Adrian Hargrave, CEO of SEEEN, explains how the new funds will accelerate customer growth Watch the video here.
I believe ZIOC will play this with a straight bat, GLEN I'm not so sure about (but Gary is under some pressure to show a 'clean pair of hands', so I think/hope that GLEN will also do the Right Thing).
The reality, however is that there's almost certainly a policy of 'benign neglect' towards us , in that the fewer PI's there are the easier things can proceed (assuming they are!) administratively...
That's my take, anyway.
GLA
Hi Jiving,
Another factor for the inactivity over 2014>2016 may well have been that GLEN itself had other things on its mind : from an old Align research paper that I stumbled across whilst re-connecting with Lemonfool was this snippet :
.."In recent weeks the price of iron ore has continued to build on the bullish momentum seen this year with China’s slowing being less than feared and, as a consequence of the mothballing of many ore projects in Australia and Africa, a much reduced supply profile over the next several years. Key issue for ZIOC is the structure of the project company (“Jumelles”) and in which Glencore are their partner holding 50% + 1 share and thus giving them control over the venture. Given the very questioning of Glencore’s own survival at the end of 2015 that culminated in a large equity raise backed by the Directors of that company and other institutional investors, large scale Greenfield projects were put on the back burner, particularly those costing upwards of a billion dollars to catalyse..."
That was then; this is now : 'long ago...and far away...'
ATB
LTH's -which obviously doesn't include you, unless you previously posted under another moniker ?- will be aware that Big Den has connived at the destruction of Congo rainforest by logging for many years, so his 'concerns' are very much for public consumption....and political/financial gain.
Which isn't to say that ESG concerns won't come up in any 'environmental permit' negotiations that may be necessary.....
HTH
OCN is sufficiently interested to have RNS'd the Edison report.
Piedro commented 'If you check back I think you will find that Edison makes a report every 6 months
or so, all of which get RNS'ed'
Thanks for the prompt.
It looks to have been
June 2021
May 2022
Sept 2022
Oct 2022 (released Nov 2022)
Feb 2024
GLA
Thanks for this link. It reads like part of a 'defence document' (timing?), doesn't it ?
Not just your quote ( cf my earlier ' SWF asset stripper' speculation) , but also this :
.."In Exhibit 1 we attempt to value OCN. Firstly, we took the last published equity value (30 June 2023), excluding minorities, of OCN of US$565.2m, or £444.1m. Secondly, we subtracted the equity value at the same date of OCN’s 57% stake in PORT3 of £206.2m, leaving an equity value of OCN (ex PORT3) of £237.9m. Finally, we added back the current market value of OCN’s 57% stake in PORT3 and arrived at a market value of OCN of £906.7m (or 2,564p/share) against a current market capitalisation of £443.8m (1,255p/share). This implies that OCN trades at a 51.1% discount to its market price value despite the bounce in the share price this year, from a low of 820p on 9 June to the current level. This calculation does not include any potential increase in the value of the investment portfolio since the last published date of 30 June, nor any additional profit accrued from its holding in PORT3 since that date..."
Followed by 'bid premium' reference :
.."PORT3 is trading on a 2023 EV/EBITDA multiple of c 10.0x, which is close to the average multiple of a group of international peers (FY23 average of 10.5x) and so we consider this to be relatively conservative given the M&A upside of this particular asset at the moment and the significant growth that PORT3 has demonstrated throughout 2023. For reference, we estimate that each 0.5x of EV/EBITDA ratio added raises the total value of OCN by £44.3m or 125p/share..."
GLA
.."their total holding would drop below 50% of the A shares.
OCN would have the cash to buy Hansa, but that would definitely fall under the category of invested interest when it comes to the 2 family's & so they wouldn't be in a position to vote on whether to approve such an offer & I'm sure the rest of us would vote to reject such a move & would be asking the directors to step down for wasting our time & money...."
All very complicated....
And from Last of the Mohicans
.."Personally if Wilson & Sons is sold, I don't see a merger between OCN & Hansa Trust happening.
Its fraught with complexity.
Hansa has 2 different types of shares in issue the voting ones & non-voting ones. The 2 family's control enough of the voting ones to keep control of it. However they don't have a majority ownership of the non-voting ones (There are a total of 40M voting & 80M non voting)
At OCN they own just over 51% of it with half of that ownership coming in the form of Hansa.
Who would make the offer for the other?
It would needs to be priced at a price that the independent directors could justify it as being in the best interests of shareholders to accept (both companies).
Hansa NAV currently sits at £427M but the shares trade at a discount of over 40% currently to that valuation & they still don't carryout buy-backs of the A shares which they have the authority to do.
