Member Info for ipcutler66

They look like a set of managed matching trades, sells and buys totalling 25k shares over 6 trades - possibly a fund manager buying and selling in and out of different funds?

I agree on it being less risky - no chance of bad debt, poor customers etc. so yes I would prefer it to an acquisition - but do they need to do an acquisition to continue meter growth - October they set out the plan to get to 100k meters by end of 2024 - that's pretty good growth - but none of us have a crystal ball so we will have to wait and see what the BOD decide to do with the £80m cash pile...

I personally don't think that it is likely, Liquidity has improved with Investec coming on board as a MM recently, volumes have been pretty high and share price reasonably stable so reducing the free float doesn't make sense to me.

BK / BOD would like to see a higher share price but they are in no rush. At some point BK will have to release some shares to either a larger institutional investor who makes a credible offer or if they want to list on the main market. YU are in a fantastic position, good growth prospects (through meter acquisition), ability to manage bad debt (through smart meters and hedging) and are now producing significant surplus cash. The share price will respond appropriately in time. In the meantime there are always profit takers out there. Someone sold 100k shares yesterday, which if they bought in under £3 is a tidy £1m profit. What's not to like - they could hold for more but sometimes cash is required for other plans - maybe they are building a house or buying a boat who knows.

I wonder, in line with Liberums thinking, that we may get a better capital allocation policy stated. Perhaps along the lines of the intention to deliver a dividend fixed at 10% of EPS with remaining free capital to be distributed to shareholders as special dividends when available. Provides some clarity moving forward.

Another late 25k sale - some serious profit taking done today, but unlike previous times, the good news is holding the share price steady and will head upwards in the next few weeks into the FY23 and hopefully special Dividend RNS (s).... onwards and upwards.

Just profit taking I suspect - we have seen this before with YU. traders taking profits when good news is out. When the next RNS drops (no later than March 19th) with news of FY23 figures and if Liberum are correct, a £20m special dividend (£1.19/share) we will see some significant buying again. What is interesting today is historically we have seen the share price drop on this level of selling but today the market has absorbed some very big sells - 40k and 32k at 1345p and not really react. I suspect this means that the news is beginning to get out and more investors are seeing the growth and income potential here.

I remember it well, we have had some great discussions on here about YU and its future potential and its nice to see that 15 months on as we approach FY23 RNS some of the ideas we threw around are looking like becoming reality. The Shell deal I agree is going to provide the "lift" that the YU needs to push on a continue to grow the business. The key now is maintaining customer satisfaction - helps bring in the new business, and grow the Smart meter business. If they hit the 100k meters this year then we will be looking at £2-3 dividends for FY24....

That would be my take on it, no point in being a market maker if they are not going to make a market and buy and sell so they can make money. It could also be that they have a client who is looking to obtain a holding and they can use their MM status to trade the shares and build the holding.... who knows it was just an interesting piece I noticed.

Nice Summary @SNN - another interesting point I picked up today is that YU now has 7 market makers - Investec have come on board.

Investec Bank Plc, Joh. Berenberg, Gossler & Co. KG, Liberum Capital Limited, Peel Hunt LLP, Shore Capital Stockbrokers Limited, Singer Capital Markets Securities Limited and Winterflood Securities Ltd

Sparky - I am not concerned, just a bit bemused. The SP will respond appropriately at the right time, the big news today is the £82m YU is now sitting on and what they are going to do with it as well as the long term solution for hedging nailed down.

The next RNS will be massive. Liberum have kept the FY23 final dividend at 17p (10% of Earnings - good call SNN which I think they will stick too moving forward whilst making special dividend payments to distribute spare cash) whilst making a huge hint at a £20m special dividend. Liberum have not been wrong before with their predictions this close to FY numbers coming out in a couple of weeks.

I am not expecting Shell to be interested int he business, just as a customer for the commodities. Its frustrating that it has got back to year highs but really struggles to break this £13+ barrier. Lets hope for another RNS soon with a special dividend in line with Liberums comments....

Ok, so I take back zero chance :-) but if an offer of £30+ came in then he might sell out and I suspect we would all be very happy too

There is zero chance of a takeover - CEO owns 51% of the company.

So the new liberum note makes great reading especially the bit about "if we assume £32m of FY 23 net cash and add £50m for the collateral unwind, and deduct a £20m buffer, we expect that c. £60m of cash is to be utilised or distributed, depending on the Group’s capital allocation policy. We speculate that a £20m special could be paid."

That's a £1.15 special dividend if it happens ....

Yes that's what I took away and Liberums broker note states specifically that £40m is expected in H1.

We have seen the share get traded regularly over a £2-£4 range over the last 12 months. It is no surprise as if you are not invested for the long term and just looking for say a £1-£2 profit per share then YU delivers regularly. We are seeing low volumes the last 2 days and with a fairly illiquid share it doesn't take much selling to bring the price down. Either in the run up to a TU the price increase on expectation (as it did in Jan 23) the traders then sell and buy back at the lower price ready to do it again when new investors come in on the TU. This time round it was traded in the run up to the TU, price came down (traders buy back in) and when the TU comes out new investors arrive, price goes up and traders sell out and make their money which in turn brings the price back down. Its what markets do until there is a serious updated with new information which attracts a larger number / new category of investors. I had hoped that the TU for 2023 would have been good enough to attract significant new investors but it doesn't look like yet. So as a long term investor in a quality share I hold and wait. The next news is likely to be the FY23 results in mid march so we may go up and down until then, who knows. The one thing I am confident of (IMHO) is that when the right announcement comes out then this will go up very quickly to a new base level, what is is anyone's guess but at that point I don't want to have traded any of my holding, which is why I am happy to sit and watch.

Nice summary of the last few years and will help exposure.

Yep the 17p figure from Liberum is FY dividend, so my take is that's the lest they expect... but who knows.

The only reason for a special dividend is to allow for distribution of spare cash whilst sticking to a "progressive dividend" policy to increase YoY. Allows extra wiggle room.

ROC - your probably closer to the correct figure about £29m, was lazy and based it on the FY TO - my bad.

Pretty much the same thoughts on the free cash pile - PR mentioned he wanted to hold back £20m as a reserve in the video call last October so that would be the minimum they want as a buffer but that still leaves a truck load of cash and will be really interesting to see. As I said I would be disappointed if the final 2023 divi is not 20-30 p given the cash and then agree probably that H1 24 is the time for a more substantial distribution in line with Gervais Williams expectations.

Liberum note is through research tree only as far as I am aware - and yes its £8/ month but you can sign up for a free trial for 7 days and have the subscription for just 1 month at a time if you want. I prefer to read the articles myself rather rely on 3rd party info and the £8/month is a drop in the ocean in terms of investment costs really. Its just frustrating that the house broker takes that approach.

The Liberum note is well worth the read, it's a shame it's behind there paywall.

I have always wondered how much more/if any info the brokers have, but they were pretty spot on with the Jan update after the year end TU.

The one thing I am hoping for is an larger dividend than the 17p suggested in the note. With a "large tranche" of the £49.8m held as collateral due back in H1 they gave a lot of spare cash to deal with. I would be happy with a 20-30p FY23 and then a special dividend in mid year pre H1 to distribute some more of the cash.

A 20p dividend would only be circa £3.4m and they are estimated to have made £1.6m in interest alone last year.

As with all of us none of us know exactly what will be done, circa £35m will be needed for the ROC payment but that still leaves a sizeable £40m+ chunk of cash.....

TO £ 668m

GP £101m

Bad debt 3.2%

Opex £35m

😜