Member Info for AceofClubs

"CFO has been with the company over 20 years in various positions and in his role as CFO since 2023" - which means he knows far more than any of us about CMCX. The fact that after 20 years and as a former director only holds just over 25,000 shares sends a message?

AceofClubs

"The board has come clean" - I don't think so. This BoD doesn't know the day of the week - it's the auditors who have found the rot in the business - how far that rot extends is unclear. The portrayal of TTG as a "quality" but mismanaged business is probably delusional. Bad management tends to infect every aspect of a business in my experience - that's why it is classified as bad.

AceofClubs

Why offer more than 100p a share now ~£254M - but no bargain.

AceOfClubs

"the interim CEO is IMHO very very good."

Stella David has been Chairman and/or CEO of ENTAIN since March 2021 when the share price was ~£15. Just under 4 years later it sits at ~£6.70. An unadulterated record by our "astute and resolute" leader, of massive destruction of shareholder value. Rob Wood has been CFO since March 2019 and worked for ENTAIN since 2012. We await the final outcome of another "investigation"; this time by HMRC about non-compliance; for which ENTAIN has currently provided over half a billion pounds. Our CFO clearly needs extra training in the area of taxation. HMRC would clearly far rather pursue the financial penalty (to be suffered by shareholders) than see the perpetrators behind bars.

Meanwhile ENTAIN has a Sustainability & Compliance Committee stuffed with over remunerated muppets.

A search for a new CEO who will be a better fit for the current regime continues.

AceOfClubs

You will not read about this in any DEC trading statement: https://www.decsettlement.com/ https://paenvironmentdaily.blogspot.com/2024/12/what-shale-gas-industry-is-leaving.html

The proposed sttlement only covers 2,600 wells and DEC is being given 10 years to plug them. DEC no longer seem to publicise how many wells they control: the last numer I can recall was 70,000+. With each passing year well plugging does not get any cheaper. Federal funding of "orphan" well plugging appears to be under serious threat from Musk and his DOGE campaign.

The can is being kicked down the road as it has been for the last 30+ years.

AceOfClubs

I am a substantial holder since the SportingBet takeover. There has been a succession of unsavoury disclosures of management malpractice; which shows no sign of abating. The murkey history of involvement in Turkey with the business sold to Maltese interests who then didn't have to pay for it remains unexplained. Perhaps Isaccs did not fit in with the rotten management culture?

Not a lot to cheer about - a distant and irrecoverable third spot in the US. Much bigger in the online casino market than the sportsbook - only because the MGM Resorts connection gave them a head start. Accumulated losses in the US are huge and will take years to just break even. The debt pile and interest payments are still rising - certainly capable of drowning in its own debt.

AceOfClubs

Given the timing and immediacy of the sacking the most likely explanation is that the draft final results are materially worse than the CFO had been previuosly flagging.

Where does CABP go from here is the oustanding question? Having taken a deeper look at the business model I cannot see any scope for organic growth. The old governmental captive markets are in decline and there are plenty of cheaper and more efficient operators (think WISE) to erode the CABP customer base.

The EU and US? Forget it: protectionism has many facets.

AceOfClubs (A small but now diminished investor)

CFO leaves with immediate effect one month before release of annual results.

Oh dear.

AceOfClubs

With the recent property purchases and executive appointment to grow the self-storage option I continue to see sensible ambition here. Recent share price performance has been poor but £1 per share does not look expensive with a growing dividend. Ultra cheap loan deals are coming to an end but management buy/sell execution has been consistently productive.

AceOfClubs

"it isnt the building that you gain from...it is the TECHNOLOGY etc you learn in the process and where you next use it."

The "learning from the process" is that, in the UK at least, the private sector leads the taxpayer by the nose into projects that vastly exceed budget and timescale and woefully under deliver on benefit. The passenger numbers through the Channel Tunnel have never reached 50% of the forecast that was used to justify the public intervention when the private sector chickened out.

Britain's first railway opened in 1825. Britain now leads the world in the most expensive per mile and slowest construction records for high speed rail.