Over 27% of that value comes from the OCN holding meaning the rest of the Hansa portfolio is worth £300M max & the OCN % will have increased since the end of Dec to possibly 30% or more now.
OCN has a market value of £495M currently for the 35.36M shares in issue, but the current implied NAV is over £23 per share, ie a value of over £800M at the current Wilson & Sons price.
So working backwards, the non family shareholders own roughly £400M in OCN.
The family own roughly £200M of OCN & Hansa slightly over £200M.
That means the cash value of Hansa would be around £500M in total, or over £4 per share. The 2 family own under 30M shares, so I'll assign them £120M to be on the safe side.
So the £1.1 Billion we're talking about in total is split into 3 groups the 2 family's have £320M of it, £380M of it belongs to the other Hansa investors & £400M of it belongs to the other OCN shareholders.
Leverage wise you'd say its still possible for the family's to still keep control of the empire in a convoluted structure but its going to be extremely difficult to do & the vast majority of shareholders in OCN & Hansa know what's coming.
They've seen the years of pathetic Investment performance that Hanseatic have given everyone, they are not going to put up with it, they will want cash so they can get away from them & get decent returns on there money elsewhere.
The breakdown of the assets show's that Hansa doesn't have the cash to buy OCN all it could do is offer OCN shareholders shares or a cash/shares combo, but no-one in there right mind is going to take A shares in this day & age & are highly unlikely to take even the voting shares unless there being offered full value for there OCN shares. But in doing that the 2 family's would lose control of Hansa because they only own 25% of OCN compared to our 48% & when that's converted into Hansa A shares there total holding would drop below 50% of the A shares....cont...
From Mancman1
.."Ownership looks quite complicated. I think William Salomon owns 27% of Hansa and 13% of Ocean Wilsons, and Hansa owns 25% of Ocean Wilsons. Ocean Wilsons owns 56% of Wilson, Sons. Christopher Townsend owns 11% of Ocean Wilsons. Salomon is on the Board of all three companies, Townsend on the Board of Ocean Wilsons and Wilsons.
I can't figure out how you would untangle all that and simply merge the two companies.
I imagine that highly paid corporate lawyers will come out with a solution that benefits the major stakeholders..."
"PSA Is Said to Show Interest in Port Operator Wilson Sons
Controlling shareholder Ocean Wilsons is reviewing investment
Ocean Wilsons says it’s received offers for its stake
By Vinicius Andrade and Manuel Baigorri
January 31, 2024 at 1:07 PM GMT
PSA International Pte, the port operator owned by Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings, has shown interest in acquiring Wilson Sons SA, a Brazilian port and maritime logistics company, according to people familiar with the matter.
Potential buyers in China also have shown interest, said the source......"
Maybe, baby....
Ashmore's latest offering is a 10 page PDF, too long to reproduce here. The executive summary gives a flavour and an outline road-map.
.."THE EMERGING VIEW
The Last Tango: The Path to Make Argentina Great Again
By GUSTAVO MEDEIROS AND BEN UNDERHILL
The most interesting investment opportunity in 2024 is also the most controversial.
Investing in Argentinian assets could deliver extraordinary returns, if Milei manages to implement his most essential economic reforms. However, even optimistic economists and analysts struggle to see an open path for these economic reforms to work. This paper does so, proposing the ideal reform sequence, by which Argentina can regain the economic dynamism it displayed in the late 19th Century.
Milei, with the support of Sturzenegger and Caputo is now engaging on Act I, restoring economic competitiveness, balancing fiscal accounts and re-profiling a mountain of short-term debt. This act will be the most difficult to pull off, as it directly challenges the establishment – the Unions and Peronists who have held power for nearly 75 years.
Act II will be simpler, involving a monetary stabilization plan, through which Argentina should benefit from a triple inflow of Dollars from exporters, foreign and local investors.
The third act will be the notorious dollarisation. This will be the least crucial but most controversial of the reforms, in our view, and may become the theme of many Tangos in the future."
GLA
..."the port, with several parties involved (ZIOC, The port operator, Congo, and the Port Builders)..."
I'm bemused as to what role AD Ports is actually playing, if any, in the ZIOC Project : it appears to have done nothing since
.."AD Ports Group signs a 30-year Extendable Concession Agreement to Manage and Operate a Multipurpose Terminal in Congo’s Pointe Noire Port
Agreement grants the Group the exclusive right to invest, develop, manage and operate the new port..."
There was some 'teaser' suggestion (something Little Den said?) that suggested expansion of role to encompass a 'mineral port'.
Meanwhile
(1) Al Bayrak Group is reportedly involved in a 25-year concession agreement for the rehabilitation, modernization, expansion, and operation of the Conventional Terminals at Pointe Noire Port.
