Stephan Bernstein, CEO of GreenRoc, details the PFS results for the new graphite processing plant. Watch the video here.
Lemmink, you are one brave person building a position with the results announcement around the corner. I can’t square the risk right now vs the potential reward on this stock after the last 12 months SP performance. Even an unbelievably good set of accounts and optimism would be met with scepticism which would moderate the up swing. Personally, I cannot see a doubling of the SP happening short term. On the other hand without wanting to appear like a panic merchant any more unexpected negative disclosures would be the last straw for many investors with a SP easily testing new lows in double quick time. With everything broadly in line with expectations scenario IMO no great swings.
So adding in the run up to this announcement is quite punchy hence why I think trading volumes are down and volatility is subdued in relation to recent weeks & months. Shareholders have generally made their minds up and are now sitting it out and waiting for D-day.
Good luck all the same.
Found on ADVFN share chat today, a link to recent video by Kier CEO Andrew Davies.
Execution of self help plan now underway. Fight back started to rebuild Kier. Better late than never!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuVEjd8q7pU
Costain in 38 place with £268million of civils. Current Market cap after a 40% haircut on Friday is £214million it was £300million+ 7 days ago.
Again another overvalued stock if Kier SP is at right level.......
Interserve in No 31 spot
Interserve 57 contracts £61.0million of Civils Contracts £299.5million of Building Contracts Total £360.5million
Ratio 1:5 Civils vs Building
Ave Contract Value £6.3 million
Contract value won over last 12 months Kier £3.1billion vs Interserve nearly 10 times less.
Thanks rooky. The rolling 12 months to May 2019 is a positive picture. I'm sure that many will be posting speculatively saying it will all be loss making contracts and will see it as a £3 billion liability rather than an order book. This is Kier's traditional bread and butter work rather than the other newer business units . For me, I am comforted (Long Term) that the ratio of Civil to Building is less than 1:9 which is a better risk profile IMO but also that the the number of contracts is very high compared to the rest in the top 10 except Morgan Sandal. This means the average Kier contract value won in last 12 months is under £12million which is the sort of mix Kier should be targeting. Mace and Lendlease ave contract value is £70million+.
Morgan Sandal No2 has market cap of £0.55billion
Balfour Beatty No3 has a market cap of £1.7billion
Galliford Try No6 has a market cap of £0.69billion
If Kier current share price is correct then all the above are overvalued.
Once the white noise of short selling awaits I feel more and more confident that following the administration of self help, the implementation of their turn around plan, careful cash management and diligent execution of client construction work Kier can make a decent return by sticking to their knitting and growing organically.
Thanks Auson, double is significantly higher than my considered guess. If you are in the right order of magnitude with circa 20% plus 15% sitting in Woodford’s hands; that’s a lot of potential market activity to unwind if Woodford is a forced seller.
There we go as I thought the increase continues. Kier now in Top 5 most shorted stock. 4th place in fact and not far off taking 3rd place. This is now nearly a 10% official short position holding by institutions holding a position greater than 0.5%. What is the real short position when including anyone with a short position of less than 800,000 shares?
Does anyone know if there is a generally accepted guesstimate ratio between the reported position and likely total shorted position in stocks?
AA PLC 10.5%
WOOD GROUP (JOHN) PLC 10.4%
Arrow Global Group plc 9.8%
Kier Group plc 9.7%
ANGLO AMERICAN PLC 9.6%
Bonchance - Good luck with that wish. You don't mention any time frames. IMO £5 is long term possibility after turnaround and divi reinstated. 5+ years away. Trading at £2 after the dust has settled and all shares back in the hands of investors who will hold for the medium / long term and volumes of trading drop back to 100,000 a day rather than that an hour!!!
There is just no reason for long term investors to get in at the moment. They may miss the bottom by a bit but all the risks remain until this has played out further.
I am finding the official reported level of shorters now at 9.31% mildly concerning. This puts Kier just outside the Top 5 (in 6th place) behind Debenhams who are 9.5% and who knows where Kier will be at end of play today!
