The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode featuring Jeremy Skillington, CEO of Poolbeg Pharma has just been released. Listen here.
The ambulances are out and the media are working themselves (and us) into a frenzy but will the fire engines also be called out ..
Wow Hawfinch..that was a very detailed and comprehensive reply...thanks for that...lots of points you raise are new arguments for me to ponder over , so forgive me if it takes time to reply
One area we both agree on which was also the other side of the argument that I had acknowledged, was the Muddy Waters report..that report undoubtedly drew attention to activities I was totally unaware of and saved me around £20,000 which fully supports your assertions ..
It's possible I might have been too self righteous in my earlier posting but as I say let me think over what you have written and I will get back to you..
Yes I agree with you about LTV worries but if their assertions in the annual accounts are correct, their asset values are underpinned by alternative purpose values which should (all other things remaining equal) limit further falls by at most 15%. Obviously if property values across the board fall further then that will impact on NRR too.
Yes current SP fall likely linked to further restrictions but if things escalate then SP likely to fall further based on FUTURE expectations of even further restrictions (over magnified of course.)
Financial strength remains robust enough to withstand a prolonged period of a worst case scenario, so if you are fortunate enough to guess the bottom , you could make significant gains from short term stealth moves .
I don't think NRR will reach the point of having to sell the family silver to pay for the house keeping for a long time yet .
The falls in the share price are on very low volumes leaving me with the feeling that the negative sentiment is continuing
This isn't matched by their sensitivity analysis though.. based on the then likely scenario they would lose 38% of their net revenue which would still generate a surplus and even allow a dividend to be paid..
If in the light of further restrictions , they reach their worst case scenario and net income falls by 50% then they break-even (on a UFFO) basis...this obviously means no dividend .. neither does it mean more debt .. actually with the proposed property sales, net debt would fall...LTV would still continue to rise though because of a further and (potential) significant fall in commercial property values.
I think now is not the time to study their share price on a 'several times a day' basis.. probably best to fasten your seat belts and ride through the inevitable bumpy ride ..
Selling development land is a dilemma...on the one hand as you say...it's a nil yielding asset but it just depends where it is and it's potential use ...it looks as if lots of it adjoins pubs...i.e. likely to be pub car parks...selling this land will likely result in the new owner charging car parking fees to pub visitors which can destroy a pubs business because people (myself included) refuse to pay to enter a pub, even though you can claim it back off your drinks bill... This ruined a great pub near me ..it had thrived for years...introducing car parking fees closed the pub within 18 months..
Alternatively if land is in an attractive place then it presents enormous potential to create extra value ..
There are alternatives...NRR is a regional business largely ...it has a London head offices with presumably other premises valued at £150 million ...only yields 5 % income...selling that would allow a repayment of debt plus earn equivalent income from new attractive Covid priced assets..alternatively the proceeds could be used to buy back all of the shares given NRR current value , although in practice obviously that couldn't happen as the share price would rocket.
Also like I said, I don't know what goes on in London apart from a head office location , but NRR also has an office in Birmingham where London staff could relocate to and reduce admin costs possibly significantly .
If none of those options are viable then selling the development land could be a shrewd move .
Hawfinch...thanks for your comments which I always take note of. A few points.
1...The market efficiency concept is always the argument put forward by shorters...I dispute this because it leverages the sell side of the equation with shares that don't effectively exist .. this actually works to destabilise market efficiency . There is an inbuilt market efficiency created when, for example, Norges sell their holdings at between 55p and 60p and you buy in at 54p and I buy at 59p.. the end result is that the value of my investment (and yours for that matter ) has been orchestrated downwards by the short.. other small investors who act on emotion rather than ration will sell at this point and lose money
2. I would argue that shorts are not bona fide transactions...they are predator ones ..furthermore pension funds who lend out their client funds without their explicit approval are in my opinion acting with impropriety , given that their actions actually reduce the value of their clients (very often) pension fund investment ...Also what do they actually gain from it ?
3..Shorters can also damage the company itself by reducing the value of their market equity and making them a target for hedge funds and others looking to buy good assets on the cheap ..Yes the company could act by buying back their own shares and wiping out the shorters, but to do this they have to use up cash which could be invested elsewhere or borrow cash and increase their LTV which could damage their credit rating.