Investment Plans
As part of this agreement, Albayrak Group is planning a significant investment of 401 million Euros in Pointe Noire Port. The investment program will cover infrastructure improvements, screening processes, logistics warehouses, truck parks, and the acquisition of modern port equipment. These investments aim to rapidly increase the port's cargo handling capacity.."
(2) The Council of Ministers learned recently of a Congo/Cameroon initiative for the up-country Sangha mines (Avima etc),
.."The work will be carried out in two phases, the first towards Cameroon and the second consisting of the construction of a railroad from the Sangha to the port of Pointe-Noire, with the construction of a mineral port.
The total cost of the private investment expected from the companies involved is 4 billion US dollars..."
How does ADPort's 'MUltipurpose Terminal' fit in with AlBayrak's Conventional Terminals and/or with ZIOC's eventually required 'mineral port' , currently supposedly being considered by the 'Avima consortium' (for want of a better short-hand) ?
Answers on a post-card....
GLA
PS Just to pull StarBright's leg a little, I note that the PIF meeting will be followed (Feb 10th) by Chinese New Year, the Year of the Dragon .." "Dragon babies" are considered to be lucky and have desirable characteristics that supposedly lead to better life outcomes."
It's a sign , I tell you.
.."
Europe can still avoid the coming green steel crunch...
https://www.ft.com/content/ffaae533-b555-4a40-8b77-d0dda278b874
.."Building DRI facilities is not sufficient. Running these requires green hydrogen, made using renewable power. In much of Europe, that will be expensive.
For an idea of the cost, consider that a 2mn-tonne DRI plant will need perhaps 6 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity a year. At an all-in cost of €80/MWh, that’s a €480mn power bill. The same mill built in a green electricity sweet spot, where costs are perhaps €30/MWh, would save €300mn.
Such economics are available in some European locations and help explain how H2 Green Steel — a greenfield project positioned near low-cost Swedish hydropower — secured €4bn in financing last week.
But traditional steel plants usually don’t have the fortune of co-location with cheap renewables. That leaves them exposed to competition from enterprising newcomers.
Moving clean energy around is an oft-touted solution. BUT STEELMAKERS MIGHT ALSO WISH TO RETHINK THEIR INPUTS. REDUCE IRON ORE WHERE GREEN POWER IS CHEAP, AND THEN SHIP THIS TO STEEL MILLS.
In an era of snarled-up supply chains and reshoring, this may not appeal to all. But it could preserve steelmaking capabilities in Europe. This could protect perhaps two-thirds of the labour force of a traditional plant, according to the Rocky Mountains Institute. And, in a crunch, creative solutions should not be ruled out...."
Blindingly obvious solution, I'd have thought!
GLA
Hi Jiving,
Point taken re delay.
I wasn't a shareholder at the time, but understand that this was a 'news-rich' period, with a referendum held Oct 2015 to seek approval for Constitutional changes (incl allowing DSN to serve another term(s); a 'questionable' election which he won in 2016; and a possibly-related insurrection (?) by 'ninja's '(?) in the sensitive Pool district (between Brazzaville and PN.
It may also coincide with the fall-out with the IMF, consequent upon Country Manager shenanigans and some question-marks over some SNPC/Coraf oil pre-finance deals (not GLEN, AFAIAA).
With hindsight - and the subsequent history of iron-ore prices (at or lower through to 2020) - maybe the delay was a blessing in disguise....!
ATB
I can't see BigDen - now in his 80's - holding up proceedings for a couple of years, whilst his poodle Council deliberated over a modification to the Mining Convention....
Just IMO.
Jared Dilian blowing his own trumpet, but could be reflecting the Davos bankers' optimism...
He's bombastic but frequently right tho'/because contrarian, which IMO is better than the alternative.....
.."Argentina! Have no idea what is going on. I’ve been traveling.
[Bloomberg chart of GGAL Grupo Financiero Galicia S.A]
Great googly moogly. YPF looks similar.
Go Milei.
Don’t look at it. Don’t look at it for 5 years.
Saw an interesting chart which I could not share. It was a chart of stock market capitalization to GDP, country by country. The United States is at 170%.
Argentina is at 9%. The mean is 100%.
If Argentina goes to the mean, it’s a 10-bagger. I am not making this up. Do
you have enough?
Remember when I told you after the election that the trade was just beginning? It is just beginning. I had some crazy Austrian tell me that in a central bank-free world, that stocks would go down.
Maybe that is true in the United States, but not in Argentina, where they are deregulating like they are going to the electric chair.
This remains one of the best calls in the history of TDD. We were before EVERYONE in calling Milei. And we didn’t bail when the polls went pearshaped. I had the confidence that the people of Argentina had had enough and that they were willing to do something radical to get themselves out of the hole. And they did it. And it continues to pay off, and it will pay off for years.
