Member Info for Guitarsolo

"Guernsey, 02 November 2022
Guidance on second interim dividend for FY 2022
The Board of Directors of Princess Private Equity Holding Limited ("Princess" or "the Company") today announces the suspension of the second interim dividend for the 2022 financial year.
This suspension has been deemed necessary in light principally of the significant reduction in the Company's liquidity due to the strengthening of the US Dollar against the Euro, which led to outflows of more than EUR 60 million year-to-date to settle currency hedging contracts. In addition, challenging debt markets are currently limiting the facilitation of asset sales across the industry.
It is important to note that the Company has sufficient liquidity to meet its commitments with a cash position including liquid senior loans of EUR 59.8 million at 31 October 2022.
The Board will continue to monitor the Company's liquidity and ability to pay dividends in the future in line with the previous guidance and will keep shareholders informed in a timely manner."

OK, this is not good and is damaging to the reputation of the board. The dollar strength may be outside of their control (but the hedging isn't), but in terms of managing the situation it is poor to reach a position where they are suspending the H2 dividend entirely. Meeting the hedging contracts has obviously sucked up too much of the cash they have to also meet the dividend, and the usual churn of assets to release cash obviously isn't as easy at the moment. I am disappointed though that they haven't been able to dial this out to some extent and mitigate their liquidity. Perhaps we will receive more explanation soon.

On the more positive side, NAV increased at the end of Sept to EUR 14.27. Still down on the year, but at least it is ticking up slightly. Looking for a silver lining as well, the H2 dividend is suspended, not cancelled. But PEY's board will need to do better to repair their reputation.

And as PCPunter says, I really hate the rather obvious large trades recently. It's so obvious that the big boys share priviledged information (which IS illegal!) and the private investor is screwed over.

Guitarsolo

You think you were having a laugh with me. But that's deflection because you've been called out on stating a load of ******x about welfare. You've claimed I pulled figures out of thin air, but can't refute them. Your ego took a hit when you realise that people like me subsidise you. You suggest I go and live somewhere else. You think calling me a leftie is somehow (a) accurate, and (b) an insult. It it neither. I think it is pretty clear what sort of person you are.

Crikey, if you think someone like me is left wing that puts you so far to the right you're in some pretty distasteful company. You're everything that is wrong with this country.

Do you honestly think I am left wing?
And as someone who creates a good deal of employment in this country, brings in revenue from other countries to the benefit of this country, I think I do a fair bit for the UK.
Stop reading the Daily Mail. They are just triggering you to blame another bunch of people all the time.
Remember, it was you who said I should go and live somewhere else.

So you think I'm "loony left"?!
Again, you "suggest" to people that if they do not like the flavour of the current government they should leave the country. Beware, because that could be turned on you in a couple of years. Perhaps reflect on that and then be a bit more respectful.

Again, how have I plucked figures out of thin air? If I know about my finances, I don't need to know about your finances to make a probability prediction. It's mathematics!
As for the rest of it, you make claims without any facts (e.g. what Labour will do to the "rich"), or claims that are just false (e.g. welfare being the country's biggest expense by far), and wrongful assumptions about other people's politics whilst telling people who you don't think agree with you to go and live in another country......and then say "we care just as much"!

Which figures have I plucked out of the air?
£2.5tn debt? Look it up.
£40bn deficit? Look it up.
£20-30bn black hole? It's now reported as being nearer £50bn.
99.5% chance I subsidise you. Simple maths.
And yes, I do subsidise you because, even if you're a net contributor, the scale of my contributions mean yours don't need to be so much. You may not like to hear that, but it's fact.
Am I a socialist? No, not really. But what I dislike is people like you attacking a segment of society that has it much tougher than you. Of course there are people gaming the system, but most people on benefits have it quite tough and probably don't have the means to get out of it.

Well aren't you nice!
Perhaps it is you that would be better suited to the autocracy of Russia or China?
I am going out on a limb here, but I don't think you have a clue what life is like on benefits. You see it purely as you're subsidising other people. Well there is a 99.5% chance that I subsidise you.
Go and get bored on that.

Many REITs are trading at huge discounts to NAV. It's not just REITS either. I guess its symptomatic of the risk-off environment.
I'm invested on a long time horizon (10 years+) so rebuilding EPS and DPS will carry the share price back up. At least, I hope it will.

