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Thanks for setting up the spreadsheet shakey as it really did help giving us a feel (and putting numbers) on the strength of opposition to the deal in its current form. Before it was hacked it looked like there was 2.6% against the deal which is a hell of a lot from one chat forum.
You'd think those who ruined it would have something better to do on Christmas Day!
It's a shame that we all have to keep talking about the tax losses. I've just posted a quote from Tailwind's Dec 21 accounts on Twitter that £12.9m of tax losses cannot be classified as an asset as the company does not "consider it to be probable that future taxable profits will be available to be utilised against". We now have a total of £2.6B of them and they will take years to use unless, of course, Starmer steals them before they can be utilised!
Tax losses should be considered to be the icing on the cake of a great deal not seemingly an integral part of it. The tax losses are certainly real as they are sourced to Tailwind's tax Filings so the debate is how long will it take to use them up coupled with how easy is it to use them when acquired by a larger company. Of course, tax experts will have been all over this as full due diligence would have been carried out on Tailwind so our own tax advisors will have examined those tax losses in considerable detail.
IMO this could and should have been discussed in the presentation by the CFO in some depth with more detail provided as to when and how the losses occured.
Last post before Christmas. Merry Christmas everyone on here and let's keep our fingers crossed that each of us gets the outcome we want. GLA
Nicely put Fool-On-The. Sorry about JKX. We would be putting a lot of faith in Mercuria and their (hopefully) good intentions if the deal went ahead. Mitch had a great opportunity to fully explain BOD's rationale at the Analysts' presentation but bumbled and mumbled erm, erm all the way through it. Slick it certainly was not.
The words (loosely quoted) that we didn't do a cash deal because Mercuria wouldn't do it will be etched on his Business Gravestone.
Stifel describe it as a Disappointing Acquisition and say that we should ask for less equity and more cash. They make the same points as have been discussed on here and revise Risked NAV down from 415p to 335p. Nice to know we haven't all been talking b*llocks.
I won't copy the front page of the Note on here but just go to Twitter and #SQZ and it will be there.
GLA
Re tax losses. I think we have to assume that Govt will "encourage" HMRC to pick apart all claims and writes offs that companies try to offset against their windfall profits. There will be clever tax accountants trying to get one over HMRC but they will be challenged hard.
HMRC will try to ensure that Tailwind's losses deriving from their own assets can only be offset against profits from those assets and not new ones because new ones (which will include ours) were not responsible for those losses.
What the combined company will need to do is to continue to prepare divisional accounts for Tailwind which means that Tailwind's assets/business will have to make huge profits in order to absorb those losses.
Also we must remember that accounts profit is often (usually) different from taxable profit due to the benefit of accelerated capital allowances against those profits. So it is very possible for accounts to show a nice profit but for there to be a taxable loss, which I assume is why Tailwind's c/fwd losses are so high
I'm also wondering whether there is any split in Tailwind's losses between oil and gas because HMRC may try to ensure that losses say from oil are not set against future profits from gas. That might be a stretch, however but we operate in a much detested industry so I wouldn't put it past them.
I do have some experience some years back of getting tax losses agreed with the Revenue. Sometimes our tax computations were just accepted because our the client was simply not selected for investigation. We breathed many sighs of relief when HMRC's time limit for review finally expired for some of those companies. In other cases we were able to ensure that "allowable" tax deductions were allocated against the sectors and assets we wanted. But there is little doubt that every oil & gas company operating in the UK will have their tax computations put under the microscope.
In my opinion very little value should be put on tax losses. Those days are long gone.
As regards any potential deal it's a huge NO from me.
GLA
It has to be a NO vote. Then we will see a nice raise in the SP to probably above where it was a few months back. Mitch will have to consider his position if/when this deal fails. What on earth was going though his mind?
The only thing that is keeping me invested here is that the company is way undervalued, aided a little by the hope of a White Knight or the large investors voting against it.
Just when HBR say they are giving up investing in the North Sea our wonderful BOD decide to double dow on it. I trust HBR (where I am also invested) more.
It's been a while but I have to say that every time that a pop comes in for a Eurasia RNS my heart skips a beat. This one ok but I do note only the "possible" sale of our Russian assets to BRICs.
But hey the SP has moved the right way.
GLA
Any body think that there's an opportunity here for Andrew Austin to ride to the rescue and bid again on the basis that he is more like to be seen as a potential saviour now.
It would certainly be an interesting development and would pause the offer for Tailwind but it would be seen by BOD as a hostile bid.
feynzz, I may be a bit out of touch now but certainly i advised companies on all aspects of their acquisitions of other PLCs but I know the rules are a lot tighter now. Ey audit us and deloitte audit Tailwind. If EY are prohibited from assisting Serica then, of course, other tax specialist will be utilised.
Kris, no . Only c/fwd against profits from the same assets that produced profits in the first place although companies will try to be clever about how costs are allocated in order to boost profits in the area that they want the tax losses to be offset against. It was a lot easier though years ago than now I fear.
Visitor, this is a complex area and I'm sure that the company's tax advisers will be all over the tax losses. Last year Tailwind made a pre tax profit of only 101k and with accelerated capital allowances being available to reduce profits hardly any tax losses would have been used so having tax losses of over 1.0b will not be of much use.
The tax losses have to be used against profits from the same trade (which they will) but, importantly, HMRC will be checking very thoroughly that they are only being offset against the same asset class as previously. So if the Tailwind "sector" doesn't make much profit IMO the tax losses are pretty much worthless. It will be difficult to set the tax losses against Serica's "sector" profits and probably any new businesses that may be acquired but EY will be all over this.
From RNS "Tailwind had some $1,366 million of brought forward UK Ring Fence Corporation Tax losses and $1,202 million of Supplementary Charge losses as of year end 2021"
Should keep us going for a while although they can only be used against profits made from the existing Tailwind business. Expect HMRC to look very carefully at the use of the losses.