Member Info for ipcutler66

I totally agree Sparky

@sparky - don't worry about it, we know that value eventually will come through. This time round the traders got spooked by someone selling the 40k last week and bailed early than usual this time round. Let's keep our fingers crossed for a surprise from BK tomorrow ( unlikely but you never know) and a sudden fast uptick on the price so it will catch some traders out. But as I have said before everyone has their own strategy for making money here so we should not blame them for their approach.

Nothing we can do about it except wait till October 30th

I agree with you both that it's frustrating but the market decides the share price and until YU can entice in new longer term investors then the price will remain volatile and in the hands of traders.

As @SNN says it would not take much of an investment in a buyback say £2-3m for a few hundred thousand shares for the price to move significantly. Again when the dividend starts being paid and they demonstrate that cash will be coming out to share holders in ever growing amounts based on the 3x cover policy then there may be more income investors arrive.

On the flip side who knows what Octobers budget might do to AIM / investors.

So with 1 trading day to go looks like the usual pattern of ruse into news has been broken early this time. Wonder what will happen on Tuesday if the dividend is better than being forecast by the brokers -17p or just shy of £3m in total....

My guess is that's whats been holding the price back today as the MMs sorted out the big sale - but yes whoever sold got robbed by the MMs

So we are now just 4 trading days away from the confirmation of H1 numbers and hopefully an indication of how Q3 has gone.

With £310m in the bag already fro 2024, if YU continues H2 at the same run rate as H1 (59% TO growth) then we could see H2 TO in the region of £420m - (£265m H2 2023 TO x 1.59). Historical H2 has always been stronger so let's hope that continues.

This would leave YU with FY24 TO of circa £730m - significantly above both Liberum and SP Angel current forecasts/guidance.

So my question is why are both brokers being cautious here or will we see a significant upgrade / update next week after the H1 publication OR am I missing something....

Having been here since the early days, I am fully expecting to see a rise into H1 results - that's what has happened for the last couple of years. The unknown at this time is what will YU do in terms of dividends and maybe share buyback.

IF we see a dividend significantly ahead of the 17p the brokers are forecasting or even say £3-4 m share buy back then there is no reason, in my opinion, to see the share price fall back. I personally am holding these for the long term and by my calculations/estimates, we could easily be seeing a FY dividend this year close to or even beating £1/ share and then moving onwards from there in FY25 as the company gets closer to the magic £1bn turnover. Anyway that's only my opinion and I have no issues with people trading the share on the way up or on the way down, everyone approaches things with their own plan.

Under 2 weeks till full H1 report and H1 dividend news. Will be good to hear how Q3 has been going, especially with increased energy prices - should mean higher values associated with new contracts signed... The unknown is will they be performing in line with prior years where H2 is significantly stronger than H1.

It is going to be interesting to see what happens in 3 weeks. A 17p divi is only about £3m. What will they be doing with the rest of the cash stockpile.

BK and the board need to start some communication on this and I for one am very hopeful that the interims will be where they start doing it.

@SNN @Sparky Thanks for the post re Liberum, as I have said over the years, YU is a great investment and for me it is long term, I strongly believe that H1 report in September will vindicate the long term strategy - not only have they done well in difficult/dropping energy prices - but with the increasing energy prices over the summer they will deliver fantastic Q3 results. At some point the wider market will wake up to YU, and either through an offer from a bigger player or through amazing results and dividends we will see the share price 2-3 times where it is today.

@SNN, it will be very interesting to see what the board do next, if they have the cash then they may well go down a share buyback route to add to share holder value.

Liberum don't think they will in the latest broker note but then they also don't think a special dividend is on the cards either - which means YU just sitting on a growing pile of cash.

It would be very interesting to see what would happen if they did start saying buying 5k shares a day for a month or so...

@Sparky, I was interested in why DD didn't like 2019. He has answered so let's leave it there. As I said in my post we will differ on these things - I believe he did he great job in difficult circumstances 6 years ago when he joined YU. DD doesn't. That's it.

Let's see what happens next week and how the MMs react to the large after hours trades if at all.

