Member Info for DennisThePennis

Hi Kyle, I've been invested here for a while. Made a decent return after the BKR acquisition and traded this share quite a few times since then. Currently sitting on a small net loss due to the SP drop since summer 2022 when I got a bit over-enthusiastic.

The company's fundamentals have always been strong and I think the share has been consistently undervalued. Now waiting patiently for the next rally which I hope will be triggered by a softening of WFT (unlikely) or the accretive growth we keep being promised (which I think will have to be outside the UK).

Other factors which might help are relisting on the main market to attract more IIs, or a shift in investor sentiment towards O&G (which seems to be happening).

Also, perhaps share buybacks and special divis aren't out of the question as the cash pile grows.

Hopeful the BoD will be considering all these things.

Only IMO. DYOR.

It's fine for the government to offer more drilling licences but if they're taxing profits at 75% there's very little incentive for companies to bother. Better to invest elsewhere.

Fundamentals have been sound for a long time yet here we are back at 223p.

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Admittedly most of the volatility and suppressed share price is caused by geopolitical events and uncertainty, but clearly the TW deal hasn’t helped.

With the prospect of a Labour government looming, we need to break the status quo. Investing overseas and re-listing on the main market should be top of the list. Failing that, the BoD should be planning a special dividend to return cash to shareholders before it gets snaffled by Rachel Reeves.

The clock is ticking.

Mitch Flegg has his patter to a tee. He repeats pretty much the same rhetoric about accretive growth at every investor presentation, but all he has delivered in the past 5 years is the Tailwind merger, giving Mercuria a controlling interest in our company and causing a SP drop of 20%.

If Serica's not going to invest overseas in the near future, they'll need to give careful thought to how they will provide a return for shareholders. A special dividend is my preferred solution, obviously before Labour introduce their "proper windfall tax".

If anyone wants to listen to the Peel Hunt interview, here's the direct link:

https://peelhuntoilandgas.gallery.video/231004

SQZ needs to avoid any further investment in the UK other than development of their existing fields. The fiscal regime is already bad enough, and with a Labour government round the corner it's not going to get any better. IMO.

A full windfall tax probably means tax at 75% of profit (or even 78% like Norway) without tax deductable allowances for exploration, appraisal, development, etc. (unlike Norway).

In other words, certain death for our domestic energy industry. Not just oil and gas.

The shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves thinks it's a great idea. So there you go.

Maybe it's legitimate but there are quite a lot of sales of 1 or 2 shares. Maybe pricing algorithms are influenced by number of transactions as well as value of trades. Maybe I'm being overly cynical. Can anyone who knows about this explain why there are so many small trades?

Looking at recent SQZ trades, there are lots of very small sell transactions coinciding with drops in share price.

To me, this looks like some sort of share price manipulation, but perhaps it's legitimate.

Can anyone explain this?

I like the bit where he contrasts a salaried CEO with himself as a major shareholder. I wonder who he was thinking about.

A foundation for a strong economy is a stable, predictable tax system. Once that has gone, trust is lost. I guess they don't cover this on the syllabus of Oxbridge PPE courses.

That's a huge number of shares considering the company only employs 200 people although I guess distribution will favour the senior executives relentlessly driving up our share price with their accretive deals.

Yep, looks like the share price is being manipulated again.

Just watched the video and was impressed with Steve Edwards too.

Sounds like he has a clear strategy in mind, focusing on growth in Norway while continuing to operate and develop existing UK assets while still cashflow positive (Tailwind tax losses will help with this). Seems sensible to me since Norway is more stable politically and fiscally, has a more sensible energy strategy and still has decent hydrocarbon reserves.

Also interesting to hear about how Serica is approaching asset life extension and ESG. It seems optimising production from mature assets and lowering carbon footprint is becoming their niche, which could play out well if the UK government ever sees sense with O&G.

Looking forward to hearing about specific acquisitions in due course.

I was thinking about the "heritage" SQZ directors who are perhaps doing it to stop them getting too bored in retirement.

I don't know them beyond their bios but the Mercuria directors seem a bit more dynamic and career-driven (hopefully with some professional integrity). The proof of the pudding will be in the eating.

Not convinced these new board members have the necessary experience or clout in the industry. Then again, none of the board members except ACW (now retired) seem to have done anything exceptional. Serica’s main achievement to date by far was the BKR deal, delivered as a result of ACW’s connections and BP’s desperation to offload Rhum.

Our market cap is now sitting at around £766m which is considerably lower than before the Tailwind deal. Our share price has plummeted 25 percent since the deal was announced. At that point, oil and gas prices were already dropping and the windfall tax was already in place, so these factors can’t be held up as excuses.

MF promised shareholders will see accretion. Can he update us to clarify when this is likely to happen?

In the meantime, hopefully he won’t be announcing any further UK NS deals.

Now we're roughly 50/50 oil/gas, it seems a drop in either commodity instantly translates to a drop in share price. Unfortunately gains don't seem to work in the same way.

Https://www.agcc.co.uk/news-article/apache-wants-to-end-forties-production-11-years-early

How much tax revenue will this lose UK PLC? How many jobs in the oil and gas supply chain?

Another nail in the coffin of UK energy security, courtesy of our esteemed leaders at Westminster.