Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
Predictive text changed sensible to sensitive !
BB3
In answer to your question, the ability for a company to be able to afford buybacks apparently considered a good thing: especially in the USA where Ashtead makes most of it's profits through it's acquisition of Sunbelt.
In 2018 I wrote to the then CEO Geoff Drabble complaining that they should be paying down debt and increasing the dividend instead of wasting my money on share buybacks. He kindly wrote back saying "no doubt there are differing views on share buybacks buy they are a sensitive use of excess funds and lead to share price appreciation by improving the earnings per share."
I cannot fathom what's going on here. AHT is usually such a star performer. It's main competitor URI is up16% over the last 3 months whereas we had excellent results and are down about 5%
Good rise today but a long way to go before reaching the dizzy heights of March 2016 when the price hit £27 with a great dividend.
Good results. Hikes dividend. Announces share buyback. Everyone sells. Shares fall 5% Typical market reaction. The buyers will be back tomorrow.
I note a senior analyst from Freetrade is sceptical about " tech company Darktrace which listed last year. "
"Although its shares are above the flotation price of £2.50, Lane says recent share sales by company directors beg the question: 'Why buy the shares when big chunks are being offloaded by the people who know the business the best?' "
Russ M
As Nick says it's all about inflation and the expected interest rate rises in the U.S.
The Nasdaq was down over 2.7% at its lowest today but has finished slightly up. I would expect AHT to be up in the morning.
Shaz
Just thought I'd take a look here as the share price dropped heavily this morning while the market was well up. Saw your post so thought I'd say 'hello'!
Ive held these for years, bought at about £10. Not very exciting but with capital growth and decent dividend what"s not to like?
As I said in my previous post, no matter how good the results or broker recommendations (Liberium £68000) AHT share price is heavily influenced by URI which is largest plant hire company. Sunbelt is the second largest in the US. I notice that they have now declared the dividend in cents, that and the fact that all the A plant machinery here has now been rebranded as Sunbelt, that we have this massive buyback which the U.S. seems to prefer rather than big dividends or paying down debt , leads me to wonder if the board is considering a move to the Nasdaq.
As to having a scrip issue to make the shares more saleable to retail investors you can tell by the lack of interest on this board that plant hire is not of much interest to the small investor.
Q2 results on Tuesday should be good, but with the way the US market is behaving at the moment (URI sp down over 15% on the month) I doubt good results will be reflected in the sp. of AHT.
There should at least be an increase in the dividend.
With covid rates surging I can't see travel shares doing well any time soon, so although I am well down, I am taking the offer.