The major element of concern for me is short selling that gathers momentum quickly like this is very likely to be self fulfilling regardless of the fundamentals behind the stock. Therefore whether information is known by these large institutions or not we can be sure that not everyone will have it and therefore there will be an element of herd behaviour and probably exclusively herd behaviour by PI's who most likely won't know the info/intelligence if it even exists. When shorting this doesn't matter especially when the pack starts moving like now. They will see it as a 1 way bet (especially with Woodford's woes and significant shareholding making it look even more attractive). Their only challenge will be picking the moment to get out without getting too gready.
The timing of this official build up seems to be geared towards getting the Company's trading update on 30th July, after the year end.
Personally, my opinion is the shorters are wrong if they are banking on this going to zero and some of them may be comforted by Carillion in making their decisions. Nevertheless they don't need to get to zero to make a tidy sum and therefore they will pile in further along with a substantial unreported % of smaller shorters who stay below the 0.5% reporting threshold.
There is a commercial trading value to Kier and especially so after disposals of assets and the implementation of their turn around strategy. IMO the only thing that can blow this company up at this stage is if a fraud is uncovered by the new CEO and/or the UK government decides to put the company on a 'Black List' to exclude them from bidding from future work at a time when the new CEO has reported the new turnaround strategy is focused on more public sector work; both scenarios I consider to be unlikely at this late stage.
More likely (IMO) the share price pressure will become so depressed that the Market Cap is irrelevant and that someone will come in either unconnected or possibly a current stakeholder (who has had enough) and steal this company for a song and take it private or will consume it to bank its £10billion order book.
So the shorters will take the SP down as far as they dare or until someone buys in to invest in the medium to long term (without divi), the shorting and day trading will continue and it gets easier and easier to get to the carcass. A £1 million punt was 100,000 shares less than a year ago now its nearly 1 million shares at (0.62% of the shareholding).
A sudden or giant squeeze on the shorters is IMO unlikely.
A sorry situation for many stakeholders including a large workforce as the short selling has certainly exaggerated the effects of this company getting itself into financial difficulty.
Kier is once again in the top 10 of most shorted UK shares (where only 0.5% or more of total share holding is reported).
The Top 10 are:
AA plc - 10.7%
Arrow Global Group - 10.5%
Wood Group - 10.2%
Anglo American - 9.6%
Debenhams - 9.5%
Babcock International Group - 9.2%
Thomas Cook - 8.9%
IQE Plc - 8.7%
Kier Group - 8.6%
Green core Group Plc - 8.4%
Another 1% and Kier is promoted into the Top 5 again.
IMO this will go up further. Still way to much volume in the markets being traded daily. A month ago the average was under 500k shares a day I think. That average is now over 2 million a day.
Still too much speculative day trading here.
Sure people will be looking at this now. If a SP is driven down to £2.50 then Market Cap is circa £400M.
Taking it private and off the table for short sellers would allow a rebuilding exercise out of the market glare with an option to come back to the market one day. Or a take over to buy £10 billon order book. Not sure which construction group in the UK is financially viable enough to do this so it leaves it open to an international group. With the GBP weak at the moment and USD strong it makes it look cheaper to a foreign buyer.
As it stands the company does not have the luxury of time. It needs to get on with executing a turnaround plan. 6 months now since the rights issue. What has been done in this time to roll out and execute a plan?
CEO gone, new CEO in, current CFO hanging on for a few more months? What’s the new plan?
More paralysis like this and they will be given a new plan.
I see now you mention it that Woodford is nearly at 20%. That is starting to be quite a high shareholding % between very few institutional investors. That’s going to be a headache for the BOD.
I wonder about his plan? Push for a seat and influence the board towards non core disposals?
Shorting is on the move again up to 4.63%. Short term outlook is volatile, not very comfortable for new medium to long term investments; perfect for day trading....
F15JCM- you are glutton for punishment. Surely a financial kitchen sink is on the way. It’s Standard Operating Procedure!
1. Get rid of the senior people who brought the mess on the company. Who else can be responsible?
2. Disown past financial performance by chucking out the skeletons and audit the figures in a conservative light.
3. Review current position and establish a new strategy.
4. Rebuild. Work hard. Focus on following the plan and changing all that was wrong.
5. Deliver decent results against targets.
Kier isn’t through item 1 yet with item 2 to come. I think item 2 comes at Y/E results. September 2019. I can wait till then before reviewing my position again.