The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode featuring financial educator and author Jared Dillian has been released. Listen here.
It was slow burner before when they first announced the discovery, so lets hope its taking a while for the news to sink in again. POQ needs to get on the campaign trail now his moratorium holiday is over and Malcy may even add it to his bucket list in his mid year review, which should give it a boost and more coverage, as the only thing he claimed stopping it from going in before was the moratorium. At least we survived the political theatre intact. Onwards and upwards falconers!
All this risk holding and it's hardly moved on the positive news, anyone getting in now is laughing, it should at the very least have gone up to the previous highs around 27p instantly and stayed up there! The only way LTH can console themselves is to top up some more, but I think most of us banked on at least some reward for the risk event we waited so long to hurdle and already went as deep as we could afford. Going to try and add a small top up now the skies are clearing if it's still here or lower in a few days, but damn! Great result on the decision, but very disappointing market reaction on the day.
I've got 281,000 FOG shares at the moment and have been through 3 years of risk already, so my balls are here, on the line!
How can they not lift the ban now, it would make the enquiry a total waste of time and money while showing it's a purely incorrect political decision, which they promised it wouldn't be, also proving themselves liars. The problem is the way they lift it, if they call for more studies and all regulations to be put in place before even exploration can start again then we still have a long wait ahead and the share price will drift. How this woman can still say she has concerns over well integrity when the data clearly shows it's a miniscule faliure rate even with out the added regulations is beyond me and concerning they still might not want to accept the reality of the report. I'm tempted to top slice just to tempt fate into making me regret it.
Strictly Come Gassing
At least we havent gone bust like some companies so not a disaster, just annoying. If the pound had strengthened sooner I doubt enough would have sold to Delek, as it is it justs adds insult to injury. After consideration, for me it will be a reluctant acceptance of the offer now, too much uncertainty around the liquidity of the remaining shares and interest in them. On the bright side there are plenty of other shares offering good potential, perhaps better than Ithaca would have been so it might work out for the best. A few of many examples: AMER is undervalued with it's new pipeline economics, FOG has a massive discovery only being held back by a token moratorium, can't see Australia turning it's back on such prosperity, the risk/reward is worth it IMO, and how about MTFB potential billion dollar antibiotic largley derisked and undervalued, just a few suggested options for your Ithaca cash, just dont put it all in to one of them, may even be able to buy a Delek listing eventually and participate in the Stella story that way.
On further investigation it appears it takes 75% in favour present at the vote to trigger a delisting so maybe they could manage it but I'm still not convinced that is their aim at this small premium. Just because they become the major shareholder doesn't make a friendly takeover impossible, a hostile one obviously it would, but if they were offered good value or wanted to exit the north sea further down the line who knows, admitedly it makes it less likely that another low ball bid would appear but that means any future offer for Ithaca would have to represent much better future value to tempt Delek to sell up. I'm sure there's still more value here than £1.20 and I'll be holding until I no longer have a choice or until at least £1.50 which I would consider fair for a risk reward balance even though long term it will be worth much more in all likelihood.
My initial reaction was that a takeover would mean a delisting and the end of the road for private investors, but after learning that they need over 90% to delist it does make me question if that is even thier aim, as surely if it was they would have offered a larger premium to get anywhere near that percentage. Of course they are gonna start with the lowest offer the board would recommend but it still seems like they are aiming only to be the majority share holder at the cheapest price they can get and a takeover bid is the only way they are allowed to hold more than 20%. So then the question them becomes assuming they become the majority share holder with no intenetion to push for 90% to delist, how will that effect the company and share price going forward? Would it not be positive in that there were fewer shares in general circulation and also Ithaca would have access to the finances of Delek on generous terms and the share price can continue its upward progress or am I missing something?
I'm attached to a risk free 25% upside or more if the deal falls through and they carry on, why risk it on a share that can go both ways when this can only improve from here in a few months, chances are you'll have more to invest in the next company and they might even be having a pullback themselves by then and get a better price.
Woah, you guys have a lot of shares, I wonder what % of your total portfolio you had in here, I thought I had a lot with my 34800, but seems like nothing compared to some of you. Anyway, I wont be selling, I hear people saying there are better opportunities out there, which is probably true, but this one is virtually guaranteed with a floor around £1.2 where as other companies could just as easily tank big as rise big. What's the worse that could happen here? The takeover fails and we get a temporary drop and before the medium term upside, they up the offer and we get a further safe return, or we are eventually forced to sell at this level anyway. Seems worth a few months wait to me.
Or is their no vote, just not selling them when they send their offer to buy?
34800 shares here, will Interactive Investor give me the option to vote I wonder? If so, I'll be voting no until at least a £1.50 offer. If it ends up £1.20 I hope it wont be until the new tax year at least or that will add insult to injury having to pay tax on half my non Isa holding. Bet it'll complete like the 1st of April (BOD April fools) or something just to really annoy me.