AceOfClubs

P.S. For those not up to speed, Concorde was a commercial supersonic passenger plane, not a space rocket. The British space rocket programme, Black Arrow, was "put on hold" by the incoming Labour Government in October 1964, to save money. It was resurrected by the next Conservative Government and then cancelled as not value for money. We do have the lasting legacy of a tourist attraction in the form of an unused Black Arrow rocket in the Science Museum. Stephenson's more famous, succesful and potentially useful, if HS2 fails to deliver, Rocket, resides in the National Railway Museum.

Have a great weekend everybody.

I would suggest the improving LGEN share price is just investors chasing the next ex-div date; no cause for long term conviction. Cala Homes anybody; at some stage reality always bites.

The record of our political masters of all flavours spending our money is appalling.

NHS hospitals under strain over £80bn PFI bill for just £13bn of actual investment, finds IPPR. https://www.ippr.org/media-office/nhs-hospitals-under-strain-over-80bn-pfi-bill-for-just-13bn-of-actual-investment-finds-ippr

The list of failed "initiatives" is endless. I can still remember the scandal erupting when the true cost to the taxpayer emerged of building Concorde - all so the very wealthy could cross the Atlantic a bit faster! A new Silicon Valley? The government couldn't even source some functioning disposable plastic gowns when needed. However, some, just a bit brighter than our masters, made off with millions. At every interface between the public and private sector it is always the taxpayer that ends up with the bloody nose.

It's been a while since I read "The Costs of Economic Growth" Ed. Mishan. First published in 1967, revised edition 1993. Heavily decried (or summarily dismissed) in the 1970's - but time and events indicate he may have had more insight and foresight than most economists, including Rachel Reeves, if she warrants that moniker.

I hope for the best whilst preparing for the worst. AceOfClubs

"LGEN all the while continues to progress positively."

Total Return % (annualised)

LGEN FTSE100

10yrs 4.31 6.52

5yrs 1.60 7.02

1yr 2.16 17.04

The numbers are just objective: no opinions involved. AceOfClubs

Maverick Natural Resources appears to have a very similar modus operandi to DEC. Grow by acquisition and "Transform" or "Smarter Asset Management" as Rusty would say. https://www.mavresources.com/operations/transformation/

Impossible to say wether the buyer or seller is getting the better deal - who wanted it most? It could be good for both: only the future price trajectory of natural gas and oil will determine and Rusty is not in control of that. Trump wants a bigger domestic oil & gas industry but he also wants cheap energy for US consumers & industry.

I normally admire ambition to grow a business but Rusty says no growth for the shareholder dividend. AceOfClubs

I will say this for the LGEN CEO, he has identified the elephant in the room at LGEN: "The main part of his plan at L&G is to put the company’s giant asset management business at the heart of its future growth."

The chronic and consistent poor returns UK investment/insurance companies have made on the huge pile of customer assets available to them is why they are so lowly rated by the stock market. Shareholders have been poorly rewarded; policy holders even more so. How much of this underperformance is due to the huge holdings in Gilts I cannot say. How much of the gilt holdings are due to regulatory requirements likewise. When pursuing the DB pension buyout business Gilts are seen as the low risk option. Low risk they may be but they also guarantee low returns, negative real returns if inflation is taken into account. I cannot see Rachel Reeves loossening the requirement to hold Gilts: this government, like all its forebears, thinks it has a better use for our money than you or I.

Can Antonio Simoes find a way out of this bind? If he cannot LGEN will continue its genteel decline, along with most of the rest of the UK. In the past 5 years there has been a huge shakeup in this line of business in the US with active asset managers buying somnolent insurance/pension companies and starting to sweat the assets for much higher returns. Can I see that happening here? No, unfortunately.

AceOfClubs

I offer no defence of Liz Truss, Boris Johnson or anybody else. I do decry the failure of all our politicians to recognise that neither China, the EU, or the USA run "open market" economies - whatever their status with the WTO. Our political masters are too naive and inexperienced in the real world to effectively protect British interests, let alone promote them. Bullingdon Club, Customer Services, no real rough and tumble of trade, or any other negotiations there! All our politicians plead for is a morsel, however insignificant, to present to the true believers at home as another "British triumph". Our current Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whose name will be familiar to you, has never held down a single role in the private sector, not even in Customer Services. On leaving University he went to work for the local council. A nondescript man: it would be laughable if it wasn't so important.

