Member Info for Hosai

Franck Tuil of Sparta capital wrote this letter to Wood group in April last year just before the Sidara interest came in May.

Wonder if he still presumably invested/following things - https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/sparta-capital-sends-letter-to-board-of-directors-of-wood-group-302117261.html

The way I see it, either everything the shorts were saying in regards to fundamentals and them being desperate has some truth to it and Wood agree to sell (at a price higher than here).

Or, it's all massively over-blown and the sell off from 65p was sentiment based and completely ott and Wood will not sell.

It's obvious Sidara want to buy Wood.

Either way is bullish imo, it's just in the latter case there would be a short term sentiment based fall back based on no deal - despite the clear sign of belief in fundamentals from the BOD in this scenario.

#if they need to sell they will sell.

Quite an unusual situation...the short argument is quite convulted when you think about it.

I think even shorts would agree Sidara clearly want to buy Wood having made multiple bids last year much higher than here and now back again.

The short argument around no deal is more however that Wood would not sell. This would be for 2 possible reasons, either because the shorts believe Wood is too undervalud too sell (which obviously is a slightly bizarre thing for a short to be arguing) or because the shorts believe all of Wood management are so deluded that they won't accept despite the company actually being in dire straits. I believe the management may be not good but to think they were that crazy would be quite a stretch - if they need to sell or else they will sell. If they don't need to sell they will not (which inevitably would weaken the shorts argument in regards to the supposed bad fundamentals).

Weidly the shorts best argument might be that Wood group won't accept because it's so undervalued, however despite the shorts believing it's undervalued they also know without the deal the sp will go back very low based on the terrible sentiment.

"@LWHL There are reasons the shorts are in:

1. They think that the Wood Group will not agree a deal with Sidara (i.e. true to past form)."

The same buyer returning makes a deal more likely to hapen not less likely. If shorts are relying on the past repeating as an argument the deal won't happen it's fairly superficial reasoning.

James, I don't actually know or suspect other bidders I was merely open to the idea that there could be. It sounds like may have some degree of extra knowledge if I am taking your comment literally...though I believe you said you are in Spain and therefore cannot be listening out to coridoors lol.

James you seem like a very rational poster, however the one part I disagree with is to say with certainty there are no other bidders when we cannot know this. We could perhaps doubt there are (though even this I wouldn't necc agree with) but to be certain you would need insider knowledge.

"Sidara was keen to move quickly to ensure it could retain senior and mid-ranking Wood staff who have been angered by the company's plight and its decision to cut bonuses, the FT report added, citing people with knowledge of the talks."

Market seemed to have no idea about the Sidara talks until FT reported it so not sure how much we can glean from the sp movements.

I think this post was meant for the colourful characters on ADVFN? lol.

"I’m amazed that this SPhas not been leaked yet".

Especially considering the FT seemed to have various contacts in the know who were quite generous with their information.

" For the 100th f**king time, no is saying its going bust. Distress and going bust are two different things."

Tbf quite a lot of the arguments on this board from the more negative posters are "strawman attacks" the optimistic posters have never said - to try and position oneself as seeming the sensible one, including I believe yourself so fair enough for Icecold to do the tactic back.

US ticker has no volume so is meaningless.

It's fairly obvious Sidara want wood group from the number of approaches this year and it now being better value than ever. I doubt they are going to be 'penny wise pound foolish' by not paying what they believe would be required even if its a quite big premium based on where the stock was for just 1-2 weeks having been much higher for most of the year.

The bigger risk to a deal imo is Wood Group agreeing to sell, they may feel too embarrased to or even legal issues if accepting a much lower offer than the offers in August.

Well at-least they're actually making predictions, rather than 2 smug paragraphs of waffle.

Issues with paying £2.40 is different from issues with paying 80p - £1.20.

I'm amazed that you are long when all your previous posts were negative and were worrying about "going concern" etc. Nice to see your first post since the bid dicussions though to learn you are "long".

"A predictable bit of Wood work. It was only in August that Sidara junked a mooted £1.6 billion cash bid at 230p for the accident-prone consulting engineer from Aberdeen. So the private Sidara, with its roots in the Gulf, could hardly have missed that since then a lot of Woodworm had set in.

Its target was now being valued at less than £200 million — the result of a gruesome combo of missed free cashflow targets, failures in its “financial culture, governance and controls”, the need to refinance $1.4 billion of debt by October next year and last week’s abrupt exit of finance chief Arvind Balan, who’d over-egged his qualifications.

Sidara had not walked out over any nasties spotted in due diligence but over “rising geopolitical risks and financial market uncertainty” — both coming together in a mad week last summer with the unwinding of the yen carry trade. There was a risk market ructions would ruin its bid financing. Not now. It could buy today’s Wood with the cash on its balance sheet.

Hence Sidara having another knock: a potential offer flushed out by the Financial Times. Neither side disclosed the price but it lifted Wood shares 41 per cent to 37¼p, valuing the group at £258 million and underlining the vast destruction of value under its chairman Roy Franklin and chief executive Ken Gilmartin. Who knows what will happen this time but, with a refinancing looming, the board’s alternative may well be a debt-for-equity swap. Sidara will rarely have a better chance to carve out a deal."

https://www.thetimes.com/business-money/companies/article/ed-milibands-83bn-corporate-toy-9mc06qhr7

Of course they want to move quickly, they are worried about sp going up.