Let's now move forward and see what

@DD the findings of the financial review Dec 2018 and the TU Jan 2019 are all clear on earnings, profitability and margins and why it will take time. Having worked for 20+ years with ERP systems I know from experience how difficult a forensic review and reworking of company process is. To come in, identify and then put in place changes of this scope for a rapidly growing company is a difficult task, so I am very happy with what the board did, how they communicated and the end results from the 2018/2019 period.

@DD - This is where we differ. Nick Parker the previous CFO ( who created the accounting mess) stepped down in May 2018.

Rawson(the current CFO) was appointed on 22nd Aug 2018.

He walked into an accounting meltdown - clearly poor systems, lack of oversight, no controls of business margin etc.

The H1 report published (19/09/2018) less than 1 month after his appointment does still contain incorrect financial data but the statement in October will have been produced as a result of his work and getting to grips with the mess Nick Parker left.

The TU on 24/10/2018 does contain a forward looking statement saying 2019 would be profitable, but it wasn't until they reviewed all of their contracted business ( which is also stated they will be doing in the same TU) did they discover the black hole NP had created.

The FCA came in in Dec, and rightly so, and finished in May 2019.

The outcome was that the new processes, systems and procedures implemented under Rawson's watch were good enough to turn the company around, put in place correct accounting, deal with the bad debt he inherited from poor margins and drive the business successfully forward. I see him as being the primary reason for these changes and improving their systems.

That's my take on it and it is very different from yours so don't see a need to debate it - but as you say just putting a different point of view.

On the SP front, YU historical have traded up and down like this around TU and Report times, I see it as an issue with low liquidity, it takes less than 1% of shares to trade to see a 20-30% market change, so don't see it as an issue or need for the board to buy shares, just an opportunity for traders to make money. Lo g term, in my view, the company will be going in one direction, but again we differ on this point.

@DD - out of interest what don't you like about what the CFO did in 2019?

Can't see him buying on the open market when he still has options over 195k shares.

I am not saying that any director has bought shares post TU, today's share action after hours to me just says someone is.

The director sells back in April/May don't worry me particularly as BK owns 51.8% of the companies shares, the CFO still has nearly 100k shares and I have no issue with the CFO who has been key in turning the company around cashing some of his gains in. It will be interesting to see what happens on Monday with the opening price as those transactions could easily be one of the MMs filling a largish order from 16:00 onwards. I wasn't online to see what was going on Level 2 at that point.

You are correct, had missed those, so between £870-900m of control acted revenue for 2025.

@sparky - drax was a long time ago so not sure its relevant - interesting but not really relevant to YUs position today.

@DD - we may see some volume data with the interims but without that we only have contract bookings, avg contract length and meter data. This does provide good visibility of future earnings. Based on H1 info - if they book the same in H2 (£46.8m with an avg 24 mth contract length - this comes from Liberums broker note who clearly got more info than us PIs) - YU would enter 2025 with circa £585-590m of contracted revenue for FY25 up from £520 for FY24. For me good growth on a decreasing energy price market. This is coming from Increased meters. What we will be interesting is historically H2 had higher bookings than H1 so will now wait for September interims for more data.

But as I have said before I am here for the long term and the future value of YU.

@SNN/NG - cash position - have been pondering this but think we need more info to understand it so will have to wait for the interims I think. Liberum dropped FY24 cash target by £12m (buyback, tax and meter capex).

Let's keep this board civil and try to avoid bringing up happenings in other places.

@DD - Cash at year end will include ROc money from April-Dec. I have estimated £25m but could be as high as £30 - depends how the rest of the year goes.

I am sticking to my thoughts that YU will hold at least £50m cash in the bank to ensure no bumps etc so there is still cash to be accounted for.

She'll deal - it could be as straight forward as Shell selling the energy they produce at a profit to YU who sell it on…. Shell are happy to have a customer thats growing and they don't have to deal when the end customers - they proved they weren't good at that historically.

AVG contract length - just noticed that LIb have stated AVG contract length is up to 24 months in H1 24, missed that on the quick read through. So the drop of 15% in monthly bookings is primarily down to the drop of 35% in energy prices, made up by getting more customers / meters onboard.

Volume data was available as sparky says in the AR, might get to see it at interim, who knows.

@SNN - you may be right on the SP, only positive (if it occurs and Lib don't think so) would be a special dividend or buy back.

Anyway, happy to keep holding here and to have sensible discussions.