I think if you were to put on a spread trade and buy Argentina and sell the U.S., the two extremes of the market cap to GDP ratio, you would be pretty happy in 10 years. And that is essentially what we are doing.
The U.S. is corrupt and bloated, and this grandiose, malignant homeowners association that we have is going to do us all in.
Buy a place in Recoleta...."
Ed.: hxxps://www.gringoinbuenosaires.com/neighborhood-guides/recoleta/
NAI, DYOR, GLA etc etc
Under the heading ' Global business elite infatuated with Milei', here's the FT Davos take :
.."WEF participants, whom the economics professor labelled the “heroes” of the capitalist world, had been “co-opted” by neo-Marxists, radical feminists and climate activists, he warned.
The address drew substantial applause, with one European private equity veteran confided in being “impressed”, while a fund manager insisted that beneath Milei’s provocative veneer lay “some truths”. The Davos elite had been lectured about losing its way and had loved it.
It was not just Milei’s staunchly pro-business stance that struck a chord. “People are intrigued because he managed to get elected on an austerity platform, by telling voters he would cut their benefits and state subsidies,” said one WEF attendee.
The warm reception echoed positive comments from the IMF, a big creditor to Argentina. The Washington-based institution agreed to disburse funds after the Milei administration sought to slash the deficit and devalued the peso. The new administration “has moved boldly to correct several of the misalignments that are there in the economy”, the IMF’s deputy managing director Gita Gopinath said in Davos.
JPMorgan’s number two Daniel Pinto, an Argentine and WEF regular, was also bullish. Milei’s administration was “addressing all the right things in the economy”, he said, hoping that the measures could bring “an end to 80 years of economic deterioration”.
Others speculated that some of the praise might be part of a cynical move for a share of Milei’s planned privatisations of dozens of state-owned companies. “I’ve been surprised by how positive some bankers are about Milei’s ‘economic theories’,” said Allianz chief economist Ludovic Subran after the speech. “I am wondering if it’s not pure vested interests — the smell of a big privatisation wave coming and its investment banking mandates.”
But, perhaps naively, many found comfort in the belief that Milei’s most radical ideas would be tempered by a grown-up team around him. A private meeting between CEOs and foreign minister Diana Mondino, chief of staff Nicolás Posse and economy minister Luis Caputo made a good impression, according to one executive in attendance. “They came across as professionals,” he said.
Sure enough, back home from the Swiss Alps, the Argentine president was forced to make concessions on his sweeping reform bill currently being debated in congress, in which Milei’s party holds a minority of seats. The privatisation of state-owned oil major YPF no longer features in it — a sign that the libertarian politician might have to compromise with the neo-Marxist forces he was so quick to decry in Davos..."
Exclusion of YPF from Milei's programme doesn't mean that it's not still part of BUR's, though ;->
ATB
Hi Jiving,
The dam disaster (and human, reputational and financial impacts) must weigh on all co's involved, esp in 'home country' Brazil : you've got to imagine that there'll be some pushback on any project that is - or might be - a repeat risk.
Our presumed collaborator PSEI, with its dry beneficiation offering, may be the answer.
As to GLEN's possible interest in iron ore offtake, that was in the days of the blessed Ivan, of course, who wanted the product but was squeamish about how to get it (greenfield projects), which means/meant any 'green ore' project.
I like what I understand GLE's current strategy to be, of mixing the unfashionable cash cows of 'old' mining - coal - with the sexy-but-newish 'green metas - effectively backing a more measured transition than the enthusiasts/idealists would advocate.
So I hope that - whatever the eventual outcome - GLEN retains an interest in ZIOC offtake.
PS Thanks for the reminder re C-B royalty entitlement of 3 %. If that's any indication of what GLEN could hope to recover, the Royalty 'consolation prize' would be worth a pretty penny, esp @ 60mtpa..
ATB and GLA
Hi Savvy006,
I'm not going to waste much time on this, as you seem incorrigible.
.."Loan shares valued at 50m August 2020 before being sold down.."
From the 29 Jul 2020 RNS, shares transferred and value :
- 1,615,253,000 SYME shares transferred to High West Capital Partners LLC
@ 0.075p = £1,211, 440
- 778,571,429 SYME shares transferred to Stock Loan Solutions LLC
@ 0.09p = £700,714
- 3,500,000,000 SYME shares transferred to Union Pacific Capital Ltd
@ 0.07617p = £2,665,950
= £ 4,578, 104.
That was the valuation for security purposes, IIRC the illustrative shrinkage/security margin quoted was around 30%, so these pledges will have raised about £ 3m for 1AF2/TAG at the time.
This must be a contender (in a wide field) for the worst deal AZ has ever struck, from a common shareholder p.ov. at least.
HTH