Having said all that. ..yes I also look for reasons not to buy and if I can't, only then will I buy .. This includes examining the levels of current shorts.. and yes it is frustrating when shorters move in after I have already invested...exploiting the volatility in the share price.
I do accept it isn't all one way, and sometimes they do a favour to investors and I am thinking of Muddy Waters attack on NMC Health earlier in the year when they shorted their shares and alerted investors of improprieties in NMC's Director activities .they obviously did this AFTER they had taken out the short..
Lots more to add but happy for you to change my mind..
I think it was in their annual results that I read it ..I do think they are working very collaboratively with their tenants and partners to achieve win win outcomes..they also mentioned that most of their pub partners thought that they had exceeded their expectations in helping them to recover and reopen after the lockdown
I read the official Fitch rating of them today supporting their BBB stable outlook and this too was reassuring..
I find it hard to criticise them for anything operational ..I think it was the strategic decision to acquire a chain of pubs where they made an error...I do understand though that REIT's are always under pressure to find new ways to increase shareholder value; a feat made more difficult by the requirement to pay out 90% of their profits as dividends , leaving them little new capital to reinvest in more assets... NRR have been actively recycling existing low yielding assets for higher yielding ones but there must be a limit to how far this strategy can go..hence the extra debt.
Yes, I saw that too about B.I.I ..it is aimed mainly on behalf of smaller businesses which were ordered to close during lockdown...I would imagine that will include all pubs...to be fair NRR have been actively helping pubs with these claims where the pubs have been genuinely struggling to pay the rent. .
Could be a landmark case for NRR but it's thought that the court ruling will be challenged . Both parties will want an early resolution but if the ruling stands then this might benefit NRR indirectly but substantially , assuming of course that pub owners which represent 80% of the pub chain use the proceeds to pay the rent along with other expenditure such as staff costs .
The FCA will pursue this vigorously I am sure, just as they have done in other cases a la Amigo...
The shorts are held mainly by institutions like the ones mentioned...their obvious ultimate goal is that the shares become worthless ...they clearly think the shares are overvalued at current prices...they will settle their shorts when they believe the prices have fallen to as low as they can, based on their interpretation of data on NRR held in the public domain .
The reason that I pay more attention to shorts is that they can lose more money than the value of their short position whereas longs can't . All this with shares they don't even own...they have simply borrowed them from major pension funds etc...these kinds of transactions should be outlawed....you shouldn't be able to sell shares that you don't own .
Yes there are more shorts below 0.5 % which are therefore excluded for summarised reporting ..I can find
1. Citadel Advisors with 0.48 %
2. Meridian Global Investors 0.28 %
There may be more ...if you add this to the 1.17 % reported and they have minimum shorts of 1.93 % which equates to 5.8 million shares
To put this into perspective though there are around the same amount of shares being traded every week so not such a big issue at present...the key thing to monitor is the future direction of travel for 'shorts'
% age holdings ..
Lukee...I agree with you regarding the fundamentals of NRR as held in the public domain.. the half year ends in two weeks so we will get a clearer idea with those results, however we won't be informed of them until November ..
Current fall today based on small volumes so more volatile ... I would like to know though why Millennium Partners have increased their shorts position as surely there can't be much money to be made with a share price of 50p.....unless I am missing something ..like you say, there is ample liquidity and rents are still being collected and most of their clients are trading ...maybe it's the perceived impact on their pub chain with a maximum gathering of 6 people sitting together in a pub ..who knows..
In the past month the share price has fallen 20 % from 65 pence to 53 pence..
Over the same period Norge's Bank have sold 2.2 million shares of their holding. . slightly more worrying and only last week , Millennium Partners have increased their shorting of NRR shares by 480,000
If these sales and shorts continue , the share price is likely to fall further in the short term..
Almost 2% of NRR's shares have now been shorted, although this is still substantially below the 8.3 % peak they reached in June 2019 and half the 4% shorts that existed before the pandemic took hold..
I always watch the direction of shorts closely ...during the past month they crept up ever so slightly albeit one short position was also reduced. I will be observing any further increase in Millennium Partners short position very closely..
Very enlightening and credible...explains perfectly why the second wave of infections haven't been matched by a second wave of hospital admissions and deaths...credible source too ..Ivor Cummins is one of the top bio chemists in Ireland with worldwide fame and credibility .
This needs to become more mainstream before more Draconian measures (which appear on the cards) cause real damage to NRR's future prosperity...
