Member Info for fleccy

But you said "Was you aware of a global pandemic in 2020, when there had to be a reset", which suggests the dividend rebase was due to Covid; So now you're saying that Lloyds didn't have to rebase the dividend? It's hardly a progressive dividend policy if they reduce the dividend, wouldn't you agree? It also reinforces my point that NG's dividend isn't necessarily safe either.

"Flec

You started your charts as part of your anti buyback stance - that was clear for all but the dumb to work out"

LTI

I don't see the relevance of that, the charts are correct based on the monthly voting rights RNS's, what difference does it make why I do them?

In another thread you suggested Lloyds were correct in reducing the dividend due to Covid, the words you used were, "Was you aware of a global pandemic in 2020, when there had to be a reset", can you explain your reasoning as to why Lloyds had to rebase the dividend at a lower level post Covid? Although I agree that the dividend suspension was warranted in view of the large impairment charge during the pandemic, I'm curious why you think they were correct in reinstating the dividend at a much lower level?

This is what Fitch said in April

"Rating Pressure Balanced : Rating upside could materialise if financial performance is better than currently expected in our rating case, for example, due to upcoming regulatory price controls. Conversely, higher capital investment above NG's guidance of GBP42 billion for FY22-FY26, together with any delays in disposal proceeds, could constrain upward rating movement. A change in the business mix could also lead us to review the group's current debt capacity."

https://www.fitchratings.com/research/corporate-finance/fitch-affirms-national-grid-nget-02-04-2024

It'll be interesting to see their take on the Rights Issue and the increase in planned Capex to £60 Billion. Obviously NG had to do the Rights Issue and the disposals, although pre planned, are also relevant to NG's overall debt position.

"again - are you for real?"

"yes you are clueless"

"yes clueless"

😅

"They have been getting out of gas for quite a while now"

🤣

That's rich coming from an old gasbag like you

😂

The charts I've just posted show the combined Buyback/Block listing effect on the monthly share count.

This chart shows the trend

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vS0oSavIsBjHgD7k6NMyk7Z591Cm2IrevvLI-Jq95gOmESrOI0Vi_NhA8LIO9rMz90Y5zCOCoFuEItG/pubchart?oid=1812824850&format=interactive

This chart shows the month by month variation

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vS0oSavIsBjHgD7k6NMyk7Z591Cm2IrevvLI-Jq95gOmESrOI0Vi_NhA8LIO9rMz90Y5zCOCoFuEItG/pubchart?oid=1451011517&format=interactive

You make me smile, I can sense that little vein in your forehead pumping every time I post 😉

LTI, honestly I can't be bothered to look back and check what resolutions were passed at Lloyds pre covid, all I know is that during AHO's tenure the share quantity hovered around 70 Billion with a 2018 progressive dividend payout of 3.26p, and with an increased 2019 interim to 1.12p before the cancellation of the 2019 pre covid Final Dividend. Post covid, not only did Nunn deprive shareholders of the lost final 2019 dividend, he debased the dividend going forward starting with the 2020 Final dividend; If as you say AHO was planning to have a big buyback program, why would he have been able to do it without sacrificing dividend payouts? You defend Nunn like he's your brother, but going off the number of people who disagreed with you on the Lloyds forum you're pretty much alone in your opinion. It also says a lot that Lloyds is underperforming Natwest and Barclays, it appears even the market doesn't like Nunn's treatment of shareholders.

Lloyds is a classic example of how a dividend policy can change in an instant, with a change of CEO. You guys talk about NG's dividend as if it's a dead cert, but NG's wording about the dividend is "Going forward, and following the rebasing of the 2023/24 dividend per share (DPS) following the Rights Issue, the Board will aim to grow annual DPS in line with UK CPIH, thus maintaining the DPS in real terms. The Board will review this policy regularly, taking into account a range of factors including expected business performance and regulatory developments".

Although all companies cover themselves with disclaimers, it doesn't change the fact that a new CEO could replace Pettigrew in the next couple of years and easily slash the thinly covered dividend in half, and their statement suggests there isn't regulatory certainty. Although it's true I haven't researched NG's long term plans, it doesn't change the fact they're having to dispose of assets and dilute shareholders to pay for the Grid upgrades, which may or may not reward shareholders in the future. As far as the £60 Billion's concerned, the Grid is probably overdue an upgrade anyway since much of the existing HV network is probably getting old and due a refresh, that's just me speculating.

There was a lot of spin from NG accompanying these results, probably because they realised it would be a bitter pill to swallow for many of their shareholders, they must have known it was coming for a while and going off what Pettigrew said in his CNBC interview, large institutional shareholder's may have also had a heads up.

Truthfully I have no idea how well NG will do in executing its plans over the coming years, or if they'll achieve the returns they expect. If the market does decide to change narrative, you can expect similar treatment BT has had to endure from analysts over many years. UBS is currently a big cheerleader for NG, if you want to see what could happen just look at UBS's (Polo Tang's) never ending put down's of BT.

"Over the last decade, only one sector would have lost money – the financial sector (UK) , with a £1,000 investment becoming £623."

Pas when you say Financial sector are you referring to Bank's? Only our Lloyds share holdings are currently showing a paper profit of £29,239.04

"For the first time in decades, demand for electricity in the U.S. is projected to grow by as much as 15% over the next decade driven by the Artificial Intelligence (AI), clean energy, and cryptocurrencies boom."

Nearly forgot to respond to this one.

Proof of Work decentralised crypto, like Bitcoin, is just an electricity sink hole. The amount of electricity required across the Bitcoin mining network to find the winning hash is phenomenal. Most who trade in bitcoin do it as a speculative bet that the price will go higher, so in that respect it's just a power hungry casino gambling chip. The protocols are designed to increase computational difficulty, in order to restrict processing to one block every 10 minutes, and each Block only carries around 1Mb of transaction data so what is the point of it? None that I can see. I haven't looked into it, but as the Bitcoin reward halves every 4 years it's probably uneconomical for Bitcoin miners to have significant operations in the UK and some parts of the US. The current Bitcoin reward is 3.125 Bitcoin per winning Block since the recent halving event, so Miners need to source Electricity from cheap alternative Off Grid sources wherever they can, in the absence of an ever rising Bitcoin price. I doubt NG consider Crypto Mining as a reason for upgrading the Grid within their supply areas. If it was up to me Bitcoin would be banned, since it's inefficient and adds greatly to the planets CO2 levels.

"Bitcoin mining emitted over 85.89 Mt of CO2 during the 2020–2021 period.

The greenhouse gas emissions of Bitcoin mining alone could be sufficient to push global warming beyond the Paris Agreement's goal of holding anthropogenic climate warming below 2 degrees Celsius."

"To offset the CO2 emissions of Bitcoin mining in 2021–2022, 3.9 billion trees must be planted, taking up an area equivalent to the size of the Netherlands, Switzerland, or Denmark, or 7% of the Amazon rainforest."

https://unu.edu/press-release/un-study-reveals-hidden-environmental-impacts-bitcoin-carbon-not-only-harmful-product#:

"I have to say that I dont think you understand this business at all.... you are making assumptions about things without a proper grounding and understanding... IMO"

At a glance I see a business with revenue currently around £20 Billion with quite high operating costs and relatively large debt.

In their most recent results they reported Revenue of £19.850 Billion and Operating costs of (£15.387) Billion and an operating profit of £4.475 Billion, out of that £4.475 Billion they have (£1.464) in financing costs and £(831) Million in tax.

Their underlying EPS is 78p per share, with an underlying dividend cover of 1.3, but statutory IFRS EPS came in lower for 2024 at 60p per share, so only just covered the dividend; NG put it it down to "our ‘underlying’ results exclude the total impact of exceptional items, remeasurements, timing, major storm costs and deferred tax in UK regulated businesses (NGET and NGED). A reconciliation between these alternative performance measures and our statutory performance is detailed on page 87". Even without exceptional items their dividend cover isn't great at 1.333.

Obviously their Net Debt will reduce by £7 Billion due to the Rights Issue and they'll get another injection of cash when they sell Grain LNG in the UK and the Renewables business in the US, but the plans to invest £60 Billion over the next 5 years adds unpredictability and relies on the regulators being friendly in my opinion.

I suppose much will depend on them keeping costs to a minimum during the next capex cycle, and the ongoing regulatory environment. ROE and margin isn't guaranteed to rise significantly from current levels, with NG dependent on regulators green lighting their proposals.

Poker you're correct that I haven't taken an in depth look at NG, in fact I've only had a cursory glance through their results, as there's a lot of blurb, I'd be really interested to read why you think NG will be in a much healthier position 5 years from now?

"i’m not convinced you really know what you are talking about."

That could be said of everyone who posts on here, and 99% of the so called professionals who pump out opinions in the financial media. I have opinions and clearly I sometimes misunderstand things, but I express my honest opinions in all my posts.

My opinions on buyback's are dependent on the particular stock, if you look back through my posting history you'll see that I agree with buybacks in the case of Vodafone, but take a different view in the case of Lloyds. Lloyds had around 71 Billion shares circulating before buybacks, that's currently down to just under 63 Billion. The thing with Lloyds is they have a huge amount of shares circulating and although they've spent £4 Billion on the last two buybacks, and are in the midst of the third, they're underperforming both Natwest and Barclays; To help pay toward the buybacks they heavily debased the dividend, when it was reinstated post covid, rather than following AHO's policy of only doing buybacks to cover block listings; The dividend still hasn't recovered to pre covid level and the share price is underperforming. I understand that buybacks increase EPS, but dividends give more flexibility to shareholders who can choose when and where to reinvest, or spend the cash. Personally I and many others would prefer dividends over buybacks in the case of Lloyds, especially retiree's who depend on dividends to supplement their retirement income. In the next year we're on target to pull in nearly £26,000 in tax free dividends, even with the Vodafone dividend reduction, because my wife doesn't have any other income and we've got a lot of shares in ISA's; Lloyds is by far our largest holding, so Lloyds dividends are important to us. Buybacks have their place, but they're divisive when they're done at the expense of dividends. Although I understand Nunn's reasoning, it doesn't mean I have to agree with him.

Where did I say EBITDA is a useful indicator? My exact words were "They both generate around the same revenue and EBITDA", no mention of EBITDA's usefulness.

None of my nerves have been touched Jake.

Just because I'm not invested in something doesn't mean I don't have an interest; And when people have a go and tell me where I can and can't post, it just fires me up more and makes me want to post more.

Just so you know I did actually mention in one, maybe two, of my previous posts that NG has a monopoly, but I'd suggest that is a double edged sword. Basically NG is at the mercy of the regulators on both sides of the Atlantic, should we get a major recession, political shenanigans, or the regulators just say no to significant price hikes, NG's profits could be severely crimped. One thing you can be sure of, no matter how much they invest in new infrastructure they'll only be allowed to make a certain level of profit, before they're told to reduce prices. The monopoly status has allowed them to rack up huge debt while paying large dividends, the market would have punished any normal company well before they got to NG's debt level.

Sometimes Jake it pays to look at stocks you're not invested in, in order to learn new things; For example I didn't realise there was a price adjustment due to TERP, since I haven't previously owned stocks that have gone through a rights issue; It did niggle me that the record date comes before Ex-Rights day and I briefly questioned the workings of it in my mind, but since posting on here and being challenged I've learned about TERP, how to calculate it, and have a far better understanding of the subject; You learn far more from arguing points than you do from a standard conversation, assuming you're not too entrenched in your thinking, LTI.

Lending, apparently for stocks the Intrinsic Value formula is Earnings Per Share (EPS) x (1 + r) x P/E Ratio. Since the price is a variable affected by sentiment and earnings can be affected by one off items like goodwill impairment, depreciation, write down's, etc; And r, the expected earnings growth rate, is basically a guess, why would a stocks intrinsic value be something to be taken seriously? I'd rather form my own opinion on the direction of a company, not the opinion of an analyst who may have their own vested interest.

Here's a website that apparently calculates the intrinsic values of companies, for National Grid it returns an Intrinsic value of £13.59 and £2.93 for BT. If you were to take those figures seriously, National Grid has a potential upside of 54% and BT a potential upside of 125%, assuming you believe in such things.

https://www.alphaspread.com/intrinsic-value-calculator

Are you stalking me Jake? First you feel the need to comment about me on the BT forum and now again on here. You should stick to discussing the stocks and stop following me around, it's creepy.

Luckily for you LTI I just got ludicrously bored with this.

They're selling assets because they need the cash to help fund their plans, without damaging their credit rating, otherwise they wouldn't have needed to tap shareholders.

You're ludicrously wrong.

Your wrong LTI.

NG has a "ludicrous" amount of debt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygE01sOhzz0