So pensions are the single biggest cost to this country then?
People don't contribute to their "own" pension (state, not personal). The state pension is basically a defined benefit scheme based on contributions being made for X years, not how much those contributions are. The liability for paying them is placed on the next set of taxpayers.

SD, to be honest I would rather they rebuilt the business in the mould that Alan Lockhart did. Good quality retail parks, convenience-led, focus on groceries etc. Covid shattered a business like this and it was just unfortunate. They need to keep debt down, occupancy up and rent affordable (so you don't get defaults). Build EPS from 6p to 8p to 10p etc.
It will take time.

1msn, I would say it is unloved because there are many here who have suffered massive capital loss. It might be OK for those that jumped on board at 40/50/60p, even sub £1.....but remember pre-Covid, pre-pubs, this was trading at over £3 and paying a 21.6p dividend! It was a stable company then and obviously factors since then have hurt it very badly.
As smorrisjones says, we need that clear strategy to regrow the business. I accept the fact it will take a long time but the basics are still there.
Management need to be super-smart to maximise returns. That can include buybacks if the share price doesn't reflect value. Unfortunately, they seem more interested in using management speak to paint over the fact that some of their shareholders have suffered paper losses of 70%!

I confirmed your comments that Labour will need to tax the rich? And yet you haven't considered why we're in that position! (Clue, Labour haven't been in power).

And, by the way, the country's largest expense by far is pensions, not welfare benefits.

Montecristo, your answer itself is scaremongering, unless you can list some specifics........

Any economic policy has to be viewed through a lens that the country is now £2.5trn in debt, is still running a deficit of about £40bn (stripping out Covid and energy measures), has a reported £20-30bn black hole after the Truss/Kwarteng budget because of increased borrowing costs, inflation is running high, growth is low (or negative), we have trade problems with our largest markets and rising interest rates. We're in a cost of living crisis when even people on above median wage will be in fuel poverty and food price inflation will hurt the bottom half of society more than the top half. People are legitimately asking for significant pay rises to cope, which fuels further inflation. With all that, there is simply no alternative but for tax to rise to meet the spending deficit. It is simply impossible to tax anyone on middle incomes or less any more than they currently do. So the only option is to tax rich people more.

How you do that is a very broad conversation.

Stupid scaremongering! Labour under Corbyn may have had a nationalisation plan, but it is not policy under Starmer.
Secondly, even if there is any push for nationalisation of some industries you can be certain that water, train and electricity generators will come well ahead of National Grid for the simple reason that thay can profiteer (i.e. rip us off) whereas NG. is tightly regulated already. Given that UK PLC has already been loaded up with maximum debt there simply wouldn't be debt capacity to get as far along the nationalisation chain as National Grid.
A Labour government is not a threat, especially if you take a look around and see what the UK looks like after 12 years of the Conservatives in charge.

I have it on good authority that Boris is in the Dominican Republic, which is a coincidence as so am I! At a meeting on Tuesday I spent 10 minutes explaining to a bank's board of directors about the whole "Lettuce Liz" thing (or "Lechuga Liz" in Spanish). It's equally amusing in Spanish apparently.
What is not so amusing is the international commentary about this. I saw Truss' resignation play out on CNN and it's been consistent international coverage since that the UK can't be seen as a reliable partner on the world stage. There is a clear perception that the current government has a severe "lack of diplomatic knowledge and experience" and has ever since it has followed a flagship policy that requires it to square a circle.
The UK's international reputation has been trashed by the Conservatives.

So the open offer to "small" shareholders was 2/3s taken up. Well, it would have been more if HSBC Invest Direct could do their job properly! I have some SCE shares inside an ISA and received the corporate action notice about the entitlement and the excess shares. Invest Direct had a cack-handed application whereby you ticked a box to take up the entitlement shares (I did) and wrote in a free text box for any excess shares you wanted to purchase. I confirmed I would take up futher XXXX shares in addition to the entitlement using cash in the ISA and I received the following notice from Invest Direct:

"I can confirm that your Corporate Action election has been
approved for the entire entitled holdings. Unfortunately, no
excess shares are permitted for this election."

