.
LOTM
Very strange day's trading, down initially on virtually no volume, then picks up looking like it might kick on & then just before 3pm a string of sells for a mere 15k of stock smashed the price down. 4:20pm and a trade of 496,719 at 181.4p
Lets see what tomorrow brings........
LOTM
Looking like it might bounce from here........ in for a penny in for a £
So just topped up with another 1500 shares at 176.43p which will bring down the average buy price of that last purchase.
Lets see what happens given the strengthening oil price.
LOTM
Daibelts
Been around the markets a long time, but don't normally try to do day type trading.
Well I've left a lot of money on the table yet again, with trying to pinch to much cash for that 2nd parcel of shares.
Now making adjustments as to the range I expect the price to trade within currently.
LOTM
My orders frequently failed when I used to use them, now I don't bother so much...
How long have you been trading ?
Another note to self - with CNE do not use odd point numbers on buy orders.
I had my buy in place this morning at 181.75p which didn't get filled even with the spread at 181.0 - 181.8p I could buy small amounts at 181.63p during that time if I wanted but it wouldn't fill the order.
So when the price went back up, I adjusted the limit price to 181.8 & got filled at 181.794 which isn't looking a great price right now :( given we're already down another 1.4p on that price :( hey ho it is what it is. On the bright side its 2p less than the price I would have got them at yesterday.
Lets see if this bounces now or not. (will be looking to exist around the 188 - 191 range when it returns there at some point in the future.
LOTM
LOTM
Made a complete hash of trying to day / 2 day trade this today.
Initially had an order in 184.7 but the price went up first thing & didn't hit my sell level of 191.2 on the rest of my current holding.
Then when watching the price drop later I altered my limit order to 184.1 and of course it then bounced of 184.4 & I never got filled.
There was quite a lot of sells going through at 183.4, so I then wrongly moved by limit order to 183.7p & of course didn't get filled again (my 184.1 price would have) & its now bounced again quite hard :(
Oh well there's always tomorrow ! will have to make some adjustments price wise for these orders going forward.
LOTM