Gordon Stein, CFO of CleanTech Lithium, explains why CTL acquired the 23 Laguna Verde licenses. Watch the video here.
I have held PHOENIX for more years than I care to think about and based purely on cost is my second largest UK holding. The current analyst "consensus" target share price is 600p. The last time PHOENIX hit the analyst target, 784p, was 24 November 2020. It has been a pretty steady and sustained decline since then. Book value per share was £8.92 Dec 2020, down to £2.99 Dec 2023. 5.25% interest rates are not an abnormality, it was the years of 0.25% that were abnormal and unsustainable.
Holding for that dazzling dividend can prove to be an expensive occupation.
AceOfClubs
Coming up to four months now with no CEO; those approached must have turned it down. What is this BoD playing at? Leaderless, clueless and directionless, very vulnerable to a cheap offer. It will be cheap because MGM Resorts can make life very difficult for any new partner. We don't know all the details of the JV but I would not be surprised if MGM Resorts do not have a veto on any buyer for Entain or possibly a buyout clause in the event of a takeover.
Wake up BoD and start earning your fees!!
AceOfClubs
There are far bigger things to think about than who won a golf tournament or which horse a race. Bookmakers love to pretend punters have given them a spanking; they just tend to make a smaller profit if the favourite wins.
Sold out this morning after holding for years in an ISA. Looks fully valued to me - put half the proceeds into PLUS500. Have lost any faith in IGG management after the last results - the numbers told a completely different story to the managements' self-praise. PLUS500 management is also over-remunerated but have a better track record and a more active and nimble approach to a changing market.
AceOfClubs
Bank of America in early April increased its 2024 Brent and WTI price outlook to $86 and $81 per barrel, respectively, and said both were likely to peak around $95 a barrel this summer. Those higher prices so far have not been enough to entice U.S. drillers to boost production, operators and service firm executives said, as many are grappling with a steep decline in the value of gas produced alongside their oil.
In Texas, Louisiana and New Mexico, producers were already cutting output in the first quarter as costs climbed. The break-even price to drill a new well in the Permian, the top U.S. shale field, rose $4 per barrel in the last year, according to a survey by Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
Now, low gas prices are creating new challenges. Henry Hub futures, the benchmark for U.S. gas, are trading below $1.80 per million British thermal unit (mmBtu), and earlier this year dropped to a 3-1/2-year low on warm weather and oversupply. "We need gas prices to get to $2.50 for an overall increase in activity. The Permian customers that have associated gas are seeing awful differentials," said Mark Marmo, CEO of oilfield firm Deep Well Services.
In West Texas producers are paying to have shippers to take their gas. Prices at the region's Waha hub have been below zero in several trade sessions since March, a sign that supply is sharply outpacing demand and pipeline capacity.
Producers can respond by reducing their output or pay to keep pulling gas out of the ground. It"Constrained gas pipeline and gas processing plant capacity has acted as a choke point on oil production in parts the Permian Basin," said Tim Roberson, president of Permian producer Texas Standard Oil.
AceOfClubs
More buying of property earning 10% and selling of property earning 5%. It is what this management is good at and they are level headed enough to stick to what works.
AceOfClubs
Most of the hot air on here is aimed at Rusty and his trustworthiness. You can't trust any management speak, only the numbers, most of the time, and then not the numbers the management wants to talk about.
I have posted over an extended period about the huge financial damage the hedging policy has inflicted on DEC. It was and remains a policy demanded by the bondholders who have only concerns for their own security.
Take a look at the RNS of yesterday. In the three years of 2021, 2022 & 2023 the cash cost of the hedging policy was a net negative of $1,038,394 (000's). That's 2x the current market capitalisation and could have eliminated ~80% of the company's claimed net debt.
The "acquisition", effective 1 November 2023 we are informed of on the 19 March 2023. Why the delay?
This securitisation of assets only took place in October 2022 and has unravelled already. To get the October 2022 deal away DEC had to attach gas hedges at an average of $5.09/MMBtu through to September 2027. https://www.fitchratings.com/research/structured-finance/fitch-rates-diversified-abs-phase-vi-llc-usd460-mm-7-50-notes-bbb-outlook-stable-18-11-2022 Those hedges must have cost DEC a hefty premium. We are informed that as a consequence of the deal, dated 1 November 2023, DEC has acquired an additional $120M of ABS VI Notes debt. However, in the same RNS this debt is shown as declining from $212,446M to $159,357 over the course of 2023. There is probably a rational explanation, but I can't think of it.
I shall hold, more in hope than expectation: much better opportunities elsewhere.
AceOfClubs
From: newsroom@alliancenews.com
"The company posted a final dividend of 29 US cents per share, up sharply from 4.38c a year ago. This brings the total dividend to USD1.16, much higher than 17.25c paid for 2022.