Clearly wrong as they offered the excess shares but failed to execute! I bought the excess shares instead on the open market but that means SCE's placing was short of what it could have been. I don't know if other HSBC users were similarly affected and it is probably small fry, but it doesn't help David Bundred if stockbrokers don't actually sell the placing shares to their customers! Shambles!

Fortunately, I hold more SCE in Hargreaves Lansdown and AJ Bell and they seem to have done it properly (albeit my placing shares haven't yet amalgamated with my previous holdings).

Guitarsolo

Mr M, yes I think so! This was my reasoning on 18th August (not re-posting it for any other reason that this is why I think the share price is under greater pressure than most). As I don't have the cash right now to buy back in, I am not enjoying the rapid fall.

"I've sold my minor holding here at 1831p today. I've pocketed a nice profit of about 75% over 2.5 years (incl dividends) having bought in at 1208p. I've long had the feeling that I am better at judging when to buy utilities than sell them, but there are a few current/future issues for SSE that make me think I might be better to pocket my profit and step away:
(i) With the energy price crisis there will be persistent calls for windfall taxes.
(ii) Following on from the above, the threat of nationalisation will linger. It will never happen, but even a whiff can dent the share price.
(iii) Ofgem is going to come under enormous pressure to make future pricing favourable to customers.
(iv) Rising interest rates will make financing the massive investments required more expensive (I haven't done any research or calculations about this, just a general feeling).
(v) There is a clear and coordinated attack from the right-wing of politics against green energy. If the Tories remain in power I see them conceding at least some ground in that department which will hit SSE's windfarms I presume.
(vi) On the financials, it is now trading at a P/E of 15 which is high-ish for a utility.
(vii) The dividend is due to rebase to around 60p in 2024 and then progressively rise (perhaps 5% p.a.). That would put SSE on a 3.3% yield which is way too low for a utility in my view (even if it is then covered x2 and will increase progressively). I think there will be a few shareholders waking up to that over the next year. I would want at least 5% yield from a utility so at 60p that would put the share price at around £12!"

Guitarsolo

"The CONservatives are today bringing forward a law to ban solar farms on agricultural land."

Another stupid decision by a bunch of stupid people. Of course, it depends on what sort of agricultural land we are talking about. But many of my farmer friends down 'ere in Devon with south-facing hills love it. The solar panels stand 6' off the ground allowing for sheep to graze underneath without incident. It helps keep the grass down as well. The farmers get to graze the sheep AND receive income from the solar panels. They love it.

So it seems to me the only people who don't like this (and don't like to listen) are the Tory members who think it is somehow a blight on England's green and pleasant land. Well they were also all for fracking.....until it was in their back yards. And they're all for those Rolls Royce mini-nuclear plants.....until they're in their own back yards. Pure nimby-ism.

And as has been pointed out, solar energy is so much cheaper than fossil fuels but sadly that doesn't fit with the interests of Tory backers. We can see why.....

Agree Rivaldo, I always imagined a placing would be made to raise money for expansion since it can't be done through free cash flow due to the nature of the business (i.e. the cash comes later). The price IS disappointing as it is lower than the last placing even though the company has moved a long way forward since then (Jan 2021?). SCE obviously couldn't help that the world has changed a lot since it probably starting planning to raise money. Suddenly lending has become tight and therefore if has been harder to "get the placing away" as the brokers call it. Still, I wouldn't be too impressed by the brokers if I was DB. But it's a few million here or there which won't register much in 5 years' time when SCE will be a hopefully very profitable company.
I have a slight concern that the placing comes on the heels of DB's recent positive updates and interviews when he was very excited about SCE's future etc. The share price then was 20-25% ahead of the placing price (which he knew was coming, if not the exact price). As politicians are discovering, credibility is important (!) and there could have been some who invested on the back of DB's update who then saw their investment immediately fall 20%. I hope they realise this is part of the growth stage of a company like SCE. This placing will enable it to reach a much greater capacity and hopefully enough FCF to cover more expansion.
There is some chat over on ADVFN about how some posters/PIs seem to have had a chance to partake in the placing. I can only presume that these people are (i) a registered client with a broker trying to make the placing, or (ii) have a significant holding that they're already on the company's radar for such things. I am not! It's just life with how those with more power/money get to game the system I guess. Notwithstanding that, you can buy today at the placing price anyway and there is the open offer available (although we probably won't get the number of shares requested).
Guitarsolo - a big fan of SCE