Member Info for getafgrip

LA,

Great to hear from you. I did really well with Darktrace when Thoma Bravo took them over, and just flipped the funds into BP. last October, so 5-figures ahead and hopefully climbing!

I really like RELX and bought a 1000 at around £34 when I parked some Shell money for a short time. I was actually considering a heftier investment as I keep thinking I am well overweight in Shell. Quite funny really - I made enough to buy a round of drinks, but they are now hitting £41 & there seems to be no gravitational pull on them, so I will revisit them at some stage.

Boyobach looks to be entertaining the troops on Ocado, and I keep meaning to look him up and check whether the Welsh wizardry is still working. Certainly from a traders perspective the shares go up and down reasonably predictably. So I am sure he will have something analytically sound to say.

As quite a funny aside, I can only guess how Rachel Reeves infuriates you from a farming perspective. An old buddy of mine spent most of his life working for the Halifax, and he told me that the head office was rife with angry gossip over her expenses claims! Lets hope its goodbye Rachel from accounts!

18th November 2021 @ 00.01

Hi Meg, with the appropriate level of respect to you for your post, firstly, I do not understand your contribution to the debate on BP's Rosneft shareholding.

What is the point you are attempting to make ?.what is the value of your contribution to the debate ?

Your insignificant ontribution make no real sense. The Geo political situation is far more complex than you seem to believe. Politics are more complex and nuanced than black and white. The world and history is so much more complex than just Russia/ China bad, the 'democratic West good. China is our enemy, the liberal west are best for us.

Your confusing and irrelevant post

19th November 2024 @ 14:51

Getafgrip

Quote.

"People on this thread need to get some factual background on Russia and Putin, before they accept any of the pompous, patronising opinionated, unsubstantiated, drivel that they will get bombarded with on this thread."

"Pompous" "Patronising " " Opinionated " are you serious ?

That is the pot calling the kettle black surely ?

Emotional, immature and unnecessary comes to my mind when I read your year 11 level essay on the Russian State and Putin but mostly hypocrisy comes to mind.

Getafgrip you are a hypocrite on so many levels. You attack others under the pretence that you are a knowledgeable, moral, principled BP shareholder and others are not.

Your attempt to distance yourself from other BP shareholders over Russia with your hollow righteous indignation is pitiful.

As a BP shareholder you should be aware that BP and europe’s oil majors bought $100bn from Russia since annexation of Crimea in 2014. Financing Putin's regime up and to the conflict. Where were your morals when you purchased BP shares ?

As a BP shareholder, you should recognise and acknowledge the complexity of global energy companies geopolitical dynamics and politics..

After the annexation of Crimea in 2014, many Western companies, including BP and others, continued to buy oil and gas from Russia and of course Rthe Rosneft shareholding.

European nations and companies continue to be deeply intertwined with Russian energy companies after the annexation of the Crimea and with war continuing on the Ukraine/ Russian border, and yet you are still a BP shareholder. No ethical or political principles at that stage ?

You should also research your investment and see the other dubious countries they are invested in.

Your morals, principles and opinions are questionable. Your essay was unmeasured, emotional and totally unnecessary as was the attack on others.

My interest in Russia is solely the Rosneft shareholding not political.

So get a fu**ing grip mate

Mark

Hi! LA and Larry - a very quiet and contented board these days. Everyone seems happy.

LA are you still trading? A bit like asking is the Pope a Catholic really? More specifically have you traded around the Ex-Dividend point? Shell seem to be rock solid for me at the moment, so although I thought there was money to be made I was not convinced it was worth risking a sizeable sale and buyback to make a small capital gain.

So sat on my hands really - and I hate the idea of giving another four-figures in stamp duty to the Treasury for nothing. Most of the risk element for me has gone into a smaller holding in BP. Worth a thought the company has been woefully mismanaged for the last decade, even hit by a bad-luck disaster like the "Gulf of America."

But, Elliot Management have taken a 5% stake, Blackrock hold 9%, Vanguard holds 5%, whoever looks aggressively at a takeover will soon accrue 5% or more, and it is highly likely that there are already other holders of just under the 3% declaration level. BP is well and truly in play. Auchinloss will find it impossible to save himself., and has little more longevity than Capital Markets Day on the 26th February to look forward to, Wael Sawan is looking for his page in the history books, BP don't go Ex-Dividend until the 20th February 2025, and its a better dividend than Shell, although not as sustainable!

I'm pretty sure you will already have some BP shares, but they are worth a thought from the oil groupie traders.

Reset agendas are invariably based on Lewin's theory of the phases of change. This involves "Unfreezing" what exists, removing or dismantling the elements that you definitely do not require, inputting the desired changes and then "Refreezing" them. Flexibility needs to be built in to the solution unless fine-tuning is necessary, which it invariably is, and to accommodate future market changes.

Born in 1970, the son of a peripatetic Scottish geologist, and educated at the University of Calgary.

A really good summary of the current situation with BP from the New York Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/11/business/bp-earnings-4q-2024.html

The reset should be interesting & will probably involve greater emphasis on fossil fuel extraction, throwing less money away on speculative green "solutions" and probably selling off a few obvious dogs.

It will NOT be made up of seismic, dynamic, strategic changes to redirect BP! Murray Auchinloss is probably a very decent and likeable Scot and there are many of them. But this does not make him a great leader & evangelical strategic communicator. He has been CFO of BP since July 2020. He has been CEO since September 2023, and as he replaced the Looney who recruited him:

"Auchincloss told BP’s workforce in a 10-minute town-hall meeting on Wednesday that the company’s “fundamentals” had not changed, the company said.

“Our strategy hasn’t changed. And our focus remains on performance — quarter by quarter,” he added."