Diversified Energy added that it is recalibrating its fixed dividend payout to align with the current equity market dynamics, peer trends, prevailing commodity prices and expected future allocations." Ends.
AceOfClubs
My average is £21.20 (106p) for 1% of my portfolio. I have never been tempted to average down at any price below 106p because the direction of travel was all wrong with no bottom in sight. I can find a lot of alternative companies in which to invest available funds. You can too; just lose the fixation on DEC and look at the far wider, more positive opportunities out there. Not investment advice.
AceOfClubs
The high charges associated with closed-book pension/endownment policies isn't the only scandal that the FCA has turned one of its blind eyes to for decades. Policies with high (up to 12%) Guaranteed Annuity Rates have been hobbled so not to grow for years. These companies have been cheating their very often gullible customers for decades. Proper recompense could break some and certainly wreck returns to shareholders.
If the FCA doesn't have a quite word with St Jame's Place and tell them their proposed changes are hopelessly inadequate, then we shall know it continues as a sheep in wolfs clothing.
AceOfClubs
@damofarl: I am sorry to read your decision to stop contributing here; I understand your reasons, but you come across as a bigger man than that.
DEC is an interesting case study that has taught me a lot; and I have been investing a long while. DEC was never more than 1.6% of my portfolio and thanks to the SP decline is now 1%! Still a lump of money I would rather not lose; despite my misgivings I do not see DEC as a basket case because the dividend is entirely discretionary expenditure.
The results will make interesting reading and your views and civility will be missed.
AceOfClubs
Former CEO pushed out on 13 December last year. I would imagine quite a few since have kicked the tyres on this and passed on by.
My largest UK holding - quite sob.
AveOfClubs
"We are having a blow out year"
RNS:
"Burford Capital Limited,the leading global finance and asset management firm focused on law, today announces the closing on January 30, 2024 of the private offering of $675.0 million aggregate principal amount of 9.250% senior notes due 2031."
We certainly are Mr Bogart, we certainly are.
AceOfClubs
@ Jim800 "perhaps the asset sale was just getting rid of an asset they never planned to develop at a price they liked. "
They sold producing assets and retained the operating rights and from memory, a 20% equity stake in the acquiring vehicle. The acquiring vehicle was loaded with debt to realise the cash sale proceeds and DEC ascribed a nominal value to its equity stake. A good portion of the currently valuable hedging contracts went with the sale to sweeten the deal for the bond holders.
It's a buyers market at the moment and DEC needed to sell.
AceOfClubs
"The pragmatic thing to do would be to maintain the dividend."
The market has an opinion that maintaining the dividend is easier said than done. The asset sale right at the year end indicates not all was well on the cash front. The annual accounts will tell us more but we already know 2024 will be reduced output at lower prices.
AceOfClubs
"POS-GRIP technology helps operators to fulfill their ESG responsibillities, and Plexus has provided leak-free wellhead performance in over 400 wells."
The above is from the PLEXUS.com website landing page. The addressable market worldwide must be 10M+ oil and gas wells: 400 should be telling any potential investor all they need to know about what the industry thinks of the "money saving" technology.
AceOfClubs
A quick read of the RNS says to me cash rewards to Partners and Management will be protected: shareholders will be wacked.
I sold at £10 not temted at the current price.
AceOfClubs
STJ's biggest challenge will be keeping the "Partners" and the FCA both satisfied. If there is to be less customer derived pie to share out how will the pain be apportioned between "Partners" and shareholders? Will some "Partners" bail out or expect STJ to buy them out?
STJ's unique feature in the marketplace has been its large, well motivated (if usually a bit unctuous) sales-force and it cannot afford to lose too much of that feature. Will the FCA play hard-ball?
One for the gamblers or the brave at the moment.
AceOfClubs
Five years ago trading at ~60p. If the technology is as good and money saving, as the management have consistently claimed, Plexus would not be trading at pennies. Time for reality.
AceOfClubs
@petepete - Everybody has to start somewhere - DEC is not that somewhere.
AceOfClubs
The whole Entain/MGM Resorts relationship (50/50 in BetMGM in the USA) now looks unstable and untenable. How can Entain operate with MGM Resorts as a partner in the USA and as a competitor in the rest of the world? BetMGM has now opened up in the UK as a direct competitor to Entain. Entain may have a 50% interest in BetMGM but it would rather enjoy 100% of any business in the UK. Talk about having your own technology used against you! How and why did the Entain directors permit this? I have written before that American bosses are a sharp, focused and if needs be, ruthless bunch to deal with. It looks to me that the Entain directors have been hopelessly outmanoeuvred.
Where this ends: I wish I knew.
AceOfClubs