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Morning All,
Only 8 weeks till the end of March tomorrow, so we haven't got long to wait, although it does feel like a lifetime at the moment watching the SP slowly fall away.
ML is an important part of our offer, and hopefully this will go through. I can't see the Government not allowing it- it is such a critical piece of UK (and Ireland) infrastructure, is private sector investment, UK company delivering it etc etc- so much to like about it. Is quite right that the technical work is given the scrutiny it deserves- and have said before on here- coming from a planning/ technical background within property- I've seen 'simple' housing applications take 4 years to get through the system- so the timings of this do not worry me, and I actually dislike arbitrary deadlines such as the end of March. I'd much rather a transparent exercise whereby we can see where the process is at- is it purely a resource issue (probably a big part of it), requests for extra info that our consultants are providing which may well be neccessary to re-consult the various experts on before making a decision. I would also add- I would 100% see this take longer now and have comfort that the decision making process is 100% squeaky clean so we do not get embroiled in a lengthy and costly legal battle post-decision.
With regards to current activities/ cash raises etc. I've always thought that we'll have a rolling cash raise as work is gradually ramped up, but hoping this will be on the back of a rising share price. A yard this size (and Appledore refurbs) carries a horrible amount of overheads and we must be woefully inefficient as a business at carrying out the work we are from a facility this size. Not saying the project work itself is inefficient- but our current overall business. 200 people having a pay cheque each month burns through a lot of cash, very quickly, especially when the contracts we're undertaking are relatively low value.
In my view, it is only the cruise market that is 'down' at the moment- ferries are still operating, defence is still crawling along but with a growing voice of investment, renewables are undergoing the biggest investment of all time and is only growing, oil and gas is still having investment albeit much reduced- but the decommissioning work will be ramping up in the coming years and of course post-Brexit is likely to see an increased need for other sovereign vessels . So- there is a lot out there and would actually like to start seeing some wins from these other sectors to be honest. The ML will do what it will do, but our yards should be teeming with activity from a range of sectors. This should be H&W's key selling point- and something JW has made noises about- time to see some of this filtering to the yard now.
Cheers
TheEast