Member Info for CJ66

9 month trading update noted a 24% increase in FPO sales, 5% higher selling price, but the real indicator of profitability is the increase in net cash of 38 million dollars in 9 months, for a total 110m dollars or equivalent of some 2 pounds of the price per share being cash. With the earnings per share looking to come in around 75p. Biased as a holder for some 20 years, but originally buying in around 50p a share - I can confirm this is about as stable (despite being Indonesia) and uncovered low key share you can get. Not quite Trump proof as it works in dollars, but certainly Brexit proof!

I think they usually save the money from the shares in trust but it is pretty negligible in the scheme of things. Similarly the issuing scrip shares and buy backs are a bit of a nil sum game - but at least keeps the dilution down. The timing difference from earnings 4% rise to actuals 12% down is also easily seen through and tends to be informative if they mention it, but annoying if they keep using it in their figures. Likewise 'exceptional costs' - take Galliford Try's constant use of pre exceptionals when �90m had to be written off poor contracts - it was physically lost, taken from the balance sheet, and shows poor mgt. I wonder how much of the current share price weakness here is the Corbyn nationalising threat - could be either an opportunity or a real risk?

It's also a confidence thing - despite the upbeat talk and clear top level plans, they obviously took their eye of the ball on the construction side and showed a pre exceptional margin of 0% + the write down of near �90m. They might class it as 'exceptional', but poor management dropped the ball to the tune of �90m - it seems a bit like me ignoring any losses on shares and just counting the winners!

Good article in the FT today, basically saying Glencore's cut of 1/3 of their production + closure of 2 large mines has meant the huge undersupply and price boost. The window is for Glencore to now reopen mines to benefit from high prices (they do warn if too high people start to use substitute materials). 2 very large mines are on track to open in 2019 - which will then put the supply/demand under pressure again. All in all it looks a corker year for 2017 / 18 - but just remember commodities are always cyclical - so don't get too carried away that it will last for ever. Looks like Griffin will be a real beneficiary, and I just hope they give them the extended area licence - apparently China is currently anti Zinc miners on pollution grounds. Whatever way �1+ is achievable for full year results.

Calm down Miaa - this is a small cap commodity share - you have bought a ticket for excitement, but it's on a roller coaster, not a 1 way trip to the sun! (Remember Icarus? - I should listen to Daisan).

I agree with 'dusty' the Aim rules are looser but cheaper, and misbehaving Directors appear in different ways on both markets + some very good ones on both. However the point may be that the main market is perhaps a signal to attract more institutions than individuals. It seemed a shame here that they did not offer anything to private investors as over 50% more shares issued at £2.30 meant this was likely to be the new price level for a while. A move to the main market would signal to me that they are happy to leave individuals behind - so my vote would be to stay on Aim with a good previous track record. As a good example of the above and Larus comment on do they care about IHT - my wife recently lost her Mother, but she handed on £40,000 more by having had a mixed portfolio for over 20 years, but with £100k of Aim (including CAML) - so it is a big deal to some of us little people! Personally I will await for more results from the Macedonian operation to see what they really are offering - wider diversification can go both ways, and stretch the executives more.

Also just a shame, that with their high level of dividends and individuals support, they were a bit 'lazy' in not having an element of an open offer to existing shareholders, who could have provided extra monies. Might have been better for all than an approx 6 1/2% $125m loan. The great thing about them at present, especially with the vagaries of mining, was no debt.

I have been a long term holder here and the outlook for Zinc now makes the shares look very good value medium term. However the real drag on the share price is if you look back on about the last 4 or 5 years of company reports where each year a requested licence to mine a much wider area (Zone 2) has never been granted. Hence the Chairman slightly ironic 'I sincerely hope that day will arrive in the not too distant future'! It seems a game of typical Chinese brinkmanship or bureaucracy, but If this does eventually happen - then the shares will rightfully really will take off...!

I believe they do have a very good strong management team but the main operation (and risk) is that of the gradually disappearing newspaper delivery market (spun from W.H.Smiths). They have made natural forays for a replacement existence into library books, education equipment and parcels to utilise their distribution strengths. However these markets, particularly parcels, are exceptionally tough and the reasonable area of education has now been sold. This leaves them with a tough job to replace profits as fast as they are disappearing. The good news is that they have done a great job implementing efficiencies to stem the newspaper decline. The bad news is they are finding it increasingly tough to fund the replacement, and people like amazon etc are only going to give couriers cake crumbs, let alone driver related issues. Just look at the mess poor management made of the likes of Citylink and DHL. The crunch point is slowly arriving as the dividend has steadily increased faster than profits. If the profits actually decline this will shortly hit the fan with uncovered dividends and would cause a rebalancing of the dividend by perhaps half with a corresponding drop in the share price by half as well! The other aspect limiting wriggle room is the enormous liabilities, to be fair these were inherited when spun off, but from a negative equity position has only moved to around £11m which would equate to just around 4 to 5p per share of assets. It's a contrarian call to buy them, and as the stakes go up and down the share price therefore reacts with twice the volatility due to this exaggerated risk 'on or off' either way. I bought the shares for about 70p back around 2009 so have nearly covered the cost with dividends received, and so are happy to keep them - but I would be increasingly nervous about buying them now until some sort of progress or a more positive revenue stream is found.

