Member Info for bumpylane

I'd be surprised if POG had not already discussed the guarantee release position with Gazprombank before going public with the offer from the entity in Liechtenstein.

The profit is in the 8.25% annual coupon on the bond, with no risk of capital loss.

This seems a bargain to me at 24p, with a 12% yield. I watched the NSF Investor's Presentation at the weekend, from mid-January. Seems like a solid business that's well run.

https://webcasting.brrmedia.co.uk/broadcast/5dfa0541fb21a407ce74ab80

Everopeful - the reality with POG is that probably more than 50% of the equity is held by Russians and all the assets are physically in Russia, so I can see some logic in a Russian listing.
Also, given the general hostility in the UK to Russia, I can't see a new Strukov/Petropav megagroup attracting a lot of Institutional or retail interest in London. But in Moscow it would be a very different story.
As POG shareholders I think we could do well from these developments. If the new group floated in Moscow with a smilier mcap to Polymetal or Polyus and POG was 35% or 40% of that we'd be fine & dandy.

Strikes me that the idea of a secondary listing on the MCX could be connected with the arrival of the new largest shareholder, Konstantin Strukov.
If POG and Srukov's company were to combine in the future if might be easier to float the combined group in Moscow than London. Strukov's assets include coal mines, which would be a problem in London.
Maybe London will end up as the Secondary listing and Moscow will become the Primary listing. Might make some sense.

What is TEMI?

Although Strukov directly owns only 28.5% of POG's equity, if supported by other big shareholders he could clearly control over 50% of the equity and could potentially cause a lot of trouble for POG's board.
We don't know who Prosperity Capital (15.23%) or Fortiana Holdings (4.62%) would support - Strukov or the current BoD
We do know that Everest Alliance (7.54%) and Slevin (4.55%) have previously cooperated with moves to dismiss the BoD.
The problem with an unknown and potentially dangerous big shareholder like Strukov,, who looks like a tough-as-nails Russian oligarch of the old school, is that UK institutions are unlikely to want to invest when he's around.

I think there was some recent news about this, saying that it is now open

You have to assume that Polygon has hedged most its short position in POG's convertible bond.
So if the short position in the equity is losing, the long position in the convertible (yield 8.25%) will be gaining.
Nothing sinister about this. It's just a trading strategy, IMO.

Scotland will inevitably become independent within 5-10 years, and Ireland will re-unite. It's an inescapable consequence of the rise of English nationalism.
Post Brexit Britain will be reduce to a rump of Wales and England. It will be the final chapter in the end-of-empire story.

That's interesting. A temporary suspension at the request of the trust. What are they about to announce? Presumably a merger with another trust. The intention will be to reduce the vey large discount to NAV on this trust. About 20% when I last looked.

The bid price is up almost 30% in the last few days on almost no volume. All very strange. The results are imminent, but we know what they are going to be. The only surprise is likely to be the dividend. So wWhy are the market makers pushing these up?

mambo - I agree with you that the news coming out of the company looks great, but we seem to have a big institutional seller here and it's going to be difficult for FXO to rise much until they can be cleared.

david It seems illogical that AFG should be on that list, because the company has done everything 'by the book' so far. The share price is down a lot since the IPO in 2015, but that might have something to do with the regular defamation of the company by ************* on their website. This is a solid business with a great CFO. I'm sure it will come through this difficult period. It's very cheap at this price.

Good volume today and a rising share price. I think there has to be an institutional seller out there, and that has pushed down the price, But no holdings RNS to indicate who it might be.

Yes, it's completely daft. No wonder there's almost no transactions. But it's not quite as big as it looks on the screen. A broker ringing a market maker can probably buy for 13.5, sell for 11.5. My advice is ignore the bid price. If you're buying at 13.5 you're getting the company at a PE of a bit over 1. We might get a rise in volume at the finals. I think there will be some buyers if the BoD keep the dividend unchanged at 0.7p. When there is any demand it rises very fast. We could see some selling pre April 5th, and the end of the tax year . The offer price may come down a bit and that would be a good moment to buy.

comeonvog I think you're fighting yesterday's battle here. Those scandals in 2015 caused a lot of embarrassment to the Chinese authorities. They are unlikely to let them happen again. The risk of buying into a Chinese company like this is reflected in the P/E of about 1 and the large net cash position.

coeonevog - I don't recognise all those names, but it's certainly true that the record of Chinese companies on AIM in 2015 was a shocker. It's not surprising that their reputation stinks. The Chinese authorities have tightened up on things since then, which is good. Also, there is good reason to believe in AFG. It's quite big and it is very profitable. There are plenty of things about the business that can be 'proved', like its Scottish suppliers of mackerel. And it has a high-calibre CFO who is ex PWC in Malaysia. But of course there's definitely some risk when you invest in a purely Chinese company like this, that's why it has a PE of about 1.

I can't see any big surprises here. Although the general tone of outlook statement is cautious and 'downbeat', the company looks in good health to me. It continues to make nearly £1m a month net profit. Annual sales are £109m, and the net profit is expected to be 10-11% - so about £12m. Not bad for a company with a market cap of about the same amount. Also 375m RMB cash on the balance sheet (£44m). I'm surprised this hasn't gone up a bit. Working capital has increased. The strategy seems to be ''we are waiting for a tempting acquisition to come along, and we are saving up our cash for when that happens'. Sounds sensible to me. The economic background in China sounds difficult, with a lot of discounting going on. But incomes in China are rising, and this will feed through in the end. I'm happy to hold here, but won't add until the market makers narrow the spread.

AFG saw quite a lot of trades today, for AFG. Almost 100k in a day. But it looks as though they were all sells. Presumably bought by the market makers.