Member Info for getafgrip

Losestanley - How much has Darktrace grown its customer base over the last 3-months? Please tell everyone your version so that they cam see how far your view deviates from the stark facts. If you went to school did you take in even one of the maths classes!

With a customer base of 9000 what percentage of new customers does 126 represent over a 3-month period? Allocating a resource of 1200 + sales and marketing staff, what is the cost of customer acquisition? New customers are NOT tumbling over themselves to buy that many new Darktrace products at the moment!

After the latest quarterly results the SP reception was to go into freefall, you need to ask yourself who is clueless! And who consistently insists on talking vacuous, shallow, unsubstantiated drivel! Surely they have facts in the Welsh dictionary as well - look it up!

Https://uk.movies.yahoo.com/exclusive-shell-cuts-low-carbon-111636672.html

"Gremlin after gremlin" is a very appropriate description of Darktrace's roadmap.

There is a very loyal fanbase on this thread, the vast majority of whom are relatively clueless about the Cyber Security

sector beyond it being necessary. Almost unanimously any company buying a cyber technology product wants to prevent any malicious intrusion into its IT systems in the first place, not deal with the intrusion after it has damagingly already taken place, with all the expensive remedial action (in time and resource) necessary to rectify the situation.

Prevent was a very late arrival to Darktrace's product range. But Darktrace's origins were at the BBC analysing internal usage of systems rather than external threats.to the IT systems.

The same clowns appear to be out in force again on this thread informing any investor stupid, or sufficiently mathematically challenged that all the fundamentals are in place with Darktrace. Probably virtually everyone will agree that the Darktrace share price is all about growth or lack of it.

The recent results showed that over the latest 3-months reported on there were 126 new customers. So, over that 3-month period how many new customers have been attracted to Darktrace's product range as per each marketing and sales employee at Darktrace - bearing in mind that there are at least 1200 of them!!!

Compared to the previous 3-months period there were an additional 126 new customers, taking the total customer base to 9,000. Therefore if you take 126 & divide it by 9,000 minus 126, you have the increase in new customers, when comparing the last two 3-month periods. For those capable of working out this sum, the answer is quite stark! Unfortunately, new customer on-take is virtually stagnant & an extraordinarily high percentile of Darktrace's staff are being employed to "achieve" this. Think in terms of cost of customer acquisition!

Then compare this with competitors using actual figures rather than hyperbolic conjecture. There is no surprise that the SP has fallen, like the Yo-Yo it is. Darktrace has to prove it is a growth company again!

There are massive benefits to be accrued from judicious mergers:

Benefits of scale, greater power in the marketplace, cost and replication savings, complementary product range, opportunities for rationalisation of brands product range etc, increased depth of each aspect of vertical integration, Increased market capitalisation to bolster defences against activists or aggressive takeover approaches, Greater opportunities to opportunistically address winning renewables strategy at scale, greater opportunities for oligopolistic exploitation of market opportunities! To only scratch the surface!

Shell has just signed off contracts with Quatar Energy for 27-years LNG supply - quite a demonstration of Shell's commitment to oil and gas:

https://www.euro-petrole.com/qatarenergy-shell-sign-27-year-lng-supply-agreements-for-up-to-3-5-mtpa-to-the-netherlands-n-i-26184

I think its time for a graph of the share price from the point you became an optimist!

Oops!

The start of the last post was meant to state that the one-third recent drop in Deltic's share price, might be largely attributable to Shell reviewing & analysing literally every contract that it has. Essentially it will not matter that there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, what will matter is how fast Shell will get there, and the rate of return!

If Deltic gets through this review, I will probably buy more shares, because the analysis will have been done more thoroughly by Shell than I could ever hope to do.

Https://www.standard.co.uk/business/shell-cuts-hundreds-contractors-ruthless-shakeup-ceo-wael-sawan-oil-gas-b1114869.h

Shell CEO - "Absolutely committed to upstream’: Shell chief executive Wael Sawan reveals ruthless focus on most profitable assets."

https://www.upstreamonline.com/finance/-absolutely-committed-to-upstream-shell-chief-executive-wael-sawan-reveals-ruthless-focus-on-most-profitable-assets/2-1-1467502

Boyo - I completely agree that you qualified using "Amazing" as a descriptor, but together with you recently joining the Optimists Club of Great Britain and your news that electricity has finally reached Wales, I don't think I will be alone in becoming a little unsettled!

I always look om your posts as a breath of cold hard facts, invariably well reasoned common-sense, backed up by graphs! I am all for the optimism, but don't want your posts to change direction.

What an amazing thing to say Boyo - that we are heading for £30 +. I completely agree & I think it is likely to be driven in part by financial calendar announcements: 3rd Quarter results on the 2nd November & going Ex-Dividend on the 16th November.

I think the biggest short-term SP driver will be the Israeli invasion of Gaza though, with the threat of Iranian inspired oil tanker-napping & seaborne drone attacks in the Straits of Hormuz, together with the concerns about the conflict spreading, issues over a possible buffer-zone, humanitarian concerns, the protracted nature of the conflict & ultimately the development of an exit strategy!

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israels-endgame-no-sign-post-war-plan-gaza-2023-10-18/

If investors accept that there is $1 billion + as Deltic's share of Pensacola's recoverable riches in oil alone.

Let's assume that Deltic has a market capitalisation of approximately $30 million, and Shell can find the loose change to pay its 70% of the drilling costs. Deltic then has to pay 30% of the costs including a drilling rig lease which is $300,000 a day, so Deltic's 30% of this equates to around $90.000 a day.

Lets say that rig lease costs per annum attributable to Deltic are in the region of $90,000 x 365 days in a year, So lets call this $33 million a year (actual $32,850,000 per year. Lets assume there are 100 workers earning $100,000 a year each. Around $10 million a year. Plus pipeline and transportation costs - essentially hooking up to a pipework system that already exists in the vicinity say $7 million..

So Deltic might hypothetically have drilling rig costs of $33 million, labour costs of $10 million, say pipework and transportation costs of $7 million a year (if of course you accept they might "discover" the already proven reserves).

So, Deltic needs a guesstimate to find finance of at least a $1 million a week to fund their share of the costs of exploitation of Pensacola plus accommodation and sandwich costs for the workers!

Cuckoo - how long do you consider it will take to drill down to the known reserves? Do you think that exploiting the reserves at Pensacola is going to bankrupt Deltic? Can Deltic manage to obtain a gross margin contribution by exploiting Pensacola? If you think Pensacola might prove profitable, when do you think Deltic will reach break-even point, and what would your forecasts of profitabilty/ losses over the next 5-years? How would Deltic's management manage to lose the remaining $950million in value from the exploitable reserves?

Would the 66% of Pensacola's riches which are gas have any influence on Deltic's prospective profitability?

Certainly the story-line will be consistent whoever the source at Deltic - they are just going to parrot their Board agreed lines to take - for instance stating "actively" & maybe monetising Pensacola & Selene, realistically they have little else to monetise & it this information is already in the Public domain!

This seems to be a touch of the elephant in the room that everyone does not want to talk about. Realistically Deltic needs financial surety to move forward. Are they talking to banks etc - of course they are.

Deltic need to clarify/calm the situation: something along the lines of they are in advanced discussions that will determine the speed with which they will exploit the riches of Pensacola - reminding stakeholders what Pensacola is worth.

It may even be that because Shell are in the driving seat they are forcing the pace on developing Pensacola, thereby pushing Deltic hard to keep up. There are significant brownie points for Shell in getting new flows of oil and gas from the North Sea quickly - i.e. there is an election in a years time! Also any issues raising additional finance now, will prospectively gift Shell a better deal if they step in particularly at this SP.

This may be a ploy on Shell's part to take a bigger stake in proven reserves. Regardless, my tip would be don't play poker with Wael Sawan at Shell

Good morning Larry - As you say a full two weeks ahead of the results, it would pay for us to buy some oxygen bottles as we might be passing them around very soon at this rarefied altitude! A nice problem to have though!

Looks like we are in the middle of a fundamental re-calibration of the share price. Debt has been repeatedly cut, buy-backs are starting to bite as they had to (many shares have been bought back at much lower prices), Shell is becoming much more sharply focused on high-profit areas (LNG etc Sawan has a Quatari gas background), the dividend has been rising significantly (although not yet reaching pre-cut levels), overall the company is being completely re-designed strategically - out has gone the Home Energy business, out will go renewables that are not making a sufficient contribution to the bottom line.

We are due for another great Qtr with the average oil and gas prices at decent levels & FCF will no doubt be at "we should be ashamed of ourselves levels."

There are already significantly less shares issued that the dividend is payable on, the higher share-price reduces the yield per share, and it is highly likely that there will be another significant hike in the dividend announced with the 3rd quarter results. The market is pretty well dictating this.

There are a lot of dynamics behind the persistently rising SP, not least of which is re-focusing on oil and gas to close the gap with US companies. Selling the Permian Basin assets did not make altogether sound business sense for me, but it will if it is seen to be a strategic move enabling a smoother path to a successful bid for BP or a big US rival. Not enough credit is going to Wael Sawan - the great CEO's of great companies are often defined by history in relation to a great transformational takeover! Watch this space -it will happen!

DP Yes, without doubt it is a painful process.

There will obviously be some tough "who blinks first negotiations" taking place. As discussed Deltic urgently needs to confirm funding, but this will become more desperate as time runs down. Lenders have the money, but the purse strings are tighter as the credit squeeze bites, and essentially everyone has their eyes on the prize when initially Pensacola and then hopefully Selene come on stream.

Depending how long they secure funding for, I think these will be the most critical funding negotiations of all. Lenders will be heavy on the fact that interest rates are relatively high at the moment, but Western Governments are committed to reducing them as soon as they can without seismic shocks to the bond market. They will be interesting negotiations but business in confidence until something is signed off.

I had no intention of buying any further shares, but they have fallen a third from the 31p I bought the shares at, and I am wavering a bit!

Hopefully it is simply a case of securing finance & the time taken is because there is a lot of choice. But shareholders should be informed of what is happening.

LTI - my assessment is pretty well the same figures as yours. I had actually never held shares in Shell until 2020, and what this discussion highlights for me is the need to think more about events, share price, market cap etc prior to 2020, so I certainly need to widen my focus.

One of the lynch-pins for me was the staggering record of holding the same dividend level since the end of the 2nd World War. I actually bought Shell due to the halving of its dividend and plummeting share price, believing that oil would be one of the shares to lead us out of the panicdemic!

I feel that there is much further to go & thanks again.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/10/16/ftse-100-markets-news-uk-economy-live-inflation-oil-gaza/

LTI - Many thanks & apologies for the late reply - Statista appear to be very close to the Stock Analysis figures:

"In September of 2018, Royal Dutch Shell saw it's highest market capitalization value recorded at over 220.8 billion British pounds. The company has been particularly hit during the global Covid-19 pandemic with its market value almost halving between December 2019 and May 2020."

Using the average dollar exchange rate from our Government's website I get to within $6 billion of the $300 billion Stock Analysis figure. A really useful figure to know now you have verified it.

I completely agree on the companiesmarketcap.com content. It was a bit of a random instance rather than exemplar, but i completely agree, some of the content is miles out and difficult to rationalise why. With any statistics there should only ever be a single version of the truth and I would also go with $300 billion being in the ballpark for the maximum capitalisation. The good news is that there is quite a way to go for us as shareholders.

LTI - Might be one to check. Please see the following link:

https://companiesmarketcap.com/shell/marketcap/