Member Info for 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

My apologies Trotsky. I must have completely misread the share price chart; your 285p a share on 6 July 2020 is correct my 368p incorrect. The 285p was the result of the Covid panic so rather fortuitous for Amanda, pre-covid 400p was normal.

AceOfClubs

"Are you being selective with the truth AoC or just simply being a misogynist?"

Hello Trotsky, Ah, the "have you stopped beating your wife" trap. I am in no way a misogynist, so must plead guilty to being selective: but no more so than you, or any other poster here. It was another poster who quoted the sexist words of Christine Legarde: I merely exposed her tainted credentials. She is not alone in having a criminal past: but I never maintained that she was; I judge her on her record not her sex.

You do seem to have got your knickers in a bit of a twist on the return of capital: mine worked out at 424p a share: completely in line with the then share value. I received not a penny in extra value, merely cash instead of shares. Your calculation of 285p a share in July 2020 is a complete misplaced fiction - think about it?

Have a good weekend - AceOfClubs

"kicking back against the old boys club that has been stuffing their pockets and periodically crashing the markets for the last 50 years."

I cannot disagree with that statement apart from the "kicking back" element - she isn't "kicking back" she's just joining in! British Financial Institutions (not just AVIVA) have been failing customers with woeful pension and investment returns for decades - whilst lining their managements' pockets. I see no evidence that our Mandy has any inclination or ability to change that set up. She has the time and focus to campaign against men of the wrong age, wrong colour, wrong school, but where are the returns for customers?

Christine Legarde? Convicted felon: "Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, has been found guilty of criminal charges linked to the misuse of public funds dating to her time as France's finance minister." Would a man so convicted still be in post?

I don't care what age/colour/sex they are as long as they are good at the job. Amanda has been CEO since 6 July 2020 when the share price was 368p; three and a half years later it sits at 417p.

Make your own judgements. AceOfClubs

"or get some real cajones like Amanda"

Oh dear! Is our Mandy really a man in a skirt and a blonde wig?

AceOfClubs

It is easy and a comfort to some, to blame those holding short positions for the woeful DEC share price performance. Shorting is much more popular pastime in the US than in the UK so the NYSE listing was always going to encourage it: but please, let's have some realistic perspective. Walleye Capital LLC, one of those with a DEC short position is a $5billion business: it's short position in DEC is currently worth £2.6M; it hasn't even invested the office coffee fund in shorting DEC.

Virtually all US listed companies have a bigger short position than the total 2,37% in DEC. EXXON has 2.2% short positions worth $8.9B - now that's shorting - but is the market or EXXON bothered? TESLA has a short position of 2.91%.....

It may not be very comforting, but the answers to DEC's share price performance lie elsewhere.

AceOfClubs

The bulk of the money paid out by SRE on the 25 January was not an equity dividend but a PID (Property Interest Distribution) taxable at source at 20% under HMRC rules. If you hold in a SIPP or ISA with a decent broker they will recover the tax for you, but it's a tiresome task, HMRC are hopelessly inefficient - so it will take some months.

AceOfClubs

Your calculation excludes thy divestiture, RNS 28 June: "200 net, non-operated wells producing ~3Mboepd (~17 MMcfepd)."

11% or 10%: where Rusty creates the disbelief in DEC is using an output decine rate of 4.5% to promote the viability and longevity of the business model.

AceOfClubs

"let's see what the new boss has to say, once he has joined,"

This mornings RNS informs us he has just been awarded free share options worth ~ £1.25M - so perhaps his first words should be "thanks very much"?

He has certainly laid down a marker as to where his priorities lie.

AceOfClubs

"Continued execution of the strategy, with a sharp focus on clients, costs and capital has served the Group well in soft market conditions to deliver attractive margins and returns to shareholders."

Reality: Active clients declined 5% on comparatives. Reality: Costs increased 11% YoY – out of control - whilst trading revenue decreased 19%. It can’t cost too much to collect the interest on clients’ money! Trading income and the losses incurred by tastytrade remain undisclosed.

Charlie Rozes, Acting Chief Executive Officer, commented: “It’s encouraging to see the benefits of our diversification strategy paying off”. Dishonest and/or delusional.

AceOfClubs

"the new CFO has experience in turning around companies in a difficult situation "

Giles David has previously worked at the struggling businesses McColl’s and the Casual Dining Group, both of which fell into administration.

He certainly knows how not to succeed.

AceOfClubs

The New York Times (24 Jan): The Biden administration has paused a decision on whether to approve Venture Globals’ planned Calcasieu Pass 2 liquefied natural gas plant in Louisiana, which would be the largest LNG export terminal in the U.S. Preparing for the re-election campaign, the White House reportedly has directed the Department of Energy to expand its evaluation of the project to consider its impact on climate change, as well as the economy and national security. A delay could stretch past the November election and spell trouble for the Venture Global LNG project and 16 other proposed terminals. The $10B Calcasieu Pass 2 project would dwarf existing U.S. export terminals, with export capacity of as much as 20M metric tons/year of natural gas that would increase the current amount of exported U.S. gas by ~20%.

Jim Ritterbusch – Energy Trader (Jan 22): Even though the November-to-March heating season is only about half finished, one of the biggest signs that the market has given up on future winter price spikes was that March futures were now trading at a record discount to April futures of ~$0.03/MMBtu. March is the last month of winter storage withdrawal season, and April is the first month of the summer storage injection season, so traders say summer prices should not trade above winter.

HFI Research (Jan 17): For natural gas prices to move sustainably higher, Mother Nature needs to do more of the heavy lifting. While January heating degree days are finally showing up higher than the 10-year average, the trend needs to continue if bulls want to see prices average above $3. By our estimate, we think natural gas storage needs to fall to ~1.65 Tcf or lower for prices to sustainably average above $3/MMBtu. This means that February will also have to show much colder than normal weather. Fundamentals, as they are today, are not sufficient to keep prices here. Lower 48 gas production remains far too high, while the real demand drivers for natural gas won't be here until the end of 2024.

Williams Companies CEO Alan Armstrong (Jan 10): There is more demand of U.S. natural gas now and it is expected to grow more by 2025. The Henry Hub Natural Gas Spot Price reached $8.81 per million Btu in August 2022, but last year prices declined about 60% and moved down below the cost of marginal production. We’re starting to see that supply taper off now. At the same time, we are starting to see demand pick up pretty strongly against the fundamentals -- on a weather normalized basis. In 2023, demand for natural gas was up by about 6%. LNG (liquified natural gas) growth is expected to pick up a little bit in 2024 and there will be a big pick-up in 2025, as a lot of new facilities come on. According to the Energy Information Administration, 20 new natural gas power plants are expected to come online with a total capacity of 7.7 gigawatts. You can see quite a bit of contango in the market with prices picking up by about 25% from 2024 to 2025.

Following the mass cull of businesses and return of capital I have always thought AVIVA would be a no growth company. Past growth efforts were always built on acquisitions - Friends Life? Unfortunately the company could never generate organic growth. Cutting back to the UK/Ireland & Canada leaves AVIVA represented in only one growth market, Canada, and Canada has some very competitive domestic insurers. AVIVA appears to be only in the general insurance side in Canada, not Life/Pensions.

Where is the growth to come from? The UK is a very competitive market in the Life/Pensions area and AVIVA Investors has such a poor record of managing the huge funds under management.

AceOfClubs