Member Info for ElProfessor

Hi Marmot,

Welcome back. Great post as usual.
Been missing your insight.

Best wishes,
Prof

Hierarch,
I would add my voice to the many who have already commented. I am afraid that you are very wide of the mark with regards to Rebess. He has been involved with this BB for many years. While I do not know the weight of his current position, I have never known him to either ramp or deramp; apart from anything else he would not be so naive as to believe words on a BB would move a share price in for a FTSE250 company. HIs words will be recognised by the many on here who have followed Centamin for a number of years on what has been a roller coaster ride. Of late our hopes have frequently been dashed when we thought we were through all the problems. Let us hope that this time we are indeed through them for a while however with a mining company, particularly one operating with a sole mine in Egypt, complacency is not an option.
I do hope that you stay around on this board long enough to realise that it is a very informed and supportive environment. Good luck with your investing.

Best wishes,
Prof

Nickel,
Not sure you are very popular on the Tullow page at present. Impressive to make £1.31 per share though. Luck or did you spot something?
Best wishes,
Prof

That you had just made£1.31 per share?

In a report dated 29 Nov where is also says the year low is £1.30.

Not much point in posting something from over a week ago when such a significant even has happened since!

Prof

Cowichan,

I think I could cope with a bid at £3!

Best wishes,
Prof

Mike,
It looks like I was wrong about the holding level of Endeavour though. See Master RSI's helpful clarification at 2346 last night.

Best wishes,
Prof

Master RSI,

Thanks for the correction/ clarification.

If you are right about them deliberately selling off shares to drive the price down that would help explain the major drop on Thursday.

Best wishes,
Prof

Mike,
Yes and the again no. The closer they hold to 51% the less they have to buy and therefore the more, in the short term, they can afford to pay for the remainder which bids up the price. At the extreme as they chase the last 1% they could pay £3 and it would be pretty much irrelevant to them whereas to pay £3 for 51% for clearly be very expensive.
Prog

Tibbs, I am no expert on this particular aspect but from memory I do not think CFDs gives you voting rights.
Prof

Mike,

A good letter.

Prof

If I am reading the RNS right on the Centamin webpage then Endeavour are holding 8.13% of Centamin:

https://otp.tools.investis.com/clients/uk/centamin_plc/rns/regulatory-story.aspx?cid=1756&newsid=1350925

Good point ref the valuation of Endeavour shares although the question would actually become the valuation of the shares of the new combined group. In others words Cey's strong cash position and cash generation would go some way to off-set Endeavour's debt.
Best wishes,
Prof

A distinct possibility!

Nickel,

Clearly 126p is too low but a lot of negotiating theory says start with a low number (Its called anchoring) and then that is the milestone from which everyone judges improvement. Think about buying a car - you judge how well you have done on how much you got off the asking price. The problem of course is if the initial bid is too ridiculously low you just get told to go away which is what has happened here.
Occasionally, with the car, you are dealing with a chancer who, having made their stupidly low bid and had it rejected, will go off and try the same tactic with another seller. Bidding for a company is different for two reason: firstly there are enormous costs in gathering the information required to make the bid, secondly companies are less common than cars and they differ more from each other so you can't just move on to the next bid (first point also would then apply again).
As such I would expect we will now see another price floated by Endeavour. Ideally they would like to get this to move to friendly bid status, i.e backed by the Centamin Board, but at the very least they would need to interest the big institutional shareholders in order to do it as a hostile bid. I am sure that those discussion are taking place at this very moment and that the institutional shareholders are telling Endeavour to get serious and come back with a far bigger number.

Just bought another 15,000 shares (well 14,937 actually as I wanted to be holding a round number) at 116.7p. Either the share price is mad or I am!

Prof

I should maybe have added that I sold 50,000 at pretty much this price when the bad news came out in October. As such with the trading costs I am pretty much buying half back in at the price I sold. Why? Well it seems to me that given the share price avoided a sub £1 melt down on the bad news, which I considered a possibility, the fact that gold has held up and the geo-political situation as well as the economic situation remain less than rosy and the fact we have merger/acquisition talk swirling around means this is a pretty good bet.

Let's see.

Best wishes,
Prof

Having pondered it overnight I have just bought at further 25,000 shares at 119.74. Surprised that I am able to get them at this price given we have talk of an offer at 126. I know the Centamin Board have rejected it but I would expect Endeavour to raise their offer to entice share holders; clearly they can see that 126 will not fly given the SP history.
This is not a one way bet, we could see either or even both of a poor Q4 and a weakening of gold however the odds do seem to be stacked in favour of this going up. Like Nickel Investor I consider another player stepping in a distinct possibility.

Best wishes to all,
Prof

Hi Siko,

Thanks as always for such an informed and insightful post.

Hope all is well with you, your family and your fantastic charitable work.

Best wishes,
Prof

... you are confusing me. At close gold was at $1479 and we have an offer being touted at what equates to £1.26 and yet you close the price at below £1.20. I have to assume that you therefore believe that the Endeavour interest, having been rebuffed by Centamin management for undervaluing the company will not result in an increased bid, nor will anyone else chose to come into make a bid and yet Centamin management are wrong to rebuff because the real value of the company is worth sub £1.20 and they are incapable of increasing this value.

I cannot believe, as many have commented that Endeavour have led with their best bid - no company ever does. I like Spot's logic that had Endeavour, with the benefit of both industry knowledge and an ex Centamin COO, believed that Centamin were about to catastrophically miss Q4 then they would have waited for the news, the resulting share price fall and the opportunity to either reduce their bid or at least have it look more generous. Past experience also tends to suggest that once one company breaks cover and makes a bid then other players consider whether to join the fray, either because they think there could be value that they overlooked, or simply that they fear letting someone else acquire/ merge with the company will alter the competitive landscape in a way that is not to their favour.

I will ponder this over night and look at the share price movement tomorrow first thing but will probably buy some more at this price given the factors I see in play.

I would welcome others' thoughts.

Best wishes,
Prof