Unfortunately I see virtually all companies focussed on the British market as uninvestable. The Labour Government has made LGEN, AVIVA & PHNX even less attractive. In 2024 I added only UK listed WISE and CABP to a portfolio of 50+ companies. 75% of my money has been in the US market since 2012, 10% is in the EU leaving 15% in the UK. It gives me no satisfaction; but I do sleep easily at night. AceOfClubs

The latest British trade figures with China available from our ever efficient Public Sector relate to 2021.

In 2021, China was the UK's largest import partner and sixth-largest export partner for goods. The UK imported £63.6 billion of goods from China in 2021 (13.3% of all goods imports to the UK) and exported £18.8 billion of goods (5.8% of all goods exports from the UK).

The trade deficit with China is by far the largest for Britain. Little surprise they entertained and listened to Rachel Reeves with bored politeness and patted her on the bum as they opened the door on her way out.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/balanceofpayments/articles/uktradewithchina2021/2022-06-01

No figures yet available for 2022, 2023 or 2024. AI? they must be using pencil and paper in the ONS!

AceOfClubs

@Guitarsolo "I think Hornblower was referring to new liabilities being covered by new purchases of gilts at the (presently) better margins. " Possibly true: but new liabilities will be of marginal value compared to existing ones. Please also be aware that pension liabilities are being traded off to the highest bidder - it will be decades later that the real value of the transaction to the seller and buyer is apparent. I am rather sceptical of purely financial transactions where both parties declare themselves winners: interest rate swap contracts are a classic example.

Most reading here will be positive about LGEN - being dazzled by the dividend can be blinding.

Happy investing - AceOfClubs

"All I know is that I am being compensated more the risk vs return." "The differential between inflation and bond yields (gilts) is rising in the positive (ie rate between inflation and bond yields is increasing)." The differential between bond yields and inflation may have increased over the past few days: that is because the market is expecting inflation to increase from current levels.

"This is good. L&G has to pay future increased pensions based on future inflation, but is remunerated from the bond yield ".

The cash return and yield to LGEN of its bond holdings will be fixed, if held for the duration of the bond at the date of purchase; it will not increase with higher inflation unless Index Linked.

My Crystal Ball for 2025 says to me that compared to the figures in the Treasury Economic Model the following will be higher: Unemployment, Public Spending, Government Borrowing, Interest Rates, Trade Deficit, Inflation, the cost of HS2, HNW individuals emigrating. The following will be lower: GDP per head of population, the value of the £ against major currencies, public belief in our masters.

Meanwhile, Rachel Reeves is AWOL assuring the Chinese that Britain is very happy to be the dumping ground for even more Chinese made tat and illegal drugs. She is suitably supported by the useless buffoon, formerly in charge of the FCA. Why are our institutions (Treasury & BoE) so incompetent and untrustworthy that they had to create the Office for Budget Responsibility?

I am too old to emigrate but if only I was 20 years younger!

Don't let any of the above spoil your weekend - AceOfClubs

"Added 10,000 shares to my position today. The key is to watch the gilts vs inflation, if the spread widens too much the margin of safety for L&G increases."

The total return of holding LGEN over the past five years has been 6.6%, therefore after inflation it has been negative. There is no "margin of safety" in LGEN or similar businesses (PHNX +3% over 5 years)) - only certain decline. They are paying holders their dividends out of their capital.

The numbers speak the truth but the dividend hunters cling to their comfort blankets.

AceOfClubs

Rachel from accounts hasn't exactly got off to a good start has she? What goodwill and confidence existed at the outset has been wasted on policies more focussed on imposing social justice rather than solving very difficult problems.

Too many in the population have lost the ethos of self reliance and look to the "gumment" to sort every problem: individual and collective, and provide them with a constantly rising standard of living.

I have to smile when I read of so many unable to face the world of work because of anxiety. Anxiety, about not being able to pay the mortgage and provide for my family kept my nose firmly to the grindstone for 50+ years!

Times change, not always for the better.

AceofClubs