Video no longer there...what was it's conclusion.. and who wrote it and their credentials...guess it wasn't the BBC.. How will it impact NRR ?
Haha..thanks for letting me know Edwina.. I look forward to reading your postings because they enlighten me about trading transactions and their underlying impact on movements in share price..
What price are you intending to exit at. ?
Edwina..yes of course I did.. Being an FD for 20 years I have probably written and presented more presentations than you have ever read...Presentations are not audited so you put as positive a spin on them as you can get away with ...my most creative presentations were reserved for AGM day to ensure remuneration policy remained unchallenged.
Selling a tenth of their assets to partly repay debt isn't a positive sign.. It will barely cover the extra debt they took on in the past 12 months and they had to reduce the size of their business by one tenth to do so .
Reducing the value of their assets by 12.5 % last year wasn't a REvaluation it was a DEvaluation ...their risk scenarios include one, where these assets are devalued again but by more than 12.5 %
Ignore the headlines and go to page 42 of the 68 pages and read the most important statistic ...UFFO per share for the past 5 years...it has reduced every year from 21.5p in 2016 to 17p in 2020.. This will fall to 6p per share this year assuming there is no more rain in the form of Covid... Next year UFFO per share will reduce to around 15p as a result of selling 10% of their assets ..
The dividend would then have to be re-based at around 13.5 pence per share...a reduction of over 40%
To restore dividends back to where they were, will require further acquisitions , funded either by more debt, this increasing LTV or by issuing more shares, thus diluting shareholder equity..
Share prices are 'always wrong' I make my money by buying shares when I think they are undervalued and then selling them when I think they are overvalued .
At 55p I think NRR shares are undervalued ..I hope I am right ...I will sell them when I think they are overvalued .
I hope you are right when you say that the current falls in share price are due to the transactions of one distressed seller ...we will have to wait and see.
NRR are experiencing significant financial problems, there is no doubting that, but in a way it's comforting to note that none of those problems are of their own making...everyone is grappling with Covid..
What I will say though, (and I have been following their fortunes for a couple of years ) is that they did ,in my view, make a strategic error in entering the pub sector ...they lost sight of the fact that their core competence was in the management of commercial property so I was critical of them moving away from that, and acquiring a chain of pubs which requires different skills ...I suspect they may be regretting that too given that one in 4 of their tenanted pubs is now up for sale .
Their fall back position remains that they can sell it repurpose the use properties , and them not paying dividends saves £15 million every quarter. My main concern remains the increasing of LTV's and the eventual breaching of loan covenants ..I suppose there is the added threat of tenancies not being renewed.
Despite all of this and after further consideration , my conviction still indicates this share is a good buy
I have thought that about virtually every recovery share I have ever owned so their lack of buying isn't in my view too much of a cause for concern ...what would be though would be the BOD SELLING their shares. That's a different matter and so far we haven't had that. .They did sacrifice 20 % of their salaries which does show some commitment although that is against a high baseline salary ..having said that the remuneration details were omitted from the reported preliminary year end results so I don't know what their remunerations were..
The half year will end in 3 weeks time and those results will encompass the whole of the lockdown period.. these results when known will provide an insight into their future prosperity ..it will be very interesting to discover how their performance has been , but we are not scheduled to be informed of this until towards the end of November ...usually there are no early indications of what the results will look like ...I wonder if they will make an exception on this occasion to settle nerves and calm markets down , assuming of course that the results are better than the declining share price indicates.
Well my reasons for investing were..
1....amount of liquidity in the business...they won't run out of cash for a long time yet
2...their risk register showed that even under extreme circumstances they wouldnt breach loan covenants
3..Alternative use opportunities for their properties would limit further falls in value.
4...over 90% of both retail outlets and pubs were now open .
5... The break up value of the entire business would result in a share value over £1.00 even allowing for fire sales...pubs in village areas could convert into fabulous homes...retail centres could be repurposed for mixed use facilities.
So what has changed .
1..The re-emergence of the virus taking us back to square one with lessees in no position to absorb further losses leading to significant defaults in rents...just look at recent closures anounced .
2..must be some limit to loan covenants not being breached .
3..very negative market sentiment seems to be reappearing ..
Might though become an attractive candidate for a takeover ..?.
Not sure what to think ATM...need to spend a little more time mulling over the ramifications of the new landscape .