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Recent sale of the Bio Mass has saved the Company for 2024 and we look forward to the new exec from Birmingham Int Apt performing his magic with the new routes (which was why he is employed). One can expect volatility at this cheap price but with a 22% increase today both good and bad days will follow, but also a fortune can be made or lost so those with a nervous disposition need not apply, but this with a balanced portfolio who want risk and are already over the £3k CGT allowance for the year can. GLA.
I used to own shares here and 'luckily' decided that trading stock was likely better than long term holding. I just wish I took that attitude on everything I ever owned as I have a full drawer of 99% plus losses. How on earth this country continues to attract investment is a mystery to me. It's no surprise now looking back over two to three decades that the clever investors bought houses instead of Uk plc liabilities.
The slow descent into oblivion is not happening today it seems. Normal service will be resumed shortly , fasten your seat belts please.
I remember arguing with Gerry65 all those years ago about the Bond that was secured on ESL shares and the Esken balance sheet-I told him it was a crazy arrangement and would be the trigger that brought the house down.And here we are.
One of the worst examples of corporate governance in a PLC I have ever seen-years of literally taking the proverbial out of shareholders on the back of ‘deal making’
Just a few days left until Esken Ltd stock going to zero. Liquidation Time
It’s a disaster mate-this has no equity value.Shambles born about 10 years ago by Tinkler and his cohorts
Govt. can buy they need a free port, any carriers can buy for their own needs/usage and in saving costs put upon them by the large airports, cargo users might benefit particularly at the moment with concerns regarding shipping up the Suez, etc, I see route expansion too, and hopefully as RG has shown a 10% interest he might know something about the Jersey/Guernsey route coming soon. Lots of opportunity I will not be selling my stake as see a longer term future.
A point well made
Super Charger - You see the potential here to make a shed load out of Southend Airport - Surely you could put together an investment portfolio to buy the airport from Esken. Right now you're in the driving seat as no-one else seems to have that vision. £2bn, with say a YoY ROI of 5% is £50m EB ITDA. Assuming that EBITDA runs at around 5% of annual revenue then that's annual revenues of £1bn. At the moment it's just shy of £10m based on say 100k passengers. Roughly £100 per passenger. So 10 million passengers required. Or, to look at it another way, an increase of 9.9m passengers. Or 100 fold increase on current numbers - BTW that would mean a flight departing every 4 minutes year round.
What could possibly go wrong?
To me in my mind the Airport has so much potential in its proximity to London, own railway station, operation which is now up and running, to the govt who are using for the RAF, to Easyjet seen expanding routes that are now being offered for the summer, that we once a suck it and see, with the firms notification of new talks with other major airlines, with employment of a Birmingham A/port exec. who was and is now responsible for development of further new routes, we have a lot of look forward to, and with funds secured for the time being with no rights issue required for current shareholders, 2024 could be a surprise year, and even for sale in my mind I see a £2b value for goodwill and land, of a very rare opportunity to acquire an airport so close to London, but Ulez free unlike Heathrow, and without over capacity issues of Gatwick/Heathrow/Stansted/Luton, etc.
You do know they are selling Southend at best?There will be nothing left by end March in my view
Super charcher hope you are correct.
We keep watching.
In fact once loan rates start coming down this stock will benefit tremendously. What we need is in addition to the widening of Spanish routes for the summer with Easyjet holidays other routes to be announced such as extension to Euro Cities and or Jersey/Guernsey mentioned before. At least the Ski hols have been going well.
SV are out and good riddance. Maybe sp will start to climb
Yes indeed TRI issued to day show Richard Griffiths is buying big time and now owns over 9.31% from 7.60%.
Perhaps he know something about the new Jersey/Guernsey routes coming and mentioned earlier in the year? This was the best payer for Southend A/Port previously.
Is griffith buying these up as can't see retailers mopping all these up?
Are eskn lth going to come out of this well? I am currently 94% down!
I was just saying and using an Airline as an example £1billion is not a lot of money where Aviation comes to mind. If a single wide bodied jet to a major airline is $100m Dollars plus each, and with the USD to GBP at 1.24 to 1, it does not take too many Aircraft or Cargo planes to make up the amount required to buy Southend Airport in its entirety. To buy an Airport that serves International flights where the runway was extended a few years ago is a bargain for a major operator to develop their own facility rather than at the over capacity major airports such as Heathrow and Gatwick. It is also ULEZ free! No wonder the RAF are looking and even have been using the Airport for the Red Arrows. Carlisle could also become a freeport later and so I am surprised the UK Govt have not been having a look! At this price worth holding some speculative shares to add risk to ones more stable portfolio -maybe even invest profits from other shares so that it costs nothing to invest and seek additional rewards for no outward expense. Worth a consideration too as the CGT allowances for next yr are reduced, so why not -reinvest profit here, and even if a loss is suffered it could offset against other gains! GLA.
I've been recently looking at eskn as a speculative play, however I'm still very much on the fence as to if any of it really adds up. I'll try my best to convey my take on things, any input on anything I've missed out or misinterpreted would be most welcome...
Since Stobart bought LSA and then throughout it's peak the airport was openly advertising itself as the best alternative London airport due to lack of capacity elsewhere, this certainly appeared to be the case pre covid as other airports reached capacity and passenger numbers grew. However, STN and LTN have both now been given permission for an increase in their combined capacity going forward that eclipses even Southend's long term passenger targets and I assume therefore likely removes a large part of Southends business case. I also don't believe even at its peak that Southend itself was profitable, this coming from the airports own internal statements justifying a lack of pay increases for staff over the period.
As I can see ESKN currently have no real ability to repay their debt and are looking to renegotiate the terms of the convertible bond so that no payments at all are due until a sale of the airport is finalized, this saves on interest payments in the short term freeing up operating capital, but is being incentivized by an additional 8% or so return on the bond which will ultimately be funded down the line at the shareholders expense.
The company also have a substantial debt with Carlyle Groups Global infrastructure fund, this investment was made when the airport had a number of based airlines and things looked more promising, however still appears to have been geared in such a way that the fund couldn't really lose. It either took a 30% stake in the airport if things 'took off' or it took a few million £'s in profit on repayment of the loan on its maturity. The only risk to CGI's investment that I can see is if ESKN were to become insolvent and the sum of its parts sold for less than the groups debts. This makes me wonder if CGI's current court proceedings for a 'technical breach' of the loan conditions is a defensive move in the hope of securing either an early repayment or 100% holding in the airport which could then likely be sold by CGI to recoup their outlay. I don't believe actually bankrolling/running an entire airport fits with the funds initial scope?
Either way, can anybody honestly see there being anything left for shareholders at the end of this or would I be just as well going out and putting the money on red or black? Am I being foolish looking at that CGI 125m / 30% loan and even considering that just maybe there's some scope for a bonanza payday down the line if all the ducks somehow line up?
LSA was valued at 410m 2 years ago...it's probably worth more now especially given the recent LHR deal. Assuming the same value and taking into account 250m of debt, there us 15p a share left for shareholders.
Forced sellers got the price down here and they have been cleared at 0.9375 just now. Volume is 147m
Supercharger - just a bit of fact checking on your last post.
EasyJet don't operate 'large body' aircraft. They exclusively operate Airbus A320 family which is narrow body.
EasyJet or to that matter Ryanair, have NEVER bought, leased or operated an airport.
Southend airport at $1bn? The reality is that it's probably less than 10% of that.
It would be helpful if the posts could have a modicum of truth and fact about them.
For any potential suitors to buy the airport, success is predicated on other airports in the vicinity (STN,LTN,LGW,LCY) getting to full capacity and then hoping they don't expand their own operations to mop up that growth. To my knowledge all of those airports are expanding their operations already. On the positive side of course there is a chance. With a tail wind, all the planets lining up etc....that they could get to a break even point or even make a modest profit.
The reward is at long odds with modest returns and the risk is likely with high cost. It's a huge gamble based on hope over fact.
Let's not forget that Esken are backed into a corner with very little negotiating power left. Once the eventual proceeds of the sale of the airport are used to settled the pension fund gap and of course the publicised Director bonuses it's difficult to see what will come the shareholders way. Question : How on earth would the directors get any sort of bonus ? Aren't bonuses normally based on good performance?
To answer that question we need to look at the likely value of LSA in 2020. Carlyle took the option of a 30% equity stake as the value of their £125m loan and they probably thought that was a discounted price on the actual value. Even taken at face value that gave a value of £400m for the airport at that time, although true value was perhaps over £450m. Passenger growth for 2019 was up 43% at 2.1m passengers and 2020 looked good - then along came Covid. This shows that LSA is a viable airport given the right circumstances, these including slot scarcity at the other LON airports. That situation is starting to reappear and should give the airport more opportunities for renewed growth. Just this week easyJet have increased their 2024 Palma flights to 8 per week and, although they have no aircraft based at LSA, they are operating W sectors whereby, for example, an Amsterdam based aircraft will operate AMS-SEN-ALC-SEN-AMS. To me this shows that easyJet are serious about LSA and it's quite feasible that they could re-open their LSA base in 2025 with up to four aircraft which could generate a 1m passenger throughput per annum. Add to that a couple of other airlines operating out of LSA and the numbers would soon start to look quite good. That's the way I would be trying to sell LSA and if there happen to be two or more seriously interested parties, to create a bit of up-bidding, the sale price might be more than some on here think. These are of course just my opinions but are based on a lifetime in commercial aviation. I have no connection now with LSA or Esken apart from still having access to various information grapevines relative to the former.
I have lots of sympathy for investors here but none for the management who were part of a consortium that shafted shareholders of Flybe a couple of years ago - so their demise is karma in my eyes.