He is clearly not part of BP's resetting solution & investors need to stop labouring under the mad delusion that MA has a strategy up his sleeve that is going to change anything radically with BP" Auchinloss is fully baked in as a huge part of the problem - definitely not the solution - in 2023 his remuneration package was £8 million!

Separately the debate around investing in renewables, should actually focus on how the markets work. We are in the phase of the world and his wife producing an almost infinite number of energy crisis solution related products, that will make investors a fortune at some point in the future.

The vast majority will fail, Maybe they are badly thought through, poorly designed, too expensive, don't address the market, maybe people will feel a pang of shame about the extremes of rare metal mining - 350,000 cobalt miners often kids with picks and shovels in the DR Congo facilitating the west going green, some are superseded before they go into production - the list is endless.

There will be winners and losers, and rather than a scattergun approach Wael Sawan's solution is that Shell will enter the renewables market at scale once winners and losers are determined. He is right from the Oil & Gas supermajors perspective!

Moniman - You really need Jeremy Clarkson on board with your latest post. He was born in Doncaster!

Oops!

2.........strategy. What have they done redecorated the Boardroom, bought new china!

3. For a business strategy to be analysed, evaluated, and assessed by the market and shareholders - it is ideal if it can be delivered in their lifetime!

1. By definition - to reset a business strategy, you need to have a strategy in the first place!

2.Murray Auchinloss and the Usual Suspects have had 18-months to change BP's

In 6-months time we will all look back on this point in time as being when BP irretrievably lost its independence, but it has been dead in the water for considerably longer than most are prepared to acknowledge.

The war reparations level of punitive sanctions against BP for the Gulf disaster has to be seen for what it was - a blatant attempt by the US Government to bankrupt a great British company & remove a major competitor from the playing field. It very nearly succeeded!

Then a painfully protracted period of chasing anything green, regardless of ROCE or ROE etc. In tandem with chasing anything blond, with the the CEO instituting "relay" races around the boardroom table trying to pass on his baton, culminating in the "frozen in the headlights" Auchinloss era - an almost speechless, PR-less, idea-less nascent victim for the market to predate.

According to Reuters - "BP has underperformed its peers and pressure has mounted on CEO Murray Auchincloss to deliver change." Auchinloss has been leading BP since September 2023, but although the ship needed steadying, he has barely made a ripple!

Auchinloss is going to institute a strategic change of direction! Really! There are only 4 x strategic courses of action:

1. Build on oil and gas strengths.

2. Ditch the businesses that are underperformers now fand for the foreseeable future.

3. Diversify into businesses that they may know something about, rather than being clueless about like anything even remotely related to oil and gas.

4. Sell or merge the company once the strategy of weakening it to the point of being on a corporate drip-feed has succeeded!

If you demonstrably cannot run a public company successfully someone will step in and do it for you!

This will be announced tomorrow. It is why capital markets day was brought forward for Shell. It is why BP have been so quiet on all fronts. BP cannot get away without a big announcement tomorrow. Price sensitive information has to be available immediately to all & BP can no longer keep the rabbit in the hat.

Elliot has only a marginal impact on the situation.

Graham Swindells stepped down from the CEO role with immediate effect on the 15th October 2024. There would most likely be a pay-off involved, but he has not been on the Deltic payroll for approaching 6-months.

They don't even pay the tea-person in David's call centre £250,000 pa to cover for him when he is on his timed toilet-break texting LSE!

If, like you the Directors were paid the minimum wage, they would not have made two significant discoveries in the North Sea!

Your speciality is brain-dead comments that are always unsubstantiated!

Themes in with Yahoo's Analysis, which agrees with LA, but differs by plus $0.2 billion from DMS:

2024

Net debt and Gearing: At the end of the fourth quarter 2024, net debt was $38.8 billion, compared with $35.2 billion at the end of the third quarter 2024, mainly reflecting lease additions of $5.4 billion, share buybacks, cash dividends paid to Shell plc shareholders, and interest payments, partly offset by free cash flow. Gearing was 17.7% at the end of the fourth quarter 2024, compared with 15.7% at the end of the third quarter 2024, mainly driven by higher net debt.

2023

Net debt and Gearing: At the end of the fourth quarter 2023, net debt was $43.5 billion, compared with $40.5 billion at the end of the third quarter 2023, mainly reflecting share buybacks, cash dividends paid to Shell plc shareholders, lease additions, and interest payments, partly offset by free cash flow. Gearing was 18.8% at the end of the fourth quarter 2023, compared with 17.3% at the end of the third quarter 2023, driven by higher net debt and lower equity.

No sign of the Bayesian yacht being raised yet!

And Trump and Musk recruiting genius level people, at the very top of their industry, in every aspect of technology that they can!

Jen Easterly filled the position of Director of Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) under Biden, but who else is/will be there under Trump and Musk. Have they filled the key position of Director of Strategy & Technology?

DP - Waiting for a link to be sent and I will add my name to the petition. It will be interesting how many signatures it attracts. Trump looks to have changed the mood music on this one completely - I wonder if Starmer has even noticed!

Can't help with social media - I avoid it like the plague!

Https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Europe-Snaps-Up-US-LNG-as-Higher-Prices-Divert-Cargoes-From-Asia.html

Apologies - should read the |Boards of......

Shareholders of both Shell & BP will have been ignoring their fiduciary duty if they have not had contact at the highest level relating to tentative exploration, preliminary discussions, substantive merger proposals, between Shell and BP.

The British Government will also have been sounded out in relation to how "seamless" any subsequent negotiations are likely to be, or whether there are any clear showstoppers. For me this explains the apparently complete ineptitude of the BP Board, the gathering storm of the PR disaster that is unfolding, the complete absence of any vestige of a plan or manifestation of a cohesive strategic direction.

BP is simply dead in the water, meekly awaiting its fate!