As with many of the posts here - the latest news release is the good the bad and pretty ugly... One single loan and Al Sabah providing it means protection for the company to grow fast, but Alain Debare saying 9.9% is a 'competitive rate' - means nobody else would lend that money and Al Sabbah is making more money out of the loans, and questions how much the company is really benefiting. Unfortunately amplified by dividends that merely increase debt for more 9.9% loans!

Your both right - the value case is high, but as Indianna points out the low public float and 65% controlled by Al-Sabah also has consequences that institutions are not interested (except in possibly a rock bottom rights issue), whilst the big danger is that the price and investor interest falls so low - that he buys everyone out for a measly sum. I have seen this before. Hopefully that does not happen and it could then become an excellent long term play - fingers crossed and I am in, on the hope that it can't go much lower!

I do agree and as well holding some currently, believe they are worth buying. They have as you say managed (been forced?) to crystallize some of that value, which means they are cash rich and have a more opaque value. The other thing to bear in mind is that they are at the end of the day a 'commodity' and if you look back - with a relatively fixed cost base the amount of cash profit they make per tonne of CPO is hugely leveraged by the price. This means their price naturally goes up and down with the cycles - however they have been actively adding to their acreage since leaving Malaysia which is where the managements skills have also been cleverly opportunistic in peddling the share price / market value up over time, despite the ups and downs, by selling those old assets at premium opportunities, before this forced mass sale clear out !

I stand to be corrected but I believe that if a company expresses publicly that it will make an offer and does not do so - then it has to wait 6 months (or if the target agrees 3 months). If an offer is withdrawn or lapses (fails to reach it's 'conditions' 51% in this case) - then they must wait 12 months. My only caution about the speed of events is that; a) the board were vociferously against it. b) Support from shareholders despite the much higher price than it's then market price was very low. c) It failed to flush out any other interested parties. Of course if suddenly a £13-14 offer was made it would be a different ball game - but I am just trying to be realistic as to how likely this is. Purely opinion, but to me it looks like KLK saw an opportunity to good to miss, but with a frankly derisory 13.2% acceptances, knew the game was up and accepted a chunk of institutional shares at a good price as an investment of value / springboard if at any later stage the management or the commodity price faltered. Otherwise why did they not up their bid to say £10, rather than committing themselves to a final bid of £7.40?

Having already got a notifiable stake - I don't think these are KLK, because they would have to put out an announcement. Also I don't believe they can bid again for 12 months after a failed bid - so don't get too carried away with anything happening to quickly ! I have actually held the shares for around 20 years - they were Rowe Evans then + several others Bertam, Lendu etc, all held large cross holdings in each before merging, probably to be able to grow without predatory interest such as KLK. I originally bought at 47p - so I was quite happy to tell the board I don't ever want a fast buck takeover. Good management small companies such as MPE, Nichols, James Fisher are invaluable to tortoises like me! To rugs - I also bought AEP at the same time - 5000 at around 50p, selling 2000 when they reached 65p - look at them now as well - again not for fast buck people as they are protected with a 51% owner who turned down a speculative offer around 65p then - now near 700p.....I bought them just because I used to travel to the far east and liked the way they produced crops all year round.

Well there we have it - minority shareholders bullied by the big boys again. Delisting 3rd April. Only 125 voted, and although 40% voted against - The Only people who vote shares count - meant the 75% of voted shares support was very easily achieved. Was never expecting the anything more than a reasonable 12-14p Lesson is to try and find out who are the big owners of the shares and what they may be after - some are fair & supportive (Luke Johnson), whilst others like the chap at FIH was clearly trying it on - cancelling dividend etc = pushes share price down = comes in with an offer (In this case now complicated by a counter bid that serves them right!)

I don't profess to be an expert, but it may be to do with being a scheme of arrangement. This is also the nub of the problem and the bidders confidence. With the MPE example (traditional takeover) KLK needed over 50% of ALL shares to vote for their offer and failed to secure these. Here they need 75%, which seems to be high, but is in fact - 75% of all VOTES ONLY. They have Directforce (Playtech gaming software people who will win either way) and Henderson (either done a deal or just want out) which equate to 39.25% of all shares. However if only 50% of all shares are VOTED - their 39.25% effectively equates to 78.5% of the votes, even if all the rest of the 50% voted No. I also don't buy the poor prospects - a) because the Directors were giving positive statements until this bid and b) Directforce with a near 30% holding would surely take the money instead, especially as they are effectively in the industry. c) This large holding of Directforce is effectively keeping others away from bidding. Hence my view that the 'no votes' if successful would either force a higher offer or leave a cash rich company with reasonable prospects alone!

TD don't give you notification, probably despite being a corporate action it's actually under the Accounts / Voting & Information Mailbox.

TD gives you the ability to vote, and have just voted no. Every little helps - take comfort on how MPE shareholders rejected a far higher offer than their current share price, although I acknowledge that the dubious double interests are here with a major shareholder, it would be a great message that this is not acceptable, rather than roll over or sell out